The Year My Mother Came Back (13 page)

SEVEN

I finish reading Mom's master's thesis, written for her degree in Public Law and Government from Columbia University. Her study,
The Politics of Housing in a Suburban Community,
analyzes how the many factions within our town of Mamaroneck perceived a politically charged issue in entirely different ways: an urban renewal project, fought over for years, and ultimately rejected. After a fire ripped through a tenement building that was home to low-income immigrant and minority families, a housing project was proposed as a remedy for substandard housing in the town. The proposal inflamed tensions across the ideological spectrum.

THE FLICKERING CANDLELIGHT
bounces off the red and gold walls, casting a warm glow in the restaurant. The turbaned sitar player closes his eyes, while the tabla player takes a solo, synchronizing his drumming to intricate vocals, alternating seven-beat and eight-beat patterns, articulated at lightning speed—
TakKiTa/TaKiTa/
TaKa, TakKiTa/TaKiTa/TaKa, TaKiTa/TaKa/DiMi, TaKiTa/ TaKa/DiMi, TaKa/TaKiTa/TaKa/TaKiTa/TaKa/DiMi, TaKa/
TaKiTa/TaKa/TaKiTa/TaKa/DiMi.
His staccato syllables command attention. There's a hush in the restaurant, until the sitar player starts up again, then the festive din of conversation resumes.

Mom sits across the table from me, in one of her
ethnic shmatas
—that's what she calls her loose-fitting Indian print dresses she's taken to wearing—and a long, beaded necklace. “I'm in a good mood, and I'd like a beer,” she muses. The waiter instantly appears with two Kingfisher beers.

“Cheers!” We clink bottles and drink.

“Belated congratulations. I just read your master's thesis, and it's, well, kind of amazing.”

“Goodness gracious, you read that? The whole kit and caboodle?”

“Yup.”

She blushes, puts her hands on her flushed cheeks. “I'm honored. It's not exactly easy reading.”

“No, but it's fascinating.” I pull the hundred-page manuscript from my purse and lay it on the table in front of her.

She puts on her bifocals and picks it up. “I haven't seen this since—well, it's dated 1965. I conducted the research from 1961 to 1965, from the time you were—seven to eleven years old.”

“I heard your voice when I read it, and I want to talk to you about it tonight. I don't know if we'll see each other again.”

“Of course we will,” Mom says, flipping through the pages. “Are these your pencil marks or mine?”

“Mine. This is a photocopy. I wouldn't write on the original.”

“
Pff,
why not? It's been gathering dust for half a century. How gratifying that someone has actually read it—that
you've
read it. I'm terribly flattered. Thank you, Sweetheart, this is a lot of fun for me. Let's see what I wrote. I hope it's not all drivel and nonsense.” She reads aloud.
“
‘It was a conflict on a small scale. But the particular issue of public housing acted with centrifugal force—whirling outward from the central question was a vast field of conflicting values, rights, and interests.'
That is precisely what it was like, Alice. Centrifugal force — a cyclone.
‘There is no precise beginning or end to the story'
—Is there ever?” (She flips pages to the next highlighted passage, nodding in agreement with her own words.)
“
‘. . . It is difficult to precisely define social groups or classes. As a family's income increases, as it moves upward and outward away from its former home, the life style changes. Class seems not so much a collective unity, but a suspension of attitudes, values, aspiration—linked to the past, listing to the future—where each family is perched in the community web, at a given point in time.
' ”

I laugh. “Those are the same big words that went over my head when I was a kid. I underlined that section because it resonated with my confusion about our family's social class while I was growing up.”

“Well, of course it would. Our family existed in a volatile place in that community web, eluding easy class definition. What's next? Ah.
‘
The insulation of life in suburbia, in separate neighborhoods, would seem to be of a higher order than that in central city areas'
—I'll say it was insulated! Blah blah blah, skip that, skip that—
‘In suburbia, one can function to a large extent within an orbit of one's school, church, shopping area, social club, and train, without too often crossing another neighborhood or other ways of life.
'
”

“Were you writing about your own frustration with suburban life?”

“I wasn't writing about myself. I'm a social scientist.”

“I know that. Sorry if it seems—”

“But God, yes, there were times when I thought I'd suffocate in our town. You're wise to raise your family in the city—it's good for you and it's good for your kids, and for your husband.”

“Thank you.”

