“What a terrible hostess I am. Here it is, past noon. And have you even eaten, Michael? Jesus, the first time I get to feed my son, and I’m so happy I forget! What do you want? Anything!” At that, he curled against her shoulder, smiling. And then, as if finally convinced of finally being with her, he finally closed his eyes. More weight shifted against her ribs. Almost too much. And within seconds, she saw two neck muscles relax and Michael, slumped full along her, was asleep. “There,” she barely whispered. She stared only forward, not wanting to seem greedy.
But Susan could now freely attend the lion-sized sss-ing of his breath. She could, slow, turn and inspect him, unembarrassed and at close range. His mouth half-open, she could see his teeth were very good, thank God. Yes, his hard life, working on a farm, begging for his own computer, had given him some junior-salesman’s lapel-grabbing half-confidence. But asleep, he was only just teenaged, one raw mammoth male baby.
Proud, she inventoried the eyelashes, his massive tapered hands. The left thumbnail did show powder-blue from being slammed by something. She quaked, imagining all the strenuous labor he had done. It moved her, the picture of him working outdoors. Shirtless, being practical, shirtless if possible. Now, yes, she must also note how, between his legs, packed into and against the left side of these too-plaid trousers, there, bent clumped proof he fully qualified as one of his gender. She felt a mix of family snobbery and secular curiosity.
In the whole world, for her whole life, who else had there ever been?
• • •
SHE CALCULATED EVERY mile he’d driven to find her. She had always imagined tracing him; but all along it was she who’d needed rescue. She wondered what smiling lie he’d told the retired Marine Corps geezers at the gate. How had he slipped into this smart cul-de-sac driving a Honda that bad-off?
• • •
STARING OVER AT his guiltless bulk, she felt herself become a crowd come out to greet him. Her family and even the weak Doc Dennis and his other children, all gathered to admire this sleeper still half-schooled but fully formed.
Susan even glimpsed some narrow footpath toward a future. Till this today, till him, she’d never much believed in one. At age fourteen, she’d had to downgrade. She’d seen her own childish Luck, cut-short, surrender to adult-discount Fate. Did Michael’s stepping in here reverse that? Might his cleverness in tracking her mean true Luck’s return? It now slept tipped close against her. Luck must weigh a hundred and seventy pounds, easy.
How could there have been so little love on earth just forty minutes back and now, this suddenly, so much?
• • •
SHE MUST NOT be late to fetch her elder daughter. That part came clear. Her right breast ached again; she felt some blind command. Susan remembered—once they’d taken away her infant—she had leaked so much private milk. It felt hotter than her body-temperature; as if its own prideful chemistry kept warming it, warming it for one small lost mouth. So much had been wasted, blotting the home’s overstarched sheets. She recalled nursing a baby she had borrowed at the movies. She remembered the policeman’s big black shoes outside her bathroom stall. “Best to give it back, miss. You’ll have your others. My wife and me got six. But, miss, that one, it’s not strictly yours. Please.”
How passive she had been! Shouldn’t she have fought harder for this boy here? Might she not have run away while he was still kicking safe inside her? Milk was just the start of everything unclaimed. “Things To Do While You Were Out: ‘Nurse Firstborn.’”
Yes. Now, feeling relieved, she reached to unbutton her white blouse. Beginning with top-button number-one, she imagined breast-feeding him at last, even if the deed now offered scant food value.
Just then Michael opened his eyes. He saw her, grinned and yawned and stretched at once. He recognized at once where he was; his whole face opened like the Book of Genesis. Firewalls broke like piecrusts.
“Hungry?” She smiled toward her halted unbuttoning.
“Whoa. Maybe a sandwich, at least to start with!?” He laughed.
It was how he said it.
Susan whispered down into his waking, “I’ve kept expecting you.” She meant she had prophesied his coming; she also heard that word admit to his awaited birth. If a young mother is forcibly etherized, deprived of recalling bringing forth the child, her bearing him never seems to end . . . Not till the child himself bounds in, then curls against her fully, one divided body closing in to finally forgive itself.
