Chapter Forty-one
“You painted.”
Mom looks up from the photo album in her lap. “Mm-hmm. New carpet, too. Do you like it?”
“Yeah.” I tuck a leg and sit on the leather sofa. “It’s kind of soothing.”
“The color is ‘Vermont Olive,’ whatever that means. But I think it’s more of a sage.”
“It’s nice.”
“Gretchen hates it.” Mom glances back down at the album. “She said this color went out of fashion a decade ago.”
“Do you like it?”
She tilts her head and looks at the walls, as if seeing them for the first time. “Yes. I do.”
“That’s what matters. It’s your house, not Gretchen’s, right?”
“You’re right.”
I snort softly. “Never thought I’d hear that statement come out of your mouth.” I clap a hand over my lips. “Sorry. It’s been a long day. I guess my verbal filter took a break.”
Mom waves a hand in dismissal and closes the album. “Old habits are hard to break.”
A boom of thunder makes us both jump.
“I hate storms. Especially when your father’s not home.”
“I know.”
“I didn’t think to ask earlier, but are you hungry? Thirsty?”
“Water sounds good. But I can get it.” I get up and walk around to the small beverage refrigerator behind the built-in bar. “Do you want anything?”
“I’m fine, thanks.”
The glasses are still where they’ve always been, and the pitcher of water looks fresh. There are even a few cucumber slices floating on top.
I pull out a Styrofoam bowl from one of the cupboards. “Can I use this to give Janey some water?”
“Sure. Faith, did your grandmother know you were coming to Iowa?”
“No.” I fill the bowl with tap water and set it on the floor.
“Ryan? Danielle? Gretchen?”
“No, no, and no.”
“You mean to tell me that you just drove six hundred miles and didn’t tell anyone?”
“Yeah, I guess. I mean, I told my roommates, but—”
“What if something would have happened to you?”
“Nothing happened.” My throat tightens at the truth of that statement. “Nothing.”
Mom is silent for several extended moments. “I know we haven’t always had a great relationship, but I’m still your mother. I still worry about you.”
I exhale. “I know you do. But this was . . . personal.”
I drain my glass and pour another. “I should have told someone, but I guess after waiting two years, I didn’t want to have to explain myself if this trip turned out to be totally pointless.”
“And did it turn out . . . the way you wanted?”
“No.”
“I’m sorry.”
Sorry?
Gee, thanks Mom, but your ‘sorry’ is about two years too late. I take a sip of my water, mainly to keep my mouth occupied with something other than the words that want to come out. It’s not powerful enough to wash away the bitterness welling on the back of my tongue.
“You said you’ve been planning this, uh, trip, for two years?”
I nod. I don’t trust myself to speak.
“But you’ve only been in Michigan for three months.”
“Yeah. Never mind. It doesn’t matter.”
A sudden awareness lights my mother’s eyes. “Two years,” she whispers, lifting her hand to her throat. “This was about that Noah Spencer, wasn’t it?”
That Noah Spencer. I press my lips more tightly together. What should I say? What can I say that won’t result in being either scolded or mocked?
When my fingernails have dug a series of crescents into my palms, I say, “Yes. But it’s over. For good this time, I guess.”
“You saw him?”
“No.” The word claws through my throat . . . and my fragile hold on composure. “No, I didn’t see him, Mom. I haven’t seen or heard from Noah Spencer since the night you slapped my face and called me every imaginable variation of the word ‘whore.’”
Mom’s eyes round. Her face blanches.
“Never mind.” I grind my teeth. “I shouldn’t have brought it up.”
“I’ve never known how to . . . I thought—hoped—that . . . maybe you would forget about it.”
Forget about it? That night—and its many repercussions—gutted me. Gutted me.
My mind races through hundreds, no thousands of moments I’ve tried to forgive my mother, each like rehearsing a scene over and over without being able to discover the character’s true motivation.
Flat. A performance without heart. The forgiveness I’ve recited to myself, with the hope that it would come true, is nothing but insincere dialogue—or a prop that’s misplaced every time I think about how she treated me.
About how she treated Noah, when he was a part of my life.
“I tried to forgive you. I thought I did, so many times.” I shake my head. “But every time I think about how the last few years should have been, I . . . I unforgive you.” I grimace. “I don’t even think that’s a word. But it’s how I feel.”
“I see. That’s a long time to hold a grudge.”
Says the grudge-holding champion of Kanton, Iowa.
“Yeah, well, I guess we have something in common after all.”
Mom opens her mouth but closes it just as quickly. Her gaze moves to the carpet.
