Their time together was off to a bad start. Heekin wanted to rewind things, to begin again. Instead, he told her about his life at the paper, the bland stories he normally covered, and his dream of someday finding a subject worthy of writing an actual book about. All the while my mother sat in the passenger seat, smelling of rosewater like her name, her delicate hands stroking her black leather purse as though it were a cat purring on her lap. Empty soda cans littered the floor, and she nudged them away whenever his Volkswagen made a turn.
When they pulled into the strip mall, she asked if he minded parking around back, since she preferred using that entrance in order to slip in and out more easily. He did as she wanted, and my mother told Heekin she’d just be a moment. True to her word, she emerged in no time, pausing unexpectedly to examine a towering stack of thick, discarded books behind the neighboring hardware store, pulling one off the top and carrying it with her to the car. On the drive back to our house, Heekin made up his mind to allow her to do the talking. Beyond the brief explanation about the book, however—filled with wallpaper swatches, a fortuitous find, she said, since she needed help figuring out what to do about the peeling walls in our kitchen—my mother did not have much to say. Most of the ride was spent in silence, her purse on the floor now, as she turned the pages of that book, looking at all the patterns there, asking now and then his impression of a particular swatch. At last, they turned onto the lane, and Heekin could not help feeling like he’d blown his chance at some connection with her. “Good-bye,” he told her, a disproportionate melancholy stirring in his chest.
My mother thanked him, unbuckling her seat belt and getting out of the car. But in the last moment before closing the door, she surprised him by leaning in to say, “You seem like a nice man. And this story sounds important to you. Uncomfortable as it makes me, I’d like to help. Why don’t you bring your notebook and recorder in for tea?”
“Really?” he said, hearing the childish excitement in his voice.
“Really,” she told him.
Inside, my mother asked Heekin to make himself comfortable while she went to the kitchen. Rather than take a seat, he stood in the hallway, running questions he wanted to ask though his mind. My mother had set the wallpaper book and the small white bag from the pharmacy on a side table by the stairs, and the pharmacy bag was open enough for Heekin to see the jumble of amber containers inside: Tylenol with codeine, Vicodin, others with unfamiliar names. After the whistle screeched on the kettle, my mother moved through the hall with a tray to take up to my father, fetching the white bag on the way.
When she returned, they went to the living room. “So,” she began once they were seated. “What can I tell you that my husband has not?”
“Your childhood,” he said, fighting his nervousness. “He ne-ne-never to-to-told me . . . well . . . I mean we ta-ta-talked about his childhood. But we ne-ne-never touched on yours. Could you te-te-tell me . . . you know, about it?”
My mother sat patiently, waiting for him to get out all those words.
When he was done, Heekin managed, “Forgive me. It’s an old ha-ha-habit I’ve kicked. But it ha-ha-happens sometimes when I’m ne-ne-nervous.”
In a gentle voice, she asked, “Has it always been this way for you?”
“It s-s-started with m-m-my father. He used to b-b-b-bark at me, and so I felt uptight around him. The habit comes ba-ba-back whenever I’m uncomfortable.”
“I’m sorry,” she told him. “If you like, we can pray together about it and see what can be done.”
“Thank you. But with all d-d-due respect, I’m not really a believer in those things.”
“What things?”
“You know, prayer and d-d-demons.”
My mother was quiet, thinking over his statement. At last, she said, “What is prayer but meditation? What is a demon but a fear that lives inside us, one we cannot easily conquer on our own? If you prefer to use those words, it’s all right by me. So I make the same offer. If you like, we can meditate together on this fear you can’t control.”
Heekin’s answer surprised even himself. “Okay.”
My mother leaned forward in her chair. She took his warm hands in her cool ones, squeezing more strongly than he would have guessed she’d be able to do. He expected her to say something, but her lips stayed pressed together. She closed her eyes, and he took this as a cue that he should too. The only sound was the ticking of the clock, the birds chirping out in the yard.
At first, Heekin felt tempted to open his eyes and peek at her face, so near his, but then he realized he didn’t need to, he could see it there, in the darkness behind his lids. Her pale, papery skin. Her thin lips pursed. The silver crosses glinting in her ears. Just thinking of her so close, feeling her fingers against his, put him at ease. His mind drifted to some warm, unnamable place. He was a child hopping the checkerboard tiles of the floor in the grocery store. He was a child riding his bike outside his father’s ranch house in Augustine, Delaware. At last, he felt her hands slip from his. He did not open his eyes right away, but instead, he remained as he was, picturing her pretty face once more as she asked, “And how did that feel?”