visiting mom

The woods were dark with the soft blue light that accompanies winter evenings. The thick pines hugged the sides of the quiet highway like arms. Welcome home, I thought. Sitting next to me in the driver’s seat, my fiancé Daniel kept his eyes trained on the passing yellow lines that measured how far we had traveled from our self-created niche in the Upper East Side of New York. Being closer to the quiet porches of our childhood’s in Schroon Lake made him uneasy. He gripped the hard leather steering wheel and sat stiffly in his seat.

     “You cold?” he asked, breaking the silence that had stood between us for most of the car ride. “I can turn up the heat.”

     “No thanks,” I said, making sure that my voice sounded soothing. “I’m fine.”

     He met my eyes with a clear look of worry.

     “I mean it,” I assured. I took my left-hand adorned with our engagement ring and placed in on his knee, pressing gently into the soft denim so that he could feel my sincerity. “I was ready for this.”

     Daniel nodded and refocused on the endless highway before us. I turned to the window on my right and let myself get lost in the events of the past few years: the fight with my parents when I decided to move downstate with Daniel, the invitations I dismissed to visit for birthday celebrations, Fourth of July fireworks, Christmas dinners. I had learned a long time ago that I could call more than one place home.

     Proud of my rootless mobility, I focused on traveling instead of the places I had left behind. If I could help it, the house in Lake George where I grew up would be one home that I never re-visited. This was the first time in six years that I had crept up the Northway and swept past the sea of forest and the blankets of ice over chilled concrete. Despite my distaste for upstate monotony, for the Afghans that saddened by parent’s sofas, the tasteless meals we would eat together, I know that there are some things you need to come home for. This time it was to see Mom.

     I looked at the passing trees, each one blurring together to make a tapestry of greens and browns, the backdrop of my adolescence. Daniel had turned up the heat in spite of my protests and I could feel myself slipping into the familiar lull of car slumber. I slept more in my family’s 1997 Chevrolet Venture than I did on the red-metal bed in my house. Eight-year old insomnia is an anxious cycle of Roseanne re-runs and self-pitying tears.  You learn that a house awakens when people sleep and that Daddy stops investigating strange sounds after a month of tugs on his sleeve. Since nights were spent fearing sunrise, afternoons were wasted in half-naps as I traveled fifteen minutes, sixty minutes, forgotten minutes to the endless list of destinations my mother dragged me to. 

     These drives were a part of my routine except for the occasional t-ball practice or Girl Scout meeting.  Unlike the pony-bead bracelets that girls like Cara would show-off at the coat cubby in the morning, I’d walk into Mrs. Welsh’s class wielding a stolen “Martin Brothers Accounting” pencil. Each of these drives was paired with the necessary pit stop at the local convenience store where my mother got her fix of cheap cigarettes and even cheaper coffee.  I waited impatiently in the champagne mini-van affectionately named "Sandy" when she ran into the store, promising with thin lips, “I’ll be just a minute, Charlotte."

     Sinking into the stale spring heat that had been trapped in Sandy’s cavernous belly, I’d watch dusty-jeaned contractors hop out of their trucks, the engines still puffing dry exhaust, and brush past the pack of too-cool 8th graders and heaped bikes under the "NO LOITERING" sign. My Grandma-sewn felt uncomfortably warm upon the seat and the coloring book on the floor, wet from a forgotten soda spill, made my head fuzzy with a sweet ache. I'd eagerly the backseat and peer between the metal poles that held the driver's seat headrest, watching my mother and the other carb-craving suburbanites skip through the store like Candyland game pieces. Bypassing the gleaming slushee machine, ignoring the frosty cases of Ben & Jerry's Half-Baked pints, and stopping, momentarily, to glance at the fruit salad display, my mother would sweep into the savory Mecca of childhood treats: the chip aisle. Unable to see what she had selected from the rainbow of plastic packaging, I'd crawl back into my designated seat, buckling the belt before she could notice the smooth escape. Equipped with her vices, she'd wave a sharp goodbye to the Pakistani counter-men with leathery beef jerky cheeks. She’d exit the store with flair, making it a point to shout, “Goodbye !” and unlock the driver’s side door.