SHE’D NEED TO tell him about her present, incidentals: the all-too-decent husband, two smart daughters quick to laugh. But it seemed wrong mentioning them yet. Nor did she want those others to yet see this unlucky boy who looked like Luck itself. Even Susan had only got to stare at him these precious first, what? twenty (maybe eighty?) minutes.
The phone rang again. That Michael might leave before Choral-Society-practice-pick-up already worked in her a new insanity. She knew she’d release a screech rivaling her mother’s on first stepping off the boat. Susan had never felt more pity for her mom than she did right now, simply looking at this young boy well-formed. You could’ve almost designed such a one for yourself. And then to have sent him off to bunk with fundamentalist fascist farmers! But if, in the end, he worked hard enough to find and then return to you, didn’t that make him even more yours?
“I FINALLY GET to make my boy a sandwich, bird!” she addressed the sparrow in her kitchen. It now cocked its head as if trained to. Even this wild thing seemed their pet. Susan, pulling out her very best Dijon mustard, asked young Michael’s future plans, his hopes, at least. They chatted even as she pointed to his rightful counter stool while she cut bread. Kitchen walls showed the pretty glossy butter-yellow of well-being. Soon, sandwiches. The sparrow perched on a windowsill, then mantel, chandelier, valance, window again. It was getting used to having them in its room.
Susan wondered aloud about her son’s schooling so far. He said, sure, he wanted to go more into computers, game theory, all that. Yeah, college would be great. But what with these unbelievable student loans you had to pay off . . .
She’d soon made him three separate sandwiches, not keeping count. She explained she’d best phone to cancel her small part in a meeting she must miss tonight; she’d explain that some pressing unexpected family matter had come up. True enough.
“But wait. Where are you staying?” she asked at last.
“Out U.S. 70 Business. Hampton Inn.”
“Your eldest sister will need picking up from choir-practice in twenty minutes. I’ll do that. —But, here. The house key. Now go and get your stuff, babe.”
CURTAINS DOWN
“THANK YOU,” I TELL MY FRIEND JEMMA.
We’re in her car during this sleet storm. She’s just explained to me the truth about the mother-son. We met them only tonight. Of course, from ancient texts and hillbilly legends I knew about such deeds. I’ve just never spent any time with the actual folks.
As my friend drives us home from the musical, I keep unusually silent, six whole blocks. November’s storm keeps throwing gallons of rain at us, pounds of torn red foliage strike our windshield.
Jemma ends her plain version of the tale. (“So she’s really his mother, see?”) I already sit imagining a hundred ways one person might tell another such a saga. So many questions live hidden in it. First, you’d gather all known facts. Once grasped, those might offer you a new way of knowing. After documenting, you must imagine inward, capturing some fraction of the costs to them, the reward of it.
I turn toward my friend and say, “Thanks, really. Sad, odd. Guess it’s good to know such things can happen. God, how people adapt. And it does sort of make sense, step by step, which is how we live, I guess. In days. Strange, having just met them and how much we liked them. —But, just curious, Jem, by telling me? what did you want me to guess?”
She smiles at my ingratitude. “Just figured it’d interest you. And they chose to sit beside us. Their story sort of found us. And because you’re jumpy and ex
hausted from waiting to hear about your book. Your friends want you always in the mid-dle of your next novel. You alone will know if this sort of thing has any, what? story potential for a writer like you. Most sane ones wouldn’t touch it with a borrowed pole.
“You say you’re always interested in whatever brings people back to Falls. Don’t you think she’d be the last person on earth to come home? Atlanta’s all strangers and safe. Maybe people do return to scenes of crimes, especially crimes against them. She seems that determined not to feel ashamed. Look, would you rather I hadn’t told you? ’Cause I can see it’s already got your attention.” My head shakes yes. Again I thank her: “Likely you haven’t heard the end of this.”
She explains how other parents at school tittle-tattle about these two. Word got out fast. In so few years since high school she hadn’t changed that much. The couple ignores rough treatment. It’s as if everybody sees them but no one can admit it. Might as well be ghosts here. Tonight, nobody spoke to them. No one saved seats for them.