“What did I write next? Blah blah blah . . .
‘The athletic and social societies of the well-to-do, the golf, beach, and yacht clubs, are separated quite precisely according to religion: Catholic, Protestant, and Jewish'—
Did you know that your father was not allowed to join the yacht club? —
‘The Negroes are conspicuously absent from these sports activities. . . . The number of associations is astounding. They whirl within the community like so many self-propelled satellites.'
My guess is that it still pertains today. Who knew my paper would hold up nearly fifty years later?”

The waiter brings two more Kingfishers. We clink and drink.

“I really like what you said about the
theys
in this next section. It's completely relevant today. And it resonates with my childhood perception of racism and anti-Semitism in our neighborhood.”

She nods to herself, while she reads aloud, and the tabla player matches her syllables and her nodding with his drumming.
“
‘. . . The community is fragmented into many small sub-groups whose views of each other are seen as if through a prism: a set of distortions, a mosaic of images of “they,” as perceived by those in the varying strata of the community. As you speak with individuals, there is a constant use of the personal referent ‘they.' The ‘theys' in the community are ranked in an intricate and precise patterning. And depending upon the position of the individual, the “they” may be ranked either above or below one. . . .“They” has an important function in camouflaging remarks that might otherwise be considered inflammatory and discriminatory. It also involves the listener in a conspiracy of silent acceptance of the “right” way of doing things. For example, no one in public speaks of the Negroes or Jews. What one can say is ‘they' don't live the same way you or I do.
' ”

“In our neighborhood, our family was the
they.
”

“Yes, Alice, that's right. . . . I was a complete outsider, because I didn't conform to the narrowly defined codes of behavior. Did you as a child ever feel like a
they
in our neighborhood?”

“Most of the time.”

“Oh dear, I'm sorry. That must have been very lonely for you.” She flips more pages.
“
‘In effect, the myriad municipalities in the metropolitan area act like tiny city-states—carefully drawing economic and color barricades around their boundaries; exercising their sovereignty, protecting their limited resources via zoning and building codes and the unwritten covenants of discrimination.
' ”

“Reading your thesis last night, Mom, it all made sense to me, looking back.”

“The five of us lived in the same little house for the four years that I was analyzing the politics of our town, all of us experiencing it differently. What were we each doing during that time?

“You were typing.”

“Ira was sailing.”

“Madeline was having fun with her friends.”

“Jennifer was my happy little girl—at least I think she was.”

“And I felt like was standing in the crossfire of a dangerous battlefront.”

“Always?”

“No, but it often seemed like I lived in that tiny city-state you described.”

“You modeled yourself after me, Alice. Walked in my footsteps, for better or worse, by choosing the vantage point of a pint-sized social scientist. You observed our striated, factionalized neighborhood, with its ethnic, religious, racial, socioeconomic boundaries, just like I did.”

“Not
just
like you. My technique was different. I climbed the tree and spied on you guys—”

“You spied on us?”

“Yup.”

She laughs. “Good for you, for discovering an original method for conducting fieldwork. I'm starving. Let's order dinner.” She finishes the second bottle of beer and waves to the waiter.

THAT NIGHT, MICHAEL,
Eliana, and I stay up late and watch the election coverage. I feel bad sending Eliana to bed at midnight, before the results are in. She cries and storms, but it's a school night and it's already way past her bedtime. Michael and I stay up. It's a thrilling night. When I finally go to sleep, I feel more patriotic than I have ever felt before. Obama's election would have made my mother so happy.

EIGHT

“Is your cancer cured now, Mom?”

“I think so, yes.”

“That's great!” Eliana throws her arms around me. I wince, but don't tell her how much it hurts.

“Mom, when is my surgery?”

“In thirteen days.”

“That's soon.”

“Yeah.”

The school bell rings, and she sprints into the building.

IT'S MY LAST
treatment.

I'm going to miss Jamal and Reggie.

I am going to miss the women in the waiting room. We sit around in our gowns reading women's magazines. We wish each other luck. Patients come and go—younger and older than me. Some have both radiation and chemo, some just radiation. Some of us will survive. You get to know someone on your first day here, and she finishes treatment when you're in the middle of yours, and someone new shows up. The magazines don't change, so we tell each other which articles are our favorites. Six weeks ago, I was the new one in the room. The more seasoned radiation patients gave me tips.

“Take naps every day.”

“Take warm baths with scented candles.”

“Read this inspiring article in
Oprah
magazine by a breast cancer survivor.”