     A light 99-cent bag of nacho cheese satisfaction was tossed onto my lap and hunger spelt "snack" into the lining of my stomach. Together, we’d defy the road rules we had set as a family a year earlier (after Sandy’s roof was stained by Snapple) as Mom lit a fresh cigarette and I peeled apart the bag, no longer caring what shape our upholstery, waists, and lungs were in. Exhaustion always seemed to descend upon me soon after licking my cheese dusted fingers clean. Satisfied, I’d sink into the suddenly cushy lap of my seat and glance at my Mom in the front. With the window open, her twice-dyed auburn hair blew freely around her thin jaw and cheeks. The sinking sun washed her in dazzling warmth and I slipped into an easy rest, comforted to know that when I woke up, she would still be there bathed in the light.

* * *

     I awoke from my nap in Daniel’s Kia Sorento. A deep navy screen of clouds had replaced all traces of the day and I could only see the flakes of a light snowfall from my window. “Wake up, Charlotte,” Daniel whispered as he nudged my elbow. “We’re here.”

     I peeled myself away from the seat and stretched my arms. My shaking hands gave away the nerves I had tried suppressing on the ride up. You can’t lose it now, Charlotte, I urged myself silently. Daniel closed his car door and walked to open mine. I re-adjusted a slender black heel onto my ankle before I took his hand and stepped out into the parking lot. The temperature had dropped dramatically since Daniel and I had left the city that afternoon and I quickly drew my pea coat closer around my shoulders. Silently, we made our way towards the homey-looking building in front of us. Winking lampposts stood like old friends alongside the walkway and made the pit of anxiety that had knotted itself in my core loosen. Daniel took each step slowly. I turned to take in his sharp features and caramel eyes. His face looked pained and despite the bitter winds that whipped snow past us like ribbons, his cheeks were pale. I could tell by the way he gripped my hand that he was unsure of what to do. He licked his lips and smiled at me weakly, squeezing his thin fingers around mine. He needs you to make this right, I realized.

     “Remember the first time you met Mom?” I asked, my voice sounding strange in the empty air. “I nearly died of embarrassment.

     His cheeks flamed, bringing color back into his expression. “Oh God,” he gasped. “Please don’t remind me.”

     It was spring break of our senior year in college and both of us had returned home to waste money on diner food, sleep in past noon, and watch late-season skiers loop past our houses en route to lodges. There was routine in Schroon Lake. Every morning, the men of the town drained mugs of caffeine at the Higher Ground Coffee Shop before heading off to work. Every afternoon, mothers walked down to bus stops to greet their children, dotting Elmwood Avenue with pink and blue backpacks. At night, homes turned their televisions off and the lights to the tiny gardens and sloping hills of backyards. A hush lay like a hand over town and only the hunched shoulders of mountains could be seen from darkened bedroom windows. There was peace in knowing that some things never changed, and on the night Mom met Daniel, I depended on its regularity.

     Throughout my years in high school and college, both Mom and Dad spent their nights working at the local Easy Shopper Supermarket. Even though they had day jobs, the few hours spent in the harshly lit aisles of canned carrots and cleaning supplies helped chip off the hefty college loans strapped onto their backs. Mom decorated cakes in bakery and Dad sliced meats in the deli.  Around ten o’clock they came home smelling of icing and ham, their feet swollen in faux leather shoes that pinched. If I was home, I would come down from my bedroom in ratty sweatpants for bed and whatever homework I had in hand, to welcome them home.  Slow like sleepy bears, they would prepare bowls of soup and share stories about the customers they had met that day.

     Mom would demonstrate the high coiled beehive hair-do of a grandmother who had come in to buy red velvet cupcakes for her grandson’s birthday. 

     “I didn’t know salons still knew torture techniques of the 60s,” she laughed before spooning clam chowder into her mouth.

     Dad would lace together vignettes of his co-workers, using the perfect tones and descriptions to draw my mother and me into the vibrant world of the Easy Shopper Deli. We each had our own space around the sad kitchen table that had seen too many soup bowls, evidenced by the rings decorating its surface. I could map eight years through those rings. Red curves of tomato paste brought me back to the story of Ed, the mentally handicapped twenty-two year old that had gently asked my Dad to show him how to knot his tie. Splashes of golden chicken broth helped me recall Maria, the feisty Guatemalan that shoved a Communion cake in the face of a customer who complained of “too many blue rose buds.”

