The Year My Mother Came Back (17 page)

SEVEN

I have an indelible image of my mother in her final hour, buried under life support equipment, eyes closed, her face expressionless.

But this is an image I never saw. The last time I ever saw my mother was at the Indian restaurant.

The day my mother died, Madeline and I went to the hospital. At the door to the ICU, we were greeted by a nurse.

“Girls,” she said, gently, “You can go in to say good-bye to your mother if you want, but you won't recognize her. She's brain dead. She's gone. She's not your mother anymore. You don't want to remember her this way.”

I took the nurse's advice and didn't go in. I had just seen her two weeks before, when she told me she felt happier and more alive than she had in years. That's how I wanted to remember her. Madeline went into the ICU to say good-bye, while I waited outside.

The day my mother died was the first time I ever saw my father cry. He held me and my sisters in his strong arms, protecting us as if we were still little girls. We, in turn, protected him. We clung to each other, our faces puffy, our eyes narrow slits from so much crying.

Later that day, when our crying had briefly subsided, Dad suggested that we begin to sort through Mom's things. I didn't question the timing of this; why, even before she was buried, we were combing through her closets and papers and jewelry box, deciding what to keep, what to discard, and what to give away. I trusted Dad. It seemed a sensible way to move forward.

We each went to a different room. From my mother's study, I could hear the alternating crescendo and decrescendo of Madeline's sniffling, Jennifer's sobbing, Dad's keening. I quietly pored over the mishmash in a tan leather purse: a memo book, three ballpoint pens, peppermint Life Savers, a shopping list, sunglasses, an old picture of my sisters and me on the beach in matching blue bathing suits—and an unsealed envelope, simply addressed, in my mother's handwriting, “Ira.” I opened the envelope and unfolded her typed letter.

If you don't end your affair, I will end our marriage.

The words flew off the page and reassembled into the angry voice of my mother, speaking to me—like the ghost of Hamlet's father, “List, list, O, list! If thou didst ever thy dear father love, revenge his foul and most unnatural murder!”

This wasn't
Hamlet.
Mom wasn't murdered. But she was wronged, and she was asking me to avenge her.
“If thou didst ever thy dear mother love . . .”

I didn't know if the accusation was true, though I'd long suspected it; and if true, what I was supposed to do with it. I didn't know how old the letter was. But I read it today, of all terrible days, and I couldn't unread it.

What am I supposed to do? What do you want me to do?

I wished there'd been skull and crossbones on the envelope, warning of its poisonous contents. But I opened it and released her fury, which was now my burden, mine to interpret and act on. Unless I simply gave the letter to my father. It was addressed to him, it was
his
letter, not mine. I never should have read it. I would just give it to him.

But from the next room, I heard Dad burst into tears like a little boy, and my sisters comforting him, and I couldn't show the letter to him. It would be cruel. I tore it to pieces and threw it away, thinking that would be the end of it. But my mother's voice stayed inside me—like a
dybbuk,
a wandering spirit that enters and possesses the body of a living person.

At my mother's funeral, I had trouble believing she was dead. I forced myself to look at her casket, and to shovel dirt on her grave, so that I would remember burying her. But none of it seemed real. The next day, I couldn't remember the funeral, I couldn't picture the cemetery, couldn't remember shoveling any dirt, though I did remember the percussive sound of pebbles falling on wood. Instead, I heard her voice from the letter. And I pictured her in the ICU, where I never saw her.

I tried to stop hearing the angry voice of the letter. I tried to get her out of my head, but I couldn't. I was possessed.

I KEPT THE
letter a secret for two years. In some desperate and inconsolable part of my mind, the secret kept her alive. I was in limbo, my grief in suspended animation, my life held hostage by magical thinking. I longed to retrieve my gentle, loving mother who was happy for the first time in years, and with whom I'd finally reconciled. But I only heard her bitter, angry voice, asking me to avenge her.

When I couldn't bear it any longer, I told my dad.

We sat in his kitchen, our coffee getting cold. Our old cat, Amanda, rubbed against my legs under the table and purred. My dad was sad for me.

“I wonder why Louise was still carrying it. That was probably an old purse. She gave me that letter years ago.”

“You already read that letter?”

“Yeah. We worked it out.”

“You already read it,” I groaned. The secret I was protecting my father from wasn't even a secret. What a humiliating anticlimax. Amanda jumped in my lap and licked my face, like she always did when I cried.