“It scares people.” Jemma keeps driving. “After he turned up in Georgia, I guess all five of them tried living in that one big house. Didn’t work out. So here they are in Falls, at local pageants where she started. Her oldest daughter has real talent. I don’t even know how I feel about it all. Only just learned about their being kin. One gossipy old teacher’s aide. —Still, even before I told you the truth, I saw in your eyes you’d half-guessed, too. Now other moms here won’t let their daughters sleep over at Susan’s. Michael’s half-sisters, they’re just crazy about him. Well, you met him and see how easy that is. Since he turned up with his cell phone in her drive, his mom, she’s smoothed him off some. Upgraded his clothes, taught him the forks. Got him a real car. But I doubt even their older girl knows yet, really knows, not the full story.
“Susan got custody of the daughters. Has a day job, editing online. She’s quit leading book groups. Likely all those trophy wives she never trusted finally felt free to cut her dead at Nordstrom’s. Probably jealous all along. Simplifies things, I guess. They say she’s putting him through grad school. Some math, higher math. He commutes to State. We sometimes see the four of them at movies, eating popcorn from one giant tub. They ski. People say their skiing’s almost Olympic-level. Fearless, the four of them.
“Her doctor-husband, must have been a sweet enough guy, didn’t make the fuss he might’ve in court. He’s the one you have to feel sorriest for. That’s one squeeze-play no husband can expect!—Still, remember what you said, right after meeting them? Before I even told you?”
“Uh-oh. No. Remind me.”
“‘Real family-unit-feel.’ You guessed they likely met only after some trauma or natural disaster, ‘maybe even some resort tsunami-rescue-type thing.’ ‘Both pretty, and pretty much made for each other.’”
“I said that? Guess I did, huh? Oh dear. Did I also mention needing to hurry your place and make us two pretty stiff drinks?!”
We laugh. Now I’m asking, do these two share a last name? I could look things up, even later tonight. What’s fascinating—it’s real and we just met them. Same events that overwhelm Greek dramas live on side streets paying taxes in our smallest towns. Of course, after discovering certain facts, someone careful would have to document into being the coincidences and emotions. Someone would get to. Instead of disapproving, someone could decide, where possible, to try and love all this alive.
Storm-soaked, we dodge into my friend’s warm house. First-thing I build a little fire. I know where everything is. What a good use for last Sunday’s Times. I hear Jemma in her kitchen. She’s pulling out ice, our favorite glasses, half-a-bottle of Jack Daniel’s.
We’ve settled in as firewood catches fast. We pour bourbon and find we want to make some sort of toast.
We can only think of them.
We can only choose to bless them.
So many routes to joy.
Most of them, detours.
SAINTS HAVE
MOTHERS
For Elizabeth Spencer
I
My daughter often gave away my shoes. Orange rubber garden clogs, Easy Spirit flats, all migrated overnight from my bedroom to the poor. She left me standing before a closet newly-purged. She left her mother—fully-dressed, having finally found the car keys—innocent of owning footwear.
STILL, MY GIRL WAS BORN A SOMEBODY. AND THEY CAN do as they like. Us others? At our luckiest we’re with somebody.
Falls, NC, always told us she was one amazing little girl. No argument from Mom here. I never minded showing her off downtown. Very early I taught her the alphabet. Neighbors warned she’d be bored in school. But as I changed her final didies, Caitlin read aloud to me. Her efficient goodness warmed then spooked us. The first word her brother said was, “Touchdown.” But Cait? she flung out both plump arms and cried up, “Love!” (Call me selfish; I would have settled for “Mommy.”)
We had a cocker spaniel she named Cookie and the creature got very sick from eating part of a deer hit by some car. Pretty little golden dog but with God knows what awfulness forever going into its mouth. Caitlin was three then and her dad worked upstairs in his office; I’d stepped next door, trying to learn cooking from my one neighbor who baked. Caitie came rushing over. “Cookie’s super-sick, Mom.” Crying, my girl led us to our bathroom where the poor dog stood going from both ends, looking thoroughly ashamed of itself. But Caitlin, even that young, had seen all this about to happen. And, to spare my needing to clean up later, she’d hoisted a fair-sized retching dog into our tub. So I could just rinse dog-damage down the drain. Cait, sobbing, stood patting Cookie’s back curls as our neighbor waved me into the hall.
