“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry I worried everyone.”
“I know you are. It’s okay.” Rhea cradles her close, and I wonder if she ever comforted my mom in hard times. Part of me wants to interject with all my questions, but now is not the time.
Over Tara’s shoulder, Rhea mouths, Thank you.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
The next night, I’m staring at our cabin’s thicket of small children. Somehow, the bedroom routine seems to make them double: little girls everywhere. They bound around, through the routine. Pajamas on, teeth brushed, bathroom squabbles broken up before they escalate to tears.
“Well, we’re done with No Flying in the House,” I say when they’ve settled. “Who wants to pick the next book?”
Thuy raises her hand. “Can you read ‘Posy and the Dreaming Tree’?”
“Oh. Sure.”
She scampers over to hand me the hand-drawn book. She’s been keeping it on her neat little shelf.
I stare down at the cover in my hands. At Posy’s fur, sketched with thin strokes of autumn red. Posy wears a flower behind her ear. It’s familiar, like a daisy but with slimmer, purple petals. An aster. Rachel taught me that.
Rachel. My hands go cold. Rachel illustrated this.
When I was little, we would draw together for hours. I tried to emulate her delicate flowers—the curved arcs of tulips, the dotted centers of sunflowers. And asters just like this.
I’m still studying the pages, heart thumping off-beat, when the girls gather around. They look expectant in their soft pajamas, and my mouth feels too dry to read aloud.
But I open to the first page. “?‘Once there was a little fox named Posy who loved her family.’?”
A fox named Posy whose parents died. Who went to live with extended family. Who was eventually adopted by yet another family. Who longed to care for people, to be brave, to be a mother.
It’s a story I’ve been told my whole life. I thought it was a fable, but no. This is my mother’s story, illustrated by Rachel. My lips won’t move to form the words on the next page.
“Hansson? Are you crying?” Brooklyn asks. “Are you sad?”
“It’s just a very sad and beautiful story,” I manage. “Isn’t it?”
They all murmur their agreement.
“Sorry. Silly me!” I wipe my cheeks and turn to Garcia. “Can you take over?”
In the bathroom, I weep as quietly as I can. I cry into my hands, back leaned against the door. Because once there was a girl named Marianne, who grew up to be my mother. And I never knew she lived with a wolf.
In all the times I wondered what happened to put my mom in foster care, did I ever truly consider this? I don’t think I wanted to. I don’t think I could have.
By the time I emerge, nose red from crying, Garcia is holding the book open to the final page.
In a softly decided voice, she reads the final words: “It is not the type of love that ends.”
I slide the book into my backpack the next morning. It’s still dark, the girls asleep in their various postures: Thuy in a fetal position, Payton with one arm hanging off the side.
On the walk over to Holyoke, I practice what I’ll say. I barely slept last night, trying to figure out which questions, in what order. I’m not exactly angry that my mom didn’t tell me about her time at Daybreak. Confused is more like it. And . . . hurt, beneath the confusion.
But when I walk into the cabin, my mom isn’t waiting for me. I’m a few steps down the hallway when I hear it: what sounds like the final coughs after retching, the flush of the toilet. My foot launches forward, the first step in running to her, but I freeze. She may want privacy. I’ve always thought of myself as inside her bubble—like I could never be intruding. The faucet turns on, the creak of running water that I know so well.
“Mom?” I start toward the bathroom, thinking better of my hesitation.
“Oh, hey, Bird,” she says, turning the corner. She’s gray-faced behind a pleasant smile. “I thought you’d be along later after such a long night.”
“Are you okay?”
“Of course!” She just looks so sick. I’d almost gotten used to her bare head, but I realize: it’s that her eyebrows are almost gone. In the new daylight, it’s undeniable. “Sit! How’s Tara?”
“Fine, I think.”
“Good.” She moves toward the refrigerator, gripping the handle tightly, steadying herself.
I’m still frozen near the doorway. “What are you doing?”
Her laugh is just thin air forced out of her throat. “Making you breakfast.”
So, I guess what we’re doing this morning is pretending she’s okay. I slink to my seat at the breakfast table, unwilling to play my part in her charade. I want to insist she go to bed, but I don’t want to insult her. I don’t want to be the mother.
As she arranges the carton of eggs and a package of turkey bacon on the counter, leaning to put a pan on the stove, my mind moves to Jesus washing the feet of his disciples. It’s such a strange practice, but I get the point: total devotion to service, humbling yourself before someone to the extent that you’d wash their dirty feet.
And here, my mother—with her kerchief and her trembling hands—is still trying to wash my feet. Still trying to serve me, to meet my most basic needs.
She opens the turkey bacon and jerks her head away from the smell of raw meat, her face dimming further in color.
“Mom. Here.” I leap up, reaching for the handle of the pan.
“Sit, Luce. I’ve got it.”
My hand closes over her bony one. “Let me. Please? Just today. One of the girls’ classes this week was on cooking. We learned crepes! I can show you.”
I feel her tense, her body gone stony with betrayal. Her eyes flood with tears as she lets the pan drop onto the stove. “Fine. You want crepes? Do whatever you want. I’ll be in bed.”
I can tell she wants to huff away, but she’s too sick. Instead, she braces one hand against the wall, hobbling against what I know must be nausea. My arms move to steady her, but I don’t want to upset her again. I can’t read the situation: Should I go after her or give her some space? Is she just tired, in need of some privacy and rest? Or does she want me to apologize?
Instead, I stand at the stove crying. This was my exact fear this summer: that I would stop feeling like an expert on my mom.
Because I don’t know what else to do, I wind up melting butter and whisking eggs with milk and flour, making perfect circles on the hot skillet. Either the warm batter smell will draw her out or I’ll have an excuse to go into her room.