Chapter Twenty-One #4
My mother was sitting at the kitchen table doing The New York Times crossword puzzle. She had her reading glasses on and occasionally looked up at me where I stood, arms crossed, by the front
door.
“You forgot because you don’t ever think of me. I am never front of mind. Even when I was a kid. Remember how many times you
forgot to come pick me up from dance class? How many times Amy Seligman’s mom had to take me home?”
“Well, she was a housewife. She had nothing much else going on.”
“Amy’s mother is a saint.”
My mother rolled her eyes.
“Excuse me for being a mother and a person with other things on her mind.”
“Oh, it’s so crazy to think I would ever want my own mother to be curious about my life? To know things about me? You don’t
know anything about me.”
“What don’t you think I know, Elise?”
“You have never once acknowledged how crazy it was that you up and left two daughters!”
“I have apologized.”
“Yeah, but barely sincerely. Barely.”
“You know, if I wanted to be yelled at, I would’ve stayed with Charles.”
“Why did you leave your perfectly weird boyfriend anyway?”
She took off her glasses, placed them on the newspaper, and stood up, crossing her arms.
“We were up for the same job, but I have more experience. He was my assistant when we first met, if you recall.”
“Oh I recall. Painfully recall.”
She picked up her glasses and put them on her head like a headband. She stared at me, wrestling with something she wanted
to say.
“He was promoted. Ahead of me. I was supposed to run the whole department, but now Charles would be my boss, every day. And
he would secretly rely on me to run the place without giving me any credit. Do you know how many times men have leapfrogged
over me? How many papers I’ve written as first author, how many studies I’ve led that made a real difference? And still, they
get paid more. Charles continued to fail up and I couldn’t even look at him when we got home. He gets asked to give talks.
And I’m treated like a secretary with a PhD.”
It was the first time I’d heard my mother speak about her work in a way that wasn’t bragging.
“Mom, that’s awful.”
“When your hair turns grey, watch out. They stop seeing you entirely.”
“I had no idea. I feel for you. But also you’ve managed to once again take a conversation where I try to get you to focus
on me and turned it into a conversation about you.”
“Well, what the fuck, Elise. You’re an adult now. I’m not perfect. You always knew that. And you’re not perfect either. And
you’re old enough now to know your father is far from fucking perfect.”
“Don’t you dare talk shit about Dad.”
“You know, I didn’t just up and leave. I got offered that research trip six months beforehand and your father insisted I turn
it down. It was the greatest achievement of my life up until that point, and he said I couldn’t do it because he wasn’t equipped
to be a full-time parent. He said that if I took the job, he wouldn’t let me come back. It wasn’t some big love he had for me, he wasn’t heartbroken. He was pissed. And his ego was bruised because
he had a defective wife with her own ambitions who didn’t want to obey him.”
“That cannot be true. Obey him? That sounds insane. That’s not Dad.”
“The reason I didn’t come back to live with you, once the grant was up, was because your father forbade it, like a stubborn,
and, might I add, secretly drunk child. He threatened to sue for sole custody if I fought it. He didn’t want it—he was just
trying to control me. So I didn’t. I accepted my weekends with you, and it was very difficult. I wanted to come home to you
both. I argued that I should. It was his decision.”
“No. This doesn’t match with literally anything I know.”
“That is the honest truth. I’ve kept the secret so long, I almost started to believe I was the devil you all made me out to
be. But I can’t keep it in any longer. He used you both as pawns.”
Nothing she was saying made sense. I filled the sink with our dishes, started running the water.
If what she was saying was true, it put a whole other lens on that first year after she left, when Dad took almost six months off work and just lay in bed heartbroken.
And I had to step up, which I thought I was doing in a heroic-like gesture to help my depressed father.
The idea that he was drunk and pouting and didn’t want
to be our only parent, that was a very convenient way for her to understand the past.
“Well, there’s two sides to every story,” I said, turning to look at her.
“OK,” she said, raising both hands up. “Believe what you want to believe. I’ve had to let it go over the years. But you think
about what feels true in your gut. What makes the most sense. Was I a terrible, inattentive mother when you were small children?”
I took a beat to think about it.
“Not really, except for forgetting to pick us up sometimes,” I admitted. My memories of her were that she was mostly present.
She made dinner every night. She signed us up for sports and activities. She came to our school plays and teacher meetings.
Maybe she wasn’t good at playing with us or being super invested our emotional lives, but that wasn’t all that unusual for
parents of that era.
“I’ve never had a good memory for certain daily details. I get really focused on my work. I always thought you were the same,
you know? I wanted to get you tested for ADHD but your father rolled his eyes about it. But anyway, I’m not saying I’m proud
of myself, I’m just saying there is more to it than you knew.”
“OK, well, thanks,” I said quietly, “for being honest with me.”
“I’m going to go get milk for the morning. We’re out.”
I nodded.
I took the treat jar out and did my rounds again, calling Okanagan’s name. Dave popped out, stood on the porch watching me
go between the trees and bushes, calling his name.
“Sometimes he just goes where he wants to, but he usually comes back.”
“Doesn’t that sound like a nice way to live?”
“Agreed.”
“I worry about coyotes though.”
“He’s a good climber.”
I stood at the bottom of his steps, hoping he’d invite me in. But now we had new rules.
“I heard you fighting with your mom. Is all OK?”
“We are working through things we should have talked about fifteen years ago.”
“Oof, but good for you. Most people just let things fester.”
“I suppose.”
“Well,” he said, and I smiled, hopeful, “I want more than anything to invite you in, but I guess that wouldn’t make sense,
would it. Against the rules and all.”
“I suppose,” I admitted.
“Have a good sleep, Goldy.”
He went back inside before I had a chance to reply.
My phone rang with an unknown local number as I was standing there, feeling like I might unravel into the cloud of mosquitos
slowly descending around me. Neve. She’d talked to Hailey’s parents. They agreed to let her go for the audition, but only
if she was back at a reasonable time. I took their number and address.
“It’s great you’re offering her this opportunity, you know. I’m sorry about how I acted.”
“Me too. Thanks for calling them.”
I hung up and felt like Neve and I had finally broken through all the tension and were on the same team.