Love Letters to the Dead

One night, Dad stopped into the bar where Mom worked. He was passing through town, back in what he called his “wild days,” when he rode his motorcycle across the country. Based on the old pictures, May and I thought he was quite a stud. Mom must have thought he was, too, because when he came into the bar, she asked him to come and see her in Les Mis the next night.

Dad said it only took the length of the performance for him to fall in love. When it was over, he was waiting outside of Mom’s dressing room with a bouquet of daisies. She invited him over to her apartment, and they stayed up late, stargazing on the roof of the building and talking. After that, Dad found a job in town working on a construction crew for a new hotel, and he saw Mom as much as he could. They rode the tramway to the top of the mountains, watched the watermelon-colored sunsets, and danced in Mom’s little studio to Beatles songs. Four months later, Mom found out she was pregnant with May, and they decided to get married.

When Mom told the story, she said that she’d always wanted a home, but it wasn’t until she had us that she knew what that meant. Now that I’m writing it down to tell you, it seems like a tragedy. But when we were growing up, we thought it was romantic. May would ask to hear the story over and over, and Mom loved to tell May how she was the spark that started it all. “You were ready to come into the world, and so you did. We have you to thank for us, baby girl.”

When we were little, Mom still used to go to auditions sometimes for theater productions or local commercials. Once she got a part in a commercial for the Rio Grande Credit Union. They shot her waking up on the steps of a new house in her pajamas, saying, “Am I dreaming?” Then a lady dressed as the credit union fairy drops keys into her hand. We’d squeal when the ad came on TV, saying, “Look, it’s you, Mommy!”

But mostly the auditions didn’t work out, and she’d come home like a balloon whose air had been let out. Eventually, she said that she’d missed her window, and that if you want to be a real actress, you have to live in California. She took up painting instead and got a job filing papers in a doctor’s office. She said that she thought being a mom was her real job. She said that we were her greatest accomplishment.

Mom would say all the time how she wanted us to have happy childhoods, happier than her own. Sometimes she’d ask us if we were happy, and we’d always say yes. Still, she said that she wished she could give us more. She liked to talk about somedays. Someday we’ll have a house with a pool. Someday we’ll learn to ride horses. Someday we’ll have beautiful dresses with sequins head to toe, like the ones on TV. Someday we’ll go to California. We’ll see the ocean together.

She and May and I used to talk about it, planning the perfect road trip. Mom would say that the waves sound better than trains at night and better than rain and better than a crackling fire. We used to plan how, when we had the money, we’d get on I–40 and just drive. We’d stop along the way at Arby’s for “roast beast” sandwiches (we called them that because of How the Grinch Stole Christmas). We’d get a hotel room and stay up all night watching movies and drinking sodas with ice from the ice maker, and the next day, we’d drive all the way to where the land meets the water.

But as it turned out, Mom went without us. She cried when she told me. “I have to go away for a while. I’m so sorry,” she said. “I just can’t be here right now.” As she tried to hug me, I felt frozen in her arms. I wanted to tell her she was breaking the promise. We were all supposed to go together. Of course it was too late for that, but I wondered why she didn’t at least offer to take me with her. She said she’d get her head back on and her heart sewn as best she could and come back soon. She never said when soon is.

Now she’s just a voice on the phone. She called me at Aunt Amy’s a couple of hours ago. “Hi, Laurel. How are you, sweetie?”

“Okay. How are you?” I tried to picture where she is, but all I could see in my mind was a faded postcard—skinny palm trees rising into a pale blue sky.

“I’m okay. I miss you, honey.” She sniffled, and my body tensed up. I thought, Don’t cry don’t cry. I hate it when Mom cries. May knew how to make her stop, but I never did.

“Yeah, I miss you, too.”

“How is school? What did you do today?”

“The usual. Went to classes.”

“Are you making new friends?”

“Mmm-hmm.”

“That’s good. I’m happy for you.”

And then there was a long silence. I didn’t know what to say to her.

“Mom, I should go. I have homework.”

“Okay. I love you.”

“You too.”

I hung up, and just like that, Mom vanished back into the land of washed-out palm trees.

Judy, I read that you said your first memory was music. Music that fills up a home. And one day, suddenly the music could escape through a window. For the rest of your life, you had to chase it.

Yours,

Laurel