I can’t exactly say what came over me that day the letter arrived. From the moment I read it, I felt anger welling up inside me, a feeling buried away so deep I had forgotten it was even there. I longed for the possibility that the all-consuming disease that afflicted the residents would take just one day off, even for the briefest of interludes, kindly taking a bow and shuffling offstage for a moment’s relief. Mr. Gauthier would actually flip to page 202 and find the new page depressing. Mrs. Lapique’s trembling hand would actually steady and flip over a card, revealing the king of hearts in all his glory. And my mom would actually be able to answer my questions.
I caught sight of her as I entered the space and she smiled at me, one small gesture she still had within her capacity. The subject I had come to raise with her was, as a rule, completely off-limits. On my tenth birthday, I had flatly refused her gift and thrown a massive tantrum in hopes she’d finally tell me who my father was. Did he really flee like a thief in the night just before my birth? Why didn’t he want me in the first place? But my mother’s own tantrum trumped mine, and she swore up and down that she would refuse to even speak to me if I ever dared ask that kind of question again. The fight stormed all through that week, with neither of us uttering a single word to each other. Finally, the following Sunday morning, on the way out of the grocery store, Mom hoisted me up into her arms, hugged me tenderly, and covered me with kisses.
“I forgive you,” she declared with a sigh.
Only my mother had the confidence and the nerve to forgive somebody else for something that was her fault to begin with. My mother was guilty of staying silent and keeping me in the dark, and it was a heavy burden to bear, living under such a shroud of mystery. I tried asking a few more times over the years, but it never worked. If my mother didn’t fly into a rage at the first mention, she would leave in a fit of tears, casting aspersions, lamenting that nothing was ever good enough for me, and that I never failed to rub her face in it, despite all the sacrifices she had made. Finally, at eighteen, I gave up asking. After all, I already knew all that I needed to know. If my father had wanted to meet me, he would have come knocking at our front door by then.
The strange letter must have given me some nerve, because I walked straight into the nursing home, looked my mother dead in the eye, and asked the big questions point-blank.
“Why did he leave us? Did he ever come to see me? Was he one of the men who came during the day to jump your bones while I was at school?”
I instantly felt terrible talking to my mother that way. We definitely got in a lot of fights, but I had never disrespected her like that. It wouldn’t have even crossed my mind to speak to her so harshly when she still had all her wits about her. Had I been dumb enough to try back then, there would have been hell to pay.
“Looks like snow,” my mother said. Her eyes drifted to a nearby table, where a care worker had just finished clearing up Mrs. Lapique’s cards and was now pushing the old woman down the hall in her wheelchair. “They made our walks shorter, which means it won’t be long before first snow. What are you doing for Christmas?”
“It’s October, Mom. Christmas is in two months, and I’ll be right here with you.”
“Oh, no you won’t!” she protested. “I can’t stand turkey! Let’s do Christmas in spring. You can take me to that restaurant I like. What’s it called? You know the one, down by the river?”
The river she was referring to was actually a lake, and the restaurant was a little snack bar that served croissants and sandwiches. Despite all that, I nodded along in agreement. Even if I was still livid, upsetting her would be pointless. She gestured down at my thumb, which was bandaged, the result of a small cut I got a couple of days before.
“You hurt yourself, honey.”
“It’s nothing,” I replied.
“Don’t you have to work today?”
My mother’s mind was perpetually floating in a very special place on the outskirts of reality. She was capable of carrying on the semblance of a conversation for a few short minutes, as long it was limited to small talk. Then, without warning, her mind would start to stray and she’d begin babbling nonsense.
“Melanie didn’t come with you today?”
Melanie and I had broken up two years before when my isolated lifestyle—which had originally attracted her—lost all its charm. After five years living with me on and off, Melanie simply took her things and waltzed out the door, leaving behind nothing but a note on the kitchen table. Her message was short and sweet. You’re a bear deep in the woods, it said.
Women really are something else. How is it they’re able to sometimes say more with one sentence than a man can get out in an entire monologue?
“You’re going to have to buy me an umbrella, you know,” Mom continued, her eyes scanning the ceiling. Then Mr. Gauthier burst into a fit of laughter that made me flinch, cackling away from a nearby chair.
“He sure is one pain in the ass. You know that I once stole it? That book of his? I didn’t find it the least bit funny. So, I gave it back to the old bum. The nurse promised me he’d be dead by New Year’s. I cannot wait!”
“That doesn’t sound like something the nurse would promise.”