10. Becks Let It Go
THURSDAY, JUNE 24, 1976
Tip: Dearest darling, food is love. Flowers are jewels. No good party is complete without both. Come to think of it, no good life is complete without all four.
Becks felt a pang of nostalgia as she made her way down Kinston’s Vernon Avenue, thinking of the wonderful childhood days she had here with her mother, her friends, and her beloved, now-deceased daddy. Thinking of him caused that deep pain she’d been trying so hard to keep at bay to well up inside her. Maybe she was procrastinating, but instead of turning right onto the shady, beautiful street she had grown up on, she kept driving straight and turned left into Rider Florist. Wasn’t it her mother who had taught her to love flowers so much? She sat in the parking lot for a moment, calming her breath, trying to forget the many days she came here with her mother to get the perfect arrangements for parties.
She pushed open the metal door, its bells tinkling, and was enveloped by the warm, fragrant humidity of the flower shop. Instantly, she was six years old again. The woman behind the counter pulled her glasses down. “May I help you?”
“Hi, Jewell,” she said. Jewell, she’d heard through friends over the years, had taken over the shop and put her own stamp on it. “It’s—”
“Why, it’s Becks Bonner!” The woman rushed out from behind the counter and hugged Becks tightly, as though it hadn’t been decades since they’d last seen each other. Becks thought she might cry with relief. She wasn’t sure what her reputation around town was like, if her mother had poisoned everyone against her. But the genuine light in Jewell’s eyes told her either her mother hadn’t tried or she had tried but it hadn’t taken.
“What brings you to town?” Jewell asked.
Becks bit her lip. “I’m surprising my mother.” Jewell’s eyes went wide. The Bonner family feud was big news around the small town, and the fact that Becks was here would be fuel for the fire.
“Well, you’ll need the perfect bouquet.”
Jewell disappeared into the back and reappeared with a bunch of wildflowers. They were fresh, beautiful, and very trendy.
Becks scrunched her nose. “I don’t know, Jewell. For my mother?” Her mother was so traditional that she wasn’t sure how wildflowers would suit her, and bringing the wrong flowers to the meeting could start it off on the wrong foot.
Jewell shook her head. “Can you believe it? Your mother loves them now.”
Becks could not believe it, and, as she paid for them, it broke her heart that this woman knew more about her own mother than she did. Her mother, who she had laughed with growing up. Who she had cooked with, entertained with, who had braided her hair and tucked her in at night. And then, one wrong move, and it was all gone. Poof! Had Becks realized how tenuous her parents’ love for her was, her entire childhood might have been different. She would never have felt so safe. On the bright side, living through what she had had deeply influenced the mother she had become. She would never, ever abandon her children. Whatever choices they made, whether she agreed with them or not, she always let her children know that their parents were their safe place.
Becks bid Jewell goodbye and, feeling warm nostalgia wash over her, got back in her car and made her way down the road. When she turned onto her street, the brick two-story Georgian where she grew up was a standout. It was framed by a pair of ancient oak trees and was, in her opinion, one of the most beautiful houses in Kinston.
As she pulled the car up in front of the sidewalk, she admired the way the light shone on the house, like it was being honored by heaven itself. She debated pulling her car into the driveway, between the rows of azaleas in full bloom, but decided against it. She was afraid her mother would feel it was too familiar.
For a moment, she doubted herself. Maybe Townsend was right; maybe her mother didn’t deserve this visit. But, as Becks had explained to him, her mother wasn’t getting any younger. If she ever wanted to try to make amends, it was now or never. What she didn’t say, of course, was that her own hourglass was also running out of sand.
Gathering her flowers, her purse, and all her nerve, Becks opened the door to the convertible—a car, she knew, her mother would deem impractical and absurd—and walked up the uneven brick path she knew so well. Her heart raced as she climbed the two slate steps to the front door. When her mother was home, the big, heavy black wooden door stayed open to let the light in, while the glass-and-wood storm door was closed. The oriental rugs had to be rotated every six months to even out the sun damage, but Becks thought it made them even more beautiful.
The door was open; her mother was home. As she lifted the handle of the huge brass door knocker and tapped twice, she made up her mind that, no matter what happened today, she wouldn’t tell her mother she was dying. It would be a betrayal to Townsend for anyone—even the woman who brought her into the world—to know such a thing first. Plus, Becks didn’t believe her mother deserved to know the truth. At least, not yet.
She caught a glimpse through the glass of a small, shuffling woman making her way through the entrance hall. In Becks’s mind, her mother was still the same auburn-haired beauty she had been when Becks last saw her. But as her mother opened the door, the first thing Becks noticed was the way her white hair—styled with a permanent—had become so thin that you could see parts of her scalp. Age had stolen her crowning glory.
It was only a split second, but her mother looked up into her face and said, “Yes?”
The idea that her mother didn’t recognize her seared her heart, but, then again, had this woman appeared at her door, she wouldn’t have recognized her either. But once you gave birth to a child, shouldn’t you, in the deep-down recesses of your heart, recognize that child as yours, no matter how old they were?
“Rebecca!” her mother finally said with surprise, and perhaps even a fleck of joy.
“Hi, Mother,” she said, choking on the words.
Becks hadn’t quite been able to wrap her mind around what this moment might be like, but here it was. Both women’s eyes filled with tears. Her mother didn’t hug her like she’d hoped, but she leaned down anyway to wrap her in an embrace that her mother limply reciprocated. This could easily be the last time she ever hugged her mother, and she felt it best to take the opportunity.
