25
I wasn’t privy to the conversation that led to Stuart storming out of the office for the rest of the afternoon—at least according to Claire the next day—because I stayed to chat with some of the women and then went home with Mama.
Would I have preferred to go celebrate our victory? Yes. But despite having a job, I was still a mother first.
Well, that and Mama informed me that she was playing bridge at someone else’s house and that Rosa had to be home by three.
Besides, I owed Debbie a trip to the zoo, so I dropped my mother off for bridge and then took her car home.
“Mommy!” the kids squealed as I came in the door, and I savored the feeling of their chubby arms around me. For a moment, I was willing to throw off the whole campaign. Robbie looked taller. Which was ridiculous. I was home for dinner and breakfast and to bathe them and tuck them in every night.
“I got boo-boo,” Debbie said, holding up a slightly grubby finger with an invisible wound. It was a good thing my mother hadn’t come with me or that boo-boo would be getting scrubbed with a bar of Dial.
I kissed it and cradled her small hand to my chest. “Do you know what makes boo-boos feel even better than Mommy kisses?” She shook her head, and I pulled her in close and whispered into her ear, “A trip to the zoo.”
“ZOO!” she shrieked, nearly piercing my eardrums. “We go to zoo, Robbie!”
“The zoo is for babies ,” Robbie said, arms crossed.
“Lions and tigers aren’t. Neither are ... bears!” I lifted my arms above my head and hooked my hands into claws as both children screamed and ran away from me. “Get your shoes,” I called after them.
I thanked Rosa and paid her, then stopped her right before she left. “Rosa,” I said. “Have you been going to my parents’ house?”
She shook her head. “Your mother told me to come here instead.”
That was an interesting development. No, I didn’t picture my mother scrubbing toilets, but she hadn’t mentioned that her housekeeper was cleaning my house. Not that I minded—I had grown up with Rosa working in the dual role of nanny and housekeeper until shifting fully to housekeeper when we left home. In election years, she put me to bed more often than my mother did. “How many days a week?” She looked a little nervous. “I won’t say anything to Mama.”
“Three,” she said.
“Monday, Wednesday, Friday?” I asked. She nodded. “What would you think about going to help Papa on Tuesdays and Thursdays? He’ll pay you.”
“I don’t think Miss Mildred would like that.”
I grinned conspiratorially. “I don’t think so either. Which is why we won’t tell her.”
She smiled back at me. “You’re still that same naughty little girl who hid my shoes so I wouldn’t leave, aren’t you?”
I had forgotten that. And the memory unlocked a series of others. Her kissing my forehead to take my temperature when I was sick. Throwing me a sidelong glance and saying, “We’ll be at school tomorrow, won’t we?” when that temperature wasn’t elevated. The time in high school when I came home and a bottle of gin that had been hidden in my drawer was sitting on the kitchen table. “I found that in the darndest place,” she had said. “You wouldn’t have any idea how it got there, would you?” But she never once told on me. She didn’t have to.
“Some things don’t change,” I said.
She looked at me fondly. “You tell your father I’ll be there on Thursday.” And she turned to leave.
“Rosa—thank you. For everything.”
Rosa nodded. “That little one could be your twin,” she said, gesturing toward the hallway where a shriek sounded.
“I’m glad Mama has you helping her. She didn’t need to hide it.”
“You know how your mama is with appearances.”
Boy, did I ever.
Another shriek came from the direction of the children’s bedrooms, followed by a crash. “I’d better go check on that.”
“Just like their mama,” she said, shaking her head slightly. “Go take those wild animals to the zoo where they belong.”
I laughed. “I’ll tell Papa to expect you.” Then I went to the foot of the stairs. “If you’re not down here with your shoes by the time I count to ten, I’m going to the zoo without you! One. Two. Three.” Both kids came careening down the stairs, each yelling that they were the leader.
I left a note for Mama and loaded them into the car, all smiles for our adventure.
