12. Who Owns Mondays
Who Owns Mondays
M ara
My journal lay open on the table in front of me. I was attempting to reconcile some of the things I’d written in the past six months with how good I felt presently. If someone told me I’d written those things, I wouldn’t have believed them, but the evidence was all there in indigo ink, in my handwriting, and could not be denied. It didn’t even seem possible for so many feelings, and so much despair, to exist inside one body.
It was past time for Olivia to get up. I had let her sleep in a bit as the weekend had been busier than usual for us, and busy days usually affected her mood and energy levels .
Quite often we visited my mom on Mondays, I wasn’t so sure that could happen today. I was tired from the weekend; I was betting Olivia would be too. Although I usually tried to get her academics done in the morning, I decided to just allow myself extra time to relax with my coffee, (my second cup!) and write for a few minutes before waking her. She came stumbling into the sunroom just as I finished.
“Good morning, little bird!” I exclaimed, surprised to see her.
“Good morning, mommy,” she mumbled.
She walked over to me, leaning her little hip against my side as she rubbed her eyes. She was tired. Hmmm. This did not bode well for my plans. Time to reassess.
“You hungry, little bird?”
She nodded, yawned.
“French toast?”
She nodded again.
“You want to go have your shower while I make it?”
I felt her refusal before she spoke. “No.”
“After breakfast?”
“Maybe.”
“Okay.” I sighed .
I reminded myself that getting her out and enjoying herself was just as important, maybe even more important, than the academics, and if a day off school was the cost of a busy weekend, it was worth paying.
After breakfast, the house phone rang. It was my mother. Even though we were not doing school, it irritated me that she was calling at that hour when I’d repeatedly asked her not to call in the morning unless it was an emergency. She called often and it was never urgent, not to any normal thinking and functioning human being.
I stared at the number on the display, daring myself to ignore it. I couldn’t do it.
“Hello?”
“Hello, Mara, dear.”
“Hi, mom.” I waited.
I knew she wanted me to ask how she was so she could give me a rundown of the chores she’d done so far or launch into her litany of complaints about her friends, but I wasn’t going to. I could manage that level of defiance.
“Mara? Are you there?”
“Yes, I’m here,” I replied politely.
“You’re not saying anything.”
“You called me. ”
“Well! I was just finishing my breakfast and starting to make my plans for the week when I realized you usually come over on Mondays. What time are you coming?”
“We’re not coming today, Mom. We had a busy weekend. We saw you Saturday, then we visited Dean and Sophie, and on Sunday we visited Bex and Rhys. We’re peopled out. Staying home today.”
“So, you had a busy weekend and I lose my Monday?” she challenged.
“What do you mean you lose your Monday?” I was struggling to maintain my polite tone. I hated feeling fenced in.
“My Monday visit, with you and Olivia.”
I took a deep breath. “First, you don’t own Mondays, we come when we can, second, we saw you on Saturday.”
“It’s not the same when Zale is here, too. I love visits with him, but I like to have my girls to myself sometimes, too.”
“You usually have us to yourself.” I started attempting to appease her, but I lost patience. “Whatever. We can’t come today. Wednesday might work.”
I cringed. I’d offered without thinking things through, and Bea was nothing if not inflexible. If she accepted, I’d be stuck, and I hadn’t even looked at the week’s schedule. Wednesday might be a terrible idea .
In any case, I had planned to take Olivia swimming and if that went well, to Bayview Mall. Social skills were important, and she wasn’t going to develop those perched on my mother’s living room couch while my mother politely insulted me in her kitchen.
“I’ll take it. I’ll exchange my Monday for Wednesday this week. Come after lunch though, I have Bingo in the morning and my girls usually take me out for lunch afterwards to cheer me up. They take good care of me. They understand what it is to grieve, Mara. They’ve lost husbands, too.”
“So, they’re not taking you out especially, you’re all going out together.” I strove to clarify, having the niggling feeling that something was off.
“Well, no. They know how sensitive I am and how losing your father affected me. The grief is quite crippling, and they’ve been very good.”
“Aren’t they grieving the same as you?”
“What are you saying, Mara?”
“I’m saying, they’re grieving, yet they are taking you out all the time. Aren’t they grieving as well?”
“What’s that got to do with me?” she asked irritably.
I was dumbfounded. “Nothing, never mind.”
She sniffed. “You don’t know what it’s like, and I pray you won’t for a long time, but it’s so very difficult to be a widow, Mara. Especially when one of your children abandons you, and the other is too busy half of the time.”
I cut her off. “Sorry, Mom, I’ve got to go. As you know, I homeschool in the mornings, and I’ve got to get started.”
She chuckled. “Mara, you can’t expect me to remember your schedule.”
I responded, “And yet, it seems, I do. I do expect you to remember not to call in the mornings unless it’s an emergency.”
She sniffed again. “I’m sorry, I was just missing you, wanted to make sure you were still coming.”
I sighed. As soon as I found a bit of backbone she would say something I could find no fault with. “It’s fine, mom, but I’ve got to go now. I'll see you Wednesday.”
I ended the call, noting I suddenly felt as bagged as Olivia looked.
A movie day turned out to be the best we could do. Olivia was quiet. I was quiet. Zale was quiet when he got home, as well.
I felt like the worst kind of daughter, a poor excuse for a mother, and a sad excuse of a wife. I puttered around the sunroom when Zale headed off to bed, telling him I’d be there in a few minutes.
The truth was, I didn’t feel good about keeping things from him. Our whole relationship was beginning to feel like a lie. How could it not be? I didn’t even know who I was anymore.