That night we had dinner with some of my friends and their parents. There was the feel of a festive evening, though I was nervous and just wanted to get it over with. We arrived at the restaurant, the best in town, before anyone else, and my father went to the bar. As my mother headed toward the bathroom, he began the process of slamming down four gin and tonics one after the other. He drank quickly, downing each in an instant.
At dinner, my mother sat up in her chair, growing stiffer and stiffer, her hand occasionally wandering to her head to secure an errant lock. The restaurant was filled with laughter, the cheerful noises of special occasions. In the corner of the room, a young man played cocktail piano. Not songs, just riffs. Before the dinner was over, my father, less gregarious than usual, got up, red-faced, and threw off his jacket. Then, moving to the side of the piano, he began, to the astonishment of his unwitting accompanist, to sing his song: “Old Man River.”
He sang as if the restaurant were his. He sang as if all the guests at Jack’s Coronado Steak House had bought tickets for this occasion. He sang emotionally, his waves of feeling flowing through us all. The river rolled on and on, like time and change and all we might hold back if it were possible.
My emotion built with his every word and breath. The song, it seemed, lasted forever, my father’s voice growing louder as he held out his hand, I believe, to me. Betty looked down at her unfinished food. When he finished, the room exploded with applause. That evening, my father was the star. Steven stood up to clap and my mother kicked him—hard.
It was a mysterious performance. I didn’t know whether to consider it a blessing, a resentful usurping of the prominence of others that evening, or a crying out as the river’s waters swept me from his world, his extended hand, the place where it was possible for him to try to save me.
15
When you think about your mother, what do you remember?” my therapist asked. “Do you think you disappointed her? Do you ever feel guilty?” I told him this story.
When I was a kid, before I went to sleep, before she turned off the light, Betty reached for my book and closed it, took my glasses off, folded them, laid them on the table, and took my hand.
Then, closing our eyes, we said the “Now I Lay Me” prayer out loud, adding a list of blessings for those who needed them. Together, we named the names, always beginning with Mammy, Granny, Aunt Bess, and Aunt Winnie. We turned it into a sort of game: Making our way through Madison, from one street to the next, we asked for help for those suffering in this place or that, for people who were poor or who had lost someone, or those who had found themselves in trouble. We traveled through town, saying name after name.
“Just think of all of us together, all over town, asking help for each other,” Betty said. “Try to think of the people who have no one else to remember them.”
“Does it work?” I asked.
“It is something we can do for each other. Bow your head now, bow your head. Maybe there is nothing else, but we can do this for people. We can remember them when they are sick and remember them when they go. We have to understand we are all together here. We have to try and help people.”
If there was a time when I heard my mother say what it was she believed in, what she stood for, it was at these moments. Betty always wanted to try to rescue people who were sick or alone, to do whatever she could for those who had no one. She called and checked on those she barely knew when they came out of the hospital or if they were ill. She worried about people who were out there on their own. The worst thing she could imagine was being sick and alone.
One night, I decided it was time that I said my prayers without my mother. It was after one of her eye surgeries and I was scared she was going blind. I wanted to ask God to look out for her and it seemed she should not be present. I didn’t want to make her think of what might happen to her. The idea of praying for her in her presence was embarrassing to me.
When I told Betty that I needed to say my prayers on my own, her face changed. She dropped my glasses on the table and looked down at her lap before pulling away. I wanted to take it back, but it was too late, she was gone. She left so fast. She didn’t bring it up, but the next night she did not come to my room. Never again would we have our special time. She would not risk being sent away again. I grew up to be just like her. Like my mother, I flee at the slightest suggestion I am unwanted.
. . .