The kids fell asleep in the car on the way home and I woke Robbie just enough for him to get himself upstairs. I couldn’t carry him that far anymore. He was usually Larry’s job when he fell asleep in the car—not that Larry ever came with us on outings like these. Instead, I’d run in and get him to bring Robbie in. Debbie stayed asleep as I pulled her into my arms, snuggling her head onto my shoulder. I breathed in the scent of her hair. She cuddled me so infrequently these days, wanting to be just like her big brother and as independent as possible.
I set Debbie on her bed, then helped Robbie to the bathroom to wash his face and hands and brush his teeth before pulling his pajamas onto him as he yawned. “Into bed, sleepyhead,” I said and kissed his forehead as I tucked him in. “Night night, sleep tight, don’t let the bedbugs bite.”
Then I grabbed a washcloth and cleaned Debbie’s face and hands and even managed to brush her teeth and change her into pajamas without waking her. I brushed her hair back from her face and kissed her chubby little cheek, then turned off the lamp.
I turned to leave, then let out a gasp at the figure in the doorway.
But it was only my mother.
“You scared me!” I whispered.
She smiled sadly. “I remember sneaking in to kiss you good night after you’d fallen asleep.”
I couldn’t quite picture that. It wasn’t something we experienced often awake. She gestured for me to follow her, and we went downstairs to the living room. “Was it hard? Being out so much for Papa’s career?”
She took a sip of the half-drunk brandy sitting on the coffee table. “I never knew anything else,” she said simply. “Your father was in the state legislature when I married him and was already in the House by the time you were born.”
“But your friends—?”
“My friends when you were little were the wives of other congressmen. It helps when people understand.”
Fran was my only divorced friend. But she had no children. And even then, we were far from bosom buddies. I supposed Rosa was the only woman I knew who both worked and had a family, though Rosa’s children were older than I was.
My mother was studying me. “What’s bothering you?”
I sighed and reached for her glass, but she pulled it away. “Get your own. Sharing glasses is rude.”
“But sharing cigarettes is fine?”
“No, you need your own of those too.”
I shook my head. “Honestly, Mama, were you watching me tuck them in because it was sweet or to make sure I cleaned their hands first?”
“Why can’t it be both?”
I chuckled, then turned serious. “Today was amazing, wasn’t it?”
“I wouldn’t know. You didn’t invite me to the zoo.”
There was the woman I knew. “Would you have skipped bridge for it?”
“Of course not. But that doesn’t mean I don’t want to be included. It’s rather lonely being home with the children all day.”
That was true. Although she had Rosa three days a week. It wasn’t quite apples to apples in the comparison of how I had lived before my life imploded.
“I meant at the club,” I said, changing the subject back to what I had originally intended. “Michael.”
“It was something.” She thought for a moment, taking another sip of her drink. “I once told your father that if he was smart, he would try to convince more women to vote.”
“And he didn’t?”
“God forbid that man take an idea from a woman.” She shook her head. “You have no idea how frustrating it is to live like that.”
I had a better idea of it than she thought. “Better than Larry, who stole all my ideas and passed them off as his own.” But then I realized something. “Mama, when I told Papa I wanted to go after women’s votes, he told me that someone wiser than him once said that was the way to ensure a win.”
“You’re making that up.”
“I’m not.”
She shook her head again. “Too little, too late.” Something in her countenance had changed—maybe it was just the lamplight, but she looked mildly amused. Then she drank the rest of her brandy and stood up. “I’m off to bed.”
“Mama,” I said, turning on the sofa to look at her as she headed toward the kitchen with her glass. “Thank you for being there today.”
She smiled. “It’s not every mother who gets to say her daughter is a campaign manager for a future senator. I’m proud of you, Beverly. Even if no man ever will be.”
I sat on the sofa pondering that. Except she was wrong. My father was proud of me. And I resolved, as I heard her footsteps in the guest room above me, to find a way to reunite them. That little smile in the lamplight gave me the hope I needed that reconciliation was possible if she could only see how much he did depend on her—for so much more than just keeping the house tidy and keeping him fed.