     Expecting my parents to be at work on the Tuesday of that break, I brought Daniel home.  It was warm, surprisingly balmy for March in New York, and we had spent most of the night watching families out for ice cream and teenagers on bikes from our seats in the town gazebo.  Daniel’s chestnut curls cupped his chin as he pointed out the dog that had slipped his leash and was headed south on Broadway. 

     “Poor Barney,” he muttered as we watched Barney Rockwell limp off towards his escaped cocker spaniel. “He’ll never catch him with that leg.”

     Luckily for Barney and the dog, which looked a little too pampered for the rugged woods of our hometown, the hedges surrounding the Bank of America ended the chase. Daniel and I clapped, causing Barney to triumphantly bow after clipping the red leash back onto the loop of his dog’s collar. I turned to Daniel, my hand moving from the silk dress covering my lap to his nimble fingers.

     “Let’s go back to my house,” I invited.

     Knowing the implications of my suggestion, he nodded and we headed to my house.

     We stumbled into my dark foyer in a tornado of sliding hands and pressed lips. This was the first time Daniel had ever braved the metal lip of my front door, both of us too non-traditional to go through the motions of parent introductions. “It’s too much pressure for something that shouldn’t affect our relationship,” I had lectured pompously over a cup of coffee a few months earlier.

     “I completely agree,” Daniel had reassured, taking a sip of his Café Americano. We were too wrapped up in the luscious sphere of our relationship to share it with anyone else, and in the safety of my still house, we didn’t have to share the other.

     Shirtless, his jeans unzipped, I pushed Daniel onto the ragged couch in our living room just as my Mom snapped her lighter in the open doorway to the dining room.

     “So you must be Daniel,” she concluded, pulling the cigarette away from her puckered lips and taking in his half-naked body. “I’m Sue.”

     Mortification swept over me like a hot fever. I was twenty-two years old, two years older than my mother had been when I was born, but I think sex is one of those acts that parents should blindly accept and children should slyly throw themselves into. Despite the many times my parents had insisted on boyfriends staying over and the appearance of the Condom Cookie Jar in my bathroom the week before Senior Prom, I had hoped my parents would see me as a snowflake virgin for eternity. Now, half-naked beneath the shelf that held every acne-faced and missing toothed school photo I had taken, it was clear that my purity was on par with Pamela Anderson’s.

     “Why are you home?” I choked, pulling my dress straps onto my bare shoulders. “Did you call out sick?”

     Pulling her eyes away from Daniel, who was nervously pulling his belt closed, my Mom coolly turned to me.

     “I got fired,” she stated blankly. “If I had known you had planned on having Daniel over I would have gone for a drive.”

     “No, Mom, it’s totally fine,” I stammered, still embarrassed and trying to process what she had just dropped on me. “What happened?”

     My mother stepped into the living room and flicked on the dusty lamp as she took a seat next to Daniel. I shot him a look that said, “Calm down,” and sat down on the love seat across from them.

     “I’m getting old, Charlotte,” she said with a heavy voice. “My hands can’t keep up with the amount of decorating orders we get in and honestly it’s not what I want to be doing.” She took another drag, inhaling longer this time. “They fired me because my heart’s not in it.”

     “First off, you’re not old,” I assured. “Secondly, who gives a shit if your heart’s not in it? Thousands of people have jobs that they hate, and no offense to the food industry, but whose dream is it to work in a supermarket? I bet every employee that they have hates his or her job. They can’t fire everyone.”

     “They can’t Charlotte, but they fired me,” Mom said flatly. “It’s fine, though. I’ll find something else. In the mean time,” she began as she stood and made her way towards the hall. “Make sure that the two of you find something more than fondant and deli meats to fill your lives.” She stopped halfway out of the room and turned to me, the embers of her cigarette falling listlessly to the floor. “You don’t want to end up like me and your dad.”

