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Monday May 8 2000
I slam down my glass and orange juice spills onto the table but I don't stop to wipe it up. Let the juice ruin the oak table for all I care. This is ridiculous and it's gone on long enough.
I stomp up the stairs and down the carpeted hallway to my mother's room. She is just as I left her, sitting on the window seat wearing her blue fuzzy robe and matching slippers, and I want to wring her neck.
"Mom." I say.
"The daffodils are blooming finally," she tells me without looking at me, "I always loved the spring."
"Mom!" I raise my voice.
"You can't plant them too soon otherwise the bulbs freeze and you have to redo it all," she continues.
"Mom, listen to me!" I'm yelling again.
She turns to look at me, incredulously, "Why are you yelling? I can hear you perfectly fine."
I snatch the piece of paper from the bed where I had left it earlier. I don't fail to notice that the bed is made, which would normally be a big step forward, except that she made the bed but ignored the paper, which is all I really cared about in the first place.
"You have to sign this, okay, this isn't a joke, if you don't sign it, I won't get to go to Washington with the rest of my class." I explain it for the thirtieth time.
She watches me in silence for a moment before turning back to look out the window.
"I asked Lucas to plant some lilies, which he didn't do," she comments, "He was never any good at taking orders."
"Lucas hasn't been the gardener here for ten years!" I yell at her, "Just sign the permission slip, okay? I have to bring it back today and I'm already late for school."
She continues staring out the window and I continue staring at her like an idiot.
"Did you hear me?" I raise my voice.
"Of course I heard you, Lala, the entire neighbourhood hear you." She sighs and rises from her seat, "Why do you need me to sign that anyway?"
"Because as far as the school's concerned, you're my mother and I have to get your permission to go," I say annoyed. She knows all this already. Why does she pretend like she doesn't remember?
"Well, you need my permission," she counters, "Maybe I won't give you my permission."
I am outraged, "You have to give me permission, you have no choice, so just sign the form!"
I thrust the paper at her but she brushes past me to her night table for her package of cigarettes.
"I have no choice?" She laughs, "I'm an adult, how can I not have a choice?"
"If you're an adult then act like one," I demand, "Get dressed, comb your hair, get a job. Take care of yourself instead of making other people do it for you!"
She regards me with large wounded eyes, "How can you say this to me? Do you hate me?"
She places a cigarette between her lips but forgets to light it, "I suppose you just want to leave too," she continues, "Just like your father, just like your brother. You just don't care, you don't care about me."
"I don't care?" I retort, "Who sat outside your bedroom door for two days straight after you locked yourself in here? Who goes to the pharmacy every other week to get your pills? Who does the laundry and the cleaning and the cooking? Who drove you to the hospital last year when you cut your wrists? I didn't even have my driver's license!"
"That doesn't mean anything," she pouts.
"I'm the only one who stayed after Dad relocated to Minnesota and Julian went to