“Gee, Alice, I wish you'd given me the envelope when you found it. What a terrible burden you carried for two years.”

“Dad. Did you have an affair?”

“Yes.”

I stared at the table for a moment, then looked up at him.

“I'm angry. And sad.”

“Of course you are. I'm sorry this has caused you so much anguish.”

“I need to tell my sisters.”

“I understand.”

It was a letter she wrote to my father, not my mother's ghost commanding me to avenge her. But in that moment of unbearable grief—grief being just a hair's breadth away from madness—I wanted it to be my mother's voice talking to me. We had just begun to talk to each other again, and I didn't want it to end. I had lost her once, when I was twelve years old. I couldn't bear to lose her a second time.

I'D BEEN STALLED
in the grieving process. I missed the moment to say good-bye to Mom the day she died. No do-over. There was just moving forward. I needed relief from those two years. I didn't want my mother's voice inside me anymore. I wanted to stop thinking about her. I could try to forget her. Gradually, I did.

EIGHT

“Everything's gone like clockwork, don't you agree?” says Dr. Campbell cheerfully to Eliana and me at her final post-op visit in May.

Eliana and I stare dumbly, trying to process his breezy assessment.

“So,” he continues. “You can go to camp this summer. You have only three restrictions: avoid contact sports, no jumping from high places, and don't fall down.”

“But what if I
do
fall down?”

“Don't. Just don't. That's all there is to it, no falling. Falling would be bad. The X ray looks great. You look great.”

She does look great, sitting on the examining table in oversized, hospital-issue gym shorts, finally rid of all that hardware. And even I can see that the new X ray looks excellent. The once scary gap in her femur is filled in with solid bone, good as new and five centimeters longer.

“Looking ahead,” he says to me, “you'll have to make a decision about the second surgery. The next one is at your discretion.”

“Does ‘at your discretion' mean the second surgery is optional?” I ask.

“No, of course not. We're not going to let Eliana wear a shoe lift her whole life. It's the
timing
of the second surgery that's up to you. As you know, I recommend completing the lengthening process before she enters high school. Come back in October for X rays. Have a good summer.”

“Can you close the door, Mom?” Eliana whispers, as soon as Dr. Campbell leaves the room.

I close the door.

“Can anyone hear us?”

“No.”

“Good.” She sits very still on the examination table, her shoulders tense.

“What is it, Honey?”

“I will never, ever, have leg-lengthening surgery again.”

“We don't have to talk about it now. We can think about it again in a year.”

“I won't change my mind in a year. I mean it, Mom. I refuse to have this surgery ever again.”

“I promise you won't have surgery during middle school. You don't have to think about it for four years. You might change your mind when you're in high school.”

“Mom!” She looks me in the eye, silencing me, making sure she has my undivided attention. “I won't change my mind.”

ELIANA IS NOT
yet happy, but she's on the mend.

Julia is über-happy.

Michael is reasonably happy.

I allow myself cautious optimism. We made it through the darkest times of this terrible year. Maybe, just maybe, I'm, I'm—

ON THE LAST
day of May, my alarm radio wakes me with the terrible news:
“Dr. George Tiller, the prominent and polarizing abortion provider, was killed Sunday, gunned down during morning services at his church in Wichita, Kansas . . .”

No!

I think back to that terrifying time, ten years ago, when I found out that I was six months pregnant. I had every reason to believe the fetus was injured, could imagine no good outcome, feared I'd never be able to love my baby, felt so hopeless that I thought about killing myself. I scheduled an abortion with Dr. Tiller in Wichita, and I began to feel less trapped. The suicidal thoughts abated. I decided to have the baby.

If I hadn't been given a choice, would I have taken my life?

I don't know.

If I hadn't chosen to give birth, would I love Eliana as deeply and completely as I do now, or would my feelings have been subverted by despair, guilt, and anger?

I don't know.

I never met Dr. Tiller, but I believe he saved both of our lives. I need to tell Eliana about him. I want her to know he was part of her life. I'm not keeping secrets from her anymore.

“Eliana, do you know what an abortion is?”

“Duh, I'm in fourth grade.”

“Well, when I was in fourth grade, I didn't even know—Oh, never mind. I want to talk to you about something important.”

I tell her about Dr. Tiller, about his work and about his murder. I tell her the story of her birth. Everything: the good parts and the bad parts. No more secrets.

“Does it upset you to know that I wanted to have an abortion?”

“No, I was just a fetus. I don't care what you thought of me before I was born. I care what you think of me now.”

