Sharing any of this unfolding adventure with my mother had seemed out of the question. I don’t remember even mentioning the film to her until that Saturday after the two men had called, and then only because she had rushed out of her room, worried that a rattler had gotten me, since I was jumping around the kitchen, screeching like a stuck pig. Yet when I relayed the events to her it was with unemotional brevity, containing all my excitement, never inviting her to relive it with me. And in that way: cutting off my nose to spite my face.
But at the same time, a force was building inside me, an urgency to face her, to finally jump off the platform, over the pool pole, and into the icy water. Baa had been determined to try every different treatment that the doctor suggested, some making her sicker than others, until now she looked like a baby bird, big-eyed and featherless. Seeing her made me want to find something she would eat, so I was constantly making things like tapioca pudding or peach cobbler or rice and beans, foods that might seem appealing.
One evening, not long after Mary had become mine—a Friday, I think—I’d been released from work early and decided to make Baa’s favorite dinner: pot roast with egg noodles. I hadn’t planned to talk about anything, didn’t pick the time or gear myself up. It was just an ordinary night. And as she sat at her usual counter spot, I leaned against the sink a short distance away, watching her cut up the food on her plate into tiny pieces like she was about to feed it to a two-year-old. When I’d felt trapped as a child, caught in the heat of my stepfather’s scorn, I would look for my mother’s eyes, hoping to be saved. And now, so many years later, I looked for those eyes again, half-hidden in the loose folds of her shrunken face, and started to talk.
I began with Joy, asking her questions about my grandmother, the woman whom I had loved but who had always seemed rigidly straightlaced. “Joy could be funny, and even playful when she was young,” Baa told me. I shook my head, sympathizing with how difficult it must have been for my mother to be raised by someone who herself had received so little parenting, who had spent her childhood in a loveless world of fear. We both smiled, recalling little things about my grandmother, then laughed when we remembered how she would grit her teeth at the hint of anything sexual, even a word. Aware of my own jabbing discomfort, I asked Baa about her sexuality, if she’d ever found it difficult—then watched her flinch, just as Joy would have, just as I was. She turned her head, looking out the window for a moment, then reluctantly told me that there had been a time, once in her life, when she had seen a psychiatrist to “work some things out.” And oh, how I wish I had that moment back again or had more time, or could have been the me I am now. I never asked her about that. Never asked her how old she was when she’d seen that psychiatrist or what it was she had hoped to “work out.” I wish I had.
But on that night, I was focused on where I needed to go and couldn’t get sidetracked. “You told me once that Jocko had confessed to you, told you that something had happened with me, that he was seeking your forgiveness.” (Her forgiveness, mind you, not mine.)
With a quick nod she said, “Yes.”
“What did he tell you had happened?” Without taking her eyes off me, she took a deep breath, and with a slight stutter she recounted how he’d explained that it had been one terrible incident, that he’d been drunk, that he’d always felt awful and had suffered because of it. And when I calmly asked her again what exactly he’d told her, she braced herself, took a beat, then continued.
“He said he’d put his thing between your legs and…” She took another breath and gave me a gift, which cost her a lot. “And… and came.”
I was slapped in the face with the truth. What he had done was real and it was unforgivable. And for years and years and years my mother had known, talking to my sister about it but never me. Only then did my heart begin to race, my insides vibrating as they always did whenever the memories came near.
Without looking away or hesitating I flatly told her what needed to be said. “It was not one moment of drunken indiscretion, Mother. It was my childhood. My whole childhood.”
She sat back in her chair, horrified into silence for a long moment before defiantly crying out, “I don’t believe you. I don’t believe you!!!”
I waited, not angry or frightened, feeling only clarity. “Mom, why would I lie? Why would I do that right now, knowing what’s happening in both our lives? Why would I do that?”
With her face trembling, her meal cut up before her, she searched my eyes until all the tension drained from her body and she knew it was true. “Why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t you tell me? Why, why?” she kept repeating, over and over.
Very quietly I replied, “I was a child, Mother. I was a child and didn’t know that it was any different than any other child’s life. I was afraid. I don’t know, Mother. I was a child.”
I could see her wander around in her head, not knowing whether to eat or to remain as stunned and overwhelmed as she truly was. “Then he was a monster. You never told me what a monster he was. You should have told me.”
“I don’t know if he was a monster or just a wounded, flawed human like the rest of us. Well, yeah. Okay. Maybe a little worse than the rest of us.” She silently nodded, hardly moving, her frail, defeated body sagging with shame and regret, and I felt engulfed by her pain, instantly wanting to take it away, to beg for her forgiveness. “I’m sorry to tell you about this right now when you’re struggling. I’m so sorry. I’ve been alone in it and needed you to know.”
My job had always been to protect her from everything—most especially from me—and my need to do that begged me to forget myself and to keep her unimpaired. When in reality it had been her job to protect me, not the other way around.
But that was then and this was now. “Mom, it’s fine, really. Look at me. I thrived,” I said, doing a clownish jig around the kitchen. “Come on, let it go for now. Don’t let me ruin your night.”
And after that understatement of all time, she agreed with a meek “Okay.”
I put her dinner on a tray, then carried it to her room, demanding she let it go, telling her she needed to eat and then to sleep. “That’s enough, Mom, let it go.”
“Okay,” she said with her eyes down. After closing the door slowly, I climbed the stairs to my room, feeling just as stunned and shamed as she did.
I don’t know that I slept that night. I’m certain that she didn’t. The next morning when the house stayed quiet, absent of its usual door slamming, I went to her room praying she was still alive. Gently knocking, I called to her, heard nothing, then tried again. Suddenly she threw the door open with a strength I didn’t know she still possessed, then grabbed my arms as though she were about to scold me. In a strong, clear voice she said, “You are not alone in this anymore. It’s mine too and I want to hear it all, every bit of it. You will never be alone in this again. I let you down and I’m so very sorry, Sally. This belongs to me too. I own it with you.”
I couldn’t move for a moment. Then awkwardly, I wrapped my arms around her emaciated body, clinging to this person who was now even smaller than me. The once-beautiful woman who had held me, soothed me, had encouraged and enabled me. The mother I’d spent my whole life looking for and who had ultimately given me everything she knew how to give. There we stood, not a mother and a daughter, but one whole person.
Feeling as drained as she must have, I said, “Later, Mom. We’ll talk later. We’ll sit outside under the oak tree and talk. But not now, okay?”
“Okay, Sal, my baby girl. We’ll talk, for as long as it takes.” We stood in the doorway of her room, looking into each other’s eyes until slowly we started to laugh, wiping the tears from our faces in exactly the same way.
I promised her I would tell her everything. But I never did. I never brought it up again. I didn’t need to.
Epilogue