“I didn’t know y’all were staying with Teddy,” she says. “I just figured you girls stayed out there cause there was more there than in Faulkner.”
“Mom, why else would I have possibly stayed in Louisville?”
“I don’t know.” She grimaces, shifts her butt. “I was surprised you put that bit in the movie, about him. That was him, wasn’t it? Finding them pictures. You all digging around where you weren’t supposed to.”
“What the shit. Did you just blame that on me?”
“Well, you were.” Then, quieter: “Did that really happen?”
“Yes.”
I see her swallow, her neck moving with effort. She closes her eyes. “Jesus wept,” she whispers.
I can’t do it. Her neck is fucked. I draw a deep gash through the page before ripping it out and crumpling it up. “What’s done is done,” I say. “At least I didn’t reveal that we might be related. Give everybody something to whisper behind their hands about the next time you go to Walmart.”
Mom pauses. “I’m sorry I told you that.”
“I’m sorry you told me that, too.”
“Because I don’t think that’s right.” Her eye twitches. “I was thinking back on it later. And I don’t think it was him. I really don’t.”
“I can’t believe we’re going over this again.”
“I remember things,” she says, “but it’s like another person doing them. Like I was somebody else. I don’t know. I got married real young. I was eighteen. I remember when you were eighteen. You were leaving home. Getting married was the furthest thing from your mind. I guess I thought your dad and I could leave together, though anybody woulda told you there was no way he was gonna leave for anywhere that wasn’t home. It was stupid. I had your brother, and then I had your sister. And it made me happy, for a little while. And then it’s like it all wore off. And I was stuck there. Like my life had been decided for me. The less I could do, the more I wanted. Wanted things I couldn’t have and I wanted things I couldn’t even think up yet, but I could feel myself wanting. And that feeling, it’s like itching. Like to drive you crazy.” She shakes her head slightly. “I just wanted and wanted and wanted. You ever felt that way?”
“Yes,” I tell her. “I have.” I feel something warm light my chest. It’s maybe the first time in my life that my mother has put something into the right words for me. “That’s kind of what I was trying to show. In the movie.”
“I know,” she says. “I know you.”
My throat tightens. I lean over to pick up the pencil so she can’t see my face. I bend down and start over.
“Teddy’s a good guy,” I manage. “But he’s so angry at me right now. And he has a right to be. He didn’t want me to make the movie. He didn’t want me to put him in it.”
“Well, you didn’t. It’s not about him. It’s about you.”
“He still hates me.” I shift position. There’s no way this picture won’t offend her. “I messed that one up. He broke it off.”
In a consoling tone, Mom says, “Well shit.” Reaches out to thump my knee. “Forget him. Just forget him. You gotta do what you gotta do. He don’t like it, he can go straight to hell. That’s what I say.”
This one is turning out better. I think I have a handle on the way her face comes together. “So did you like how we drew you in Irrefutable Love? Like you back in the day?”
She lights another Doral. “Oh yeah. I looked good.”
“Did you really watch it all the way through?”
She rolls her eyes and coughs. “What kind of mother do you think I am?”
THIS IS BETWEEN ME AND
THE VOICES IN MY HEAD
Nashville Combat and Irrefutable Love are licensed to Netflix. We’re nominated for some awards but beaten out by the Pixar types, big, flashy Cineplex productions. We never stood a chance—our loud, grainy clips next to all that slick shit, all that money and shine. I go to the awards ceremonies anyway. I sit with Brecky and Donnie and drink champagne and eat chicken.
I miss Mel then. Mostly because she would have yelled something appropriate at the screen when the Disney logo rolled by, or spat on the floor, or pissed on the red carpet outside, limo service guys drinking Diet Cokes, glumly looking on. I never noticed how big the silence was when Mel wasn’t screaming into it.
It has been almost one year.