“At three years old? Are you kidding? I would not have known to stick a streaming dog into the tub, and I’m forty. What your day-care ladies say about her is true, Jean. She’s not a baby, she’s the American damn Red Cross. Unsinkable. —God, Jeannie, aren’t you relieved?”
But I was not.
Sure, I felt proud; but also worried and—to be honest—forever slightly irked. See, I already feared for her. I resented in advance the exhaustion her very openness would likely cost her, then me. She forever left our front door open. Birds, mice, cold fronts, panhandlers, ragtag Jehovah’s Witnesses, all came straight in.
—You can be so afraid for somebody, you grow half-scared of them. Is it wrong to want your child to live—safe because selfish—past age eighteen? I sensed what overmuch potential might expose Cait to.
She was intelligent as I; some would say smarter (and therefore more confident and so, kinder). Even then I guessed she’d never let that brilliance grow only self-critical; Cait would never savage herself as I’ve been accused of doing, as I have done.
She was born into an age when it’s just great to be a girl, no questions asked. I’m from the generation where, for all our sister-talk, most women don’t quite like women so much.
(I can tell you this . . . sons are easier.)
• • •
TODAY, IN SUN, I must look a hard sixty, not my usual forty-three. I’ve just survived quite the transition. Extraordinary children make outsized demands. And the parent, she meets those. Even if not a full somebody myself, I am not unbright . . . And yet, despite being first in my class at St. Cecilia’s, aside from the IQ of 156 (not that IQ is everything) . . . I, despite my publishing a poem in the Atlantic Monthly when I was just nineteen (if one stickily titled “Spring’s Gift [to Her]”), I will die famous—if at all—as this somebody’s mother.
I also have the twin boys, ten. But when I hear myself described while wandering our mall, it’s, “There goes Caitlin Mulray’s mom. Super-smart supposeb-ly. Until you-know-what happened. Since then, they say she’s turned semi-derango.”
You know what’s deranged? World events.
• • •
EVERY PARENT REHEARSES the phone-call. In my terror it always came at three a.m. . . . I knew before I answered. It tightened my groin, one farewell birth-contraction. Shaming t
o be the soggy single parent mentioned on Alive at Five. The student described as “brilliant, missing”? Yours, your child.
• • •
I, JEAN, REMAIN basically an able person—a Democratic poll-watcher. Probably the last person alive for whom Lyndon Johnson’s “Great Society” still seems great. A lapsed Episcopalian, I’m yet in love with the defrocked grandeur of the old prayer book. I continue studying my irregular French verbs (though now I only parlez with that cheerfully-pretentious gay wine-seller at Whole Foods).
Overinformed on U.S. rogue-cop anti-eco foreign policy, my response has been to grow all our basil and tomatoes. Protesting the War for Petroleum, I’ve learned to change our Volvo wagon’s oil filter. Like my new green rubber boots here, I’m just . . . Jean. Still clean if no longer stylish.
Most recent hard-to-memorize French verb? Conclure: To conclude, induce, gather.
AND NOW, AFTER our international drama so publicly endured—my own family has sent me away, as punishment. “Recuperation,” my ex-husband calls it. At some Ocracoke Island B&B. Will this ferry ever get us there?
Caitlin’s father, my ex, the civil engineer, “strongly suggested” I come here to our U.S. coastline’s Outer Banks. This is the longest ferry ride I’ve ever taken. In my whole life, it’s my first vacationing alone. I know these rubber knee-boots make me look, as my twins said . . . tsunami-ready. But I needed footgear quick after Cait’s last purge. My ex and his new spouse flew east to occupy my house. They’ll tend to things while I gather myself out here on my lonesome. But tell me how. No one explained that, see.
MAPPING MY DAUGHTER’S final tribute—music: choral and instrumental, eulogies by folks aged nine to eighty—was the hardest thing I’ve tried since pushing three babies from my body. And the most satisfying. If that sounds derango, then, hey, I stand accused.