When I finally look—really look—at my mom’s face, what I see there surprises me.
Delights me, on some level.
It’s pain.
Her pain.
Finally.
A strange, ugly sort of satisfaction stirs in my belly.
Without warning, she stands. “You’re going to need a pillow and blanket.” She doesn’t meet my eyes. “I’ll go get them. Upstairs. Be right back.”
I know very well that she keeps blankets in the storage ottoman, not two feet away from the couch, but I don’t argue. Instead, I silently watch her retreat up the stairs.
Every muscle tenses around my bones. Accusations boil within my brain. Tonight’s crushing disappointment rushes through my blood, gathering under my skin.
Where would I be right now if she’d had the courtesy to meet Noah? To trust us? Would we still be together, in a committed long-distance relationship? Or would we have gradually, naturally discovered—on our own—that ours was not a romance that was meant to succeed long-term?
As Noah discovered for himself, I guess, at some point during the past two years.
But what if . . . ?
What if we had been allowed to be together? What if that amazing connection had survived? Deepened?
The grief of that possible future, lost, sucks away the air I want to use to scream. At her. This is your fault! Your! Fault!
Poisonous words form in my mind, thickening my tongue with their venom, begging for release. I hate you! I HATE you!
The ugly passion of my own emotion jolts me back from the precipice of rage.
Is it true? Do I hate my own mother?
Hate is such a short, pointed little word, but its tip drips puddles—no, oceans—of death.
I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you.
It’s one of the verses I memorized right after Noah left.
Another verse scrolls through my head. And another. Passages I’d hidden first in my head, as Noah had explained, and later in my heart as well.
Hate and murder are equated in some of those verses.
Do I wish my mother dead?
Of course not.
I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you.
The verse from Psalm 119 plays over and over in my mind, the final few words seeming to hold extra emphasis. That I might not sin against you. That I might not sin against you.
Silently, I argue with the voice in my heart. I tried, Lord. I tried to forgive her. It didn’t take.
“I’m not like you, Jesus,” I whisper, closing my eyes. “You can forgive and forget, but I can’t. I just don’t have it in me.” A groan tears through my lips. “I can’t do it. It’s just too big. I can’t forgive her. I don’t even want to forgive her!”
And there it is, at last.
The truth.
“I’m so tired of this.” I don’t wipe away the tears that spill down my cheeks and into the terrycloth robe covering my knees. “It’s so . . . heavy. It’s drowning me. Please, help me. I want to be done with this. Please, make me want to forgive her.”
My yoke is easy. My burden is light.
Another verse, recalled from its hidden place within my heart. And it’s as sonorous in my spirit as the thunder that rattles the high-set basement windows.
“I don’t want to hate her anymore. Teach me how to love her like you love her,” I pray. The thickness in my throat painfully pulls at each whisper, but I have to get the words out. “Help me forgive her like you forgave—forgive—me.”
My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.
A tingling rush crosses my shoulders. I don’t open my eyes, but in my own request, I finally see the thing I’ve been willfully blind to.
Asking for help implies I’m doing most of the work and only require assistance. And here, now . . . with her . . .
I just don’t have it in me to forgive her. At all.
Warmth alights, feather-light on my skin.
“I have hidden your word in my heart,” I whisper. “And you live there, alive inside it. I can’t do this on my own. If it’s ever going to be real, it has to be all you, Jesus. Not me. All you. Plant your mercy in my heart toward my mother. Let it flow in and through me.”
I’m out of words, but full of truth.
I cannot forgive my mother. Not alone. But . . .
I am not alone.
I am held.
I rest my head on my knees and let peace surpass understanding.
“Faith?”
I lift my head when Mom sits on the floor beside me.
“Oh, honey.” She reaches for the box of tissues on the coffee table and hands it to me. “Faith, for what it’s worth, I’m sorry he didn’t—I’m sorry things didn’t go as you’d hoped.”
For what it’s worth.
Does her vague apology count for anything now? Or is it too little, too late?
And yet . . . the peace is still there, embracing and defying my pain, surpassing understanding as it nudges my breath into words.
“Thank you. It’s worth more than you can possibly know.”
Mom’s rapid blinks can’t dry her eyes fast enough to keep a tear or two from spilling. She looks away—and I do, too, knowing her aversion to letting anyone see her cry.
“Mom,” I begin softly. “I know I did things I shouldn’t have when Noah was still here, but I didn’t do a lot of the things you thought I did.”
“You were young. It was unpleasant, but it was natural. All teenagers rebel in some way. It’s over now.”