     A beat passed. “Nice meeting you,” Daniel called quickly as she turned into the master bedroom. The silence that hung extinguished any drive either of us had to mess around. My mother closed the door as silently as she had appeared. Looking for something to save the swimming of thoughts in my mind, I sighed.

     “Well Daniel, that’s my Mom.”

* * *

     My heels made an alarming clap as Daniel and I entered the funeral parlor’s lobby. Before us stretched a line of creased skirts and scuffed loafers. Men and women that I had known all my life filled the room. Some ladies had painted their lips and cheeks bright to bring color to their winter=pale faces, leaving their eyes bare for the inevitable kiss of tears. Some of the men grouped together in a corner, shaking their heads and muttering soft words that I couldn’t hear.

     I paused on the threshold of the viewing room’s rich, red, carpet. The mourners took notice of my presence, evidenced by the slow turning of necks. Eye contact was made briefly before they bent and whispered into neighboring ears that the prodigal daughter had returned. I sighed and grabbed Daniel’s hand.

     “Better together than alone, right?” I asked him, still surveying the crowd.

     He nodded and squeezed my palm in confirmation.

I smoothed my hair and sunk the blade of a heel into the carpet’s vulnerable thickness. Each step took me past the people of my teenage fairytales. The woman with the beehive hair was there, beside her stood Ed. Beyond him stood Mr. Rockwell, who stooped over a walker and struggled to lift his chin to greet us. I’m glad you’re here, my small smile shared.

     We continued making our way towards the front of the room where the crowd loosened and wreaths of lilies and roses sat on floral frames. Daniel held my hand a bit tighter as we neared the casket.

     “I’m going to let you go now,” Daniel whispered. “I’ll meet you by the guest book.”

     I planted a small kiss on his cheek. “Thanks.”

I walked up to the smooth cherry oak of the casket and glanced to my left. A tri-fold poster board sat on a folding table, dotted with photos of a life I used to know. Our vacation to Virginia Beach: my parents stand behind me in bleached denim shorts, my mouth lined with an ice pop’s sugary residue. Ah, the 90s. Another was of my Dad in his softball gear, a beer in one hand, his other cupping my mom’s summer shoulder. Surrounding these two danced dozens of others– weddings, camping trips, baby pictures, school portraits. I smiled a bit and shook my head. Those damn poster-boards. Funny how sentimental glue & corrugated cardboard can be. I rested my hands on the casket’s lip and lowered my knees into the plush kneeler. The indentations of other mourners’ knees turned the maroon upholstery mahogany in places. I cupped my hands in prayer and bent my head.

     “Dad,” I began ”I’m sorry that it took me so long to get back.”

     I paused and lifted my eyes to glance at his white hair and dry lips.

      “But I’m here. I wish so many things had gone differently, Dad, but I think there’s some purpose behind it. You know, me moving downstate, losing you too soon. So many things could be different, but here we are, you and I, and Mom and Daniel. I think we’re all transitioning into that next stage, and as much as I wish you could be here now, you’ve got your own shit to do.” I smiled, remembering his to-do lists, receipts of mowed lawns & spackled walls. They tracked his accomplishments and reminded us all of how many books go unread in life, how many closets would never be organized.

     “I love you, Dad and I think you knew that.”

     I pressed a kiss into my fingertip and touched the bouquet that rested on his chest.

     “Take it easy.”

     I turned from the casket and made my way towards Margaret, our sheepish neighbor that stood with the rest of our street.

     “Hi Margaret. Do you know where my Mom is?”

     “She just stepped out for a smoke.”

     “Thank you.”

     “And Charlotte,” Margaret rushed, placing a light palm on my forearm. “It’s good to see you.”

* * *

     The weighted door let out a weary creak as I stepped into the damp alley. My mother stood against the exposed brick wall. Her shaky hand cupped the flame of her lighter as she brought the yellow Bic to the cigarette.

     “Hi Mom,” I said, my manicured nail chipping red paint off the door and exposing a layer of a mauve undercoat.

     “Hi Charlotte,” she croaked. She took a quick drag and jutted her chin out, gesturing to my outfit. “Your dad would have been pissed if he saw you wearing that dress without stockings.”

     I smiled and let the door shut out the production inside. “You’re right.”

     “I’m always right.”

# # #