I hold her close. “I love you so much.”

“I know.”

Before this moment, I've never forgiven myself for that time when I didn't want Eliana. When I didn't want to be her mother.

I think about the terrible years after Mom's surgery, when my loving mother disappeared and was replaced by a gray stranger who—it seemed to me—no longer wanted to be my mother. I finally understand that she was always there. That she couldn't help being sick and sad. That she was doing the best she could. That those years were as painful for her as they were for me.

I've never forgiven myself—or my mother—for the crime of maternal ambivalence.

I forgive my mother.

I forgive myself.

“I KNOW IT'S
not logical.”

“You're kidding, right?” asks Michael.

“No. Whenever I start to feel really happy, I'm scared that the Evil Eye will get me. Like the way my mom died, just two weeks after saying that she was happy for the first time in years.”

“You're not joking?”

“I wish I were.”

“I thought you used the Evil Eye as a literary device.”

“That, too.”

“I mean, if you enjoy thinking about the Evil Eye—”

“No! I don't enjoy it, not at all. It makes me feel stupid and cowardly.”

I start to cry. Michael must think I'm a moron. He's probably stifling a laugh, but he pulls me onto his lap and hugs me.

“Listen up, Alice. Don't worry about the Evil Eye anymore. It's a waste of your time. Don't think about it. You'll be fine. Nothing bad will happen. Just don't worry.”

“Okay, I won't.”

“Good.” And he kisses me. He kisses me again. He's a great kisser. I'm so in love with this guy. He pulls me down beside him and we kiss some more, and we unbutton, unzip, undress, caress, make love.

I lie with my head on his chest, content and happy.

I'm happy.

Lightning didn't strike. I didn't spit three times through my middle and index finger. I didn't throw salt over my left shoulder. I didn't turn a glass upside down. Nothing bad happened.

Take that, Evil Eye!

MICHAEL AND I
visit the girls at camp in Maine. Julia is a counselor, Eliana a camper. We watch Julia teach an organic baking class, and I sample the most delicious cookies I have ever tasted. We hike to the lake to watch Eliana's swim class.

“I have exciting news,” Julia tells us at our picnic lunch. “Next week, I'm going to meet my biological grandmother.”

“No way.”

“Yes way. She lives in Maine, and she's driving to camp to meet me. She's my birth father's mother. Zoe has been in touch with her and told her I was working here.”

“That's fantastic.”

“I know! Isn't it?”

“You think you'll ever meet your birth father?”

“One day, probably.”

“Wow!” This is all good, but my head is spinning.

“Oh, by the way, Mom,” says Eliana, “there's something I need to tell you. I didn't think I should write this in a letter, because I thought it might make you nervous.”

“I'm nervous already. What is it?”

“We went to an island and I jumped from a thirty-foot cliff into a lake.”

“You jumped from a thirty-foot cliff?”

“Yup. Like about twenty times. It was so fun.”

My heart ricochets around my chest like a pinball machine. “And . . . and your leg felt okay?”

“Totally! Oh, and last week I was trampled by a llama.”

“Trampled by a llama?”

“Yeah, by Alex, my favorite llama.”

“What part of you did Alex trample?”

“My right leg. I was taking him for a walk, and his feet sank in the mud, which freaked him out. He panicked, tried to run, knocked me down, and trampled my right leg. It hurt for a few minutes, but I'm totally fine now. I figured it would be better to tell you in person.”

“You know me well.”

After lunch, Julia enlists us to help paint the set for the camp play. She's codirecting, and Eliana is acting in it.

We paint cardboard cartons, under a dazzling blue sky.

“Gorgeous day,” I say.

“It's gonna rain,” says Julia, painting a box with efficient brush strokes.

“Yup, it'll definitely rain,” says Eliana, getting as much paint on her jeans as on the box.

“You're kidding, right?” I say.

“Nope,” says Julia.

“It'll rain,” says Eliana.

“But there's not a cloud in sight,” says Michael.

Crash of thunder.

“Grab the boxes!” shouts Julia.

It's a downpour. We run inside. Soaked. Laughing. Happy.

Let's see if I have this right: My daughters love the calm before the storm, and they love the storm, and the calm after the storm, which is a truer sort of calm. And because they no longer need me to protect them from changing and unpredictable forces of nature and emotion, and thirty-foot cliffs, and freaked-out llamas, I am free to let go of my habitual, anticipatory dread of both storm and calm.