Now, I'm one of the experienced patients, giving tips to the newbies.

“Try walking through the Ramble in Central Park. And read this inspiring article in
Oprah
magazine.”

THERE IS THE
customary sound of the low drone and rhythmic beeps, the hum of the fan and the muffled chords of classical music. The robotic arm of the radiation machine makes her slow circle one last time, hovering above me, smoothly arcing to the right, hovering at my side.

And now my mother's arm encircles me. I don't see her, but I feel the warmth of her arm reaching around me.

“I'm going to miss you, Mom. I mean, I'll miss having you in the room with me. I'm grateful for these ten-minute interludes that have conjured our reunion, and for the flood of memories I'd blocked out for so long and that came back with such force. But Mom, when this last session is over, I won't want you with me anymore. It's time for me to concentrate on very real maternal responsibilities. I'll need to focus on Eliana and getting her through this difficult procedure.”

“I could help you with that.”

“What makes you think I need your help?”

“You invited me.”

“Why did I do that?”

“You want my advice.”

“Okay, give me a quick synopsis, before the ten minutes are up.”

“Don't try to be a perfect mother.”

“I reject that advice. Because—sorry if this offends you—I want to be a better mother than you were.”

“Maybe you will be, but there's no such thing as a perfect mother.”

“Okay, not perfect. Unambivalent.”

“Good luck with that!” she laughs. “You are your mother's daughter.”

“Okay, okay. Unwavering, then.”

“We all waver. Every mother fails her child at some point. I did. You did. Zoe did. The kids turn out okay.”

“I guess so.”

“If you try to be perfect—”

“Please, Mom, I want you to leave before Eliana has surgery.”

“—you'll end up letting everybody down—”

“Or I'll get really confused.”

“—including yourself.”

“Are you sure I invited you? I don't remember inviting you.”

“This will help you to remember.”

I feel my mother's hands on my back, X marks the spot, with a dot, dot, dot, and I do remember. Her hands are so warm. She's teaching me to knead dough, she combs my hair, she sings a lullaby, she's laughing, she's admiring my drawings and paintings, she makes chicken soup, she brings a gray kitten home for me after I have chicken pox, she makes oatmeal cookies, she leads my Camp Fire Girl group on a hiking trip, she watches Julia Child on television and makes us boeuf bourguignon, she strokes my back, with a dash and a line and a big question mark, she throws salt over her shoulder for good luck, the air tastes like salt, everything is salty, like tears, like the ocean, like wind over waves at the beach, trickle up, trickle down, trickle all around, and I want the trickle up trickle down part to last forever.

“We are finished, Ms. Cohen. You may move about.”

“Are you alright?” Reggie asks, after I pull my robe on.

“I'm fine,” I say, wiping my tear-streaked cheeks.

“Don't take this the wrong way, Ms. Cohen,” says Jamal, “but we hope we never have to see you again.”

FOR TWO WEEKS
after radiation ends, I'm wiped out, as predicted. My radiated skin looks and feels like it's sunburned. It peels off in small strips. Underneath the peeling skin are patches of brand-new pale pink, damp skin. Itching and stinging. Cool baths help, for the duration of the bath. When I finish molting, the new skin on my left breast is pink and tender, like a newborn's. My treatment is finished, except for tamoxifen, the estrogen blocker I'll start next month and continue for five years.

“Mommy, when is my surgery?”

“The day after tomorrow.”

“I'm scared.”

“I know.”

My heart sinks lower and lower in my chest, as if weighted down with lead weights, like the ones Daddy and I tied onto string to fish for bottom-feeding flounders. My weighted heart sinks all the way down and lies in the sand under the sea.

I reach for Michael's hand, in bed, late at night.

“Michael, I'm scared of Eliana's surgery. Are we doing the right thing?”

“Yes.”

“What if something goes wrong?”

“We'll deal with it.”

“What if it's too much for her to bear?”

“It won't be.”

“I'm having second thoughts.”

“You always have second thoughts.”

“How do we know it's the right thing to do?”

“Because three doctors said she needs this surgery.”

“How do we know those three doctors are right?”

“How do we know anything?”

“I don't want to do it.”

“I can't take your waffling, Alice.”

“I'm having really strong second thoughts.

“Don't let Eliana know that.”

“Okay. But I can't stop feeling that it's a mistake.”

“Get over it. Eliana's having surgery the day after tomorrow.”