“Come in,” Myra said. “I was just warming up some coffee cake.”
Becks followed her mother through the house, which was exactly the same as when she’d last been inside it. No trends had touched this place. It was still perfectly traditional, full of antique furniture and knickknacks passed down through the generations.
She smiled, thinking of how after she and Townsend married, even though her mother hadn’t attended, her silver chest had still arrived in the mail. Becks had hoped for a letter, but there was nothing. Even still, Becks wasn’t confused. In her family, the firstborn daughter received her mother’s wedding silver when she married. It was a tradition, and, Becks had hoped, a bridge. She wrote to thank her mother but never received a reply. It was the first of a dozen or so letters Becks had sent her mother over the years. They were all met with silence.
“May I help you?” Becks asked when they reached the kitchen, noticing how slowly her mother moved around the space she had once zipped through with such efficiency and speed.
“I quit needing your help long ago,” her mother said pertly as she reached into the fridge for the cream. Always cream. Never milk.
That they had made it a few minutes without her mother making a dig at her was impressive. She had, however, hoped they were past all that.
Myra handed her daughter a cup of coffee and sat down in one of the Windsor chairs that matched a deep walnut pub table. Becks noticed her mother’s shaking hand, but whether it was shaking with age or nerves she couldn’t be sure. Becks’s own hand was shaking too as she picked up the mug. She was filled with so many emotions: sadness for the time that had passed, hope for the reconciliation that could come, nervous that she might make a misstep and ruin the day. “How are you, Mother?” Becks asked.
“Oh, I’m fine. I stay busy. Book club, bridge club, Methodist Church Women.” She paused. “Which you would know nothing about, I presume.”
Becks wasn’t there to talk about church. “I thought you might like to know that I have dinner parties every week during the summer,” Becks said, avoiding the implied question. “You taught me how to be a proper hostess so well, and I haven’t let you down.”
Her mother eyed her warily, and Becks realized her poor choice of words.
“Oh, you haven’t let me down. Is that so?” her mother asked pointedly. “Was he worth it?”
Her mother never minced words, but she knew the answer automatically. Townsend was worth every heartache, every little fight, every difficult day. He had been her rock, her provider, the most amazing father to their children. But more than that, he was simply her perfect match. Their last forty years together had been glorious. But she was here to make peace. So she simply said, “Mother, Townsend remains, as he was then, my one true love.”
“Grand. So what are you doing here, Rebecca?”
Becks wasn’t sure how she had imagined today going, and maybe it was going better than she had feared. But not as well as she had wished. She had wanted a real conversation. Apologies all around. Tears. Hugs. She knew this woman nearly as well as she knew herself—or, well, she had at one time—and she felt that she could break down those walls around her heart if she tried. But would that be fair?
Because Myra Bonner had mourned the loss of her child for forty years. She had come to terms with it. Would it be right for Becks to come back into her life knowing that she was dying—knowing that, even if they had the reconciliation she dreamed of, she would inevitably cause her mother such tremendous sadness all over again? She knew it wouldn’t be. And so, Becks decided to be content with knowing she got to see her mother one last time. Still, there were things she knew she had to say. “Mother, I only came here to say that I love you. And that I forgive you.”
Her mother laughed. “You forgive me? Now that’s really something. I believe I’m the one who would need to forgive you.”
Becks nodded. “Maybe so. But in case there ever comes a time when you wonder how your daughter felt about you, I only want you to know I’ve put it all behind me—and I understand you a little better than I once did. I know you only wanted what was best for me, in your way.”
A wave of recognition came over Myra’s face, and, for a split second, Becks thought that maybe she knew her daughter was dying; maybe she could intuit, in that way mothers do, that this was a making of amends before the end. But if that was what Myra understood, she didn’t let on. Instead, she put her coffee mug down. “I have tried to be cordial, but I think you should go.”
Becks shook her head, fully intending to do so. But she couldn’t help herself from saying, “Mother, really? Forty years and you still can’t let it go?”
Myra stood up from the table, gaining a burst of strength. “Let it go?” she asked. “Let it go?” She pointed at Becks. “You killed my husband, your own father, a man of the cloth. And now you want me to let it go? I will never let it go.”
The worst-case scenario Becks imagined had come to fruition. She stood, noticing the tears running down her mother’s face. Was she still really that angry? Or was this a remnant of an old hurt? Becks didn’t know. Suddenly, she was overcome with so much anger at the mother who abandoned her that she knew she had to leave. But as she began to exit, her mother said, “Rebecca” softly.
Becks turned and held her mother’s gaze for a few moments, in which she was filled with hope. But Myra remained silent.
Becks walked into the foyer, hands trembling, she turned to look around the house she once loved so very much, at the place that once meant warm hugs and happy Christmas mornings. She knew that those joyful moments were a thing of the past. Maybe they were never really real to begin with. But, either way, they were her memories, her childhood.
As Becks took one last deep breath of the smell of pipe tobacco and furniture polish, fresh cake and real wood fires—the mingling scent of “childhood home” that her brain had filed away long ago—she put a shaking hand to the brass knob, worn smooth with time and use. Her heart beat rapidly, her eyes filling with tears. Rebecca Bonner, now Rebecca Saint James, knew she would never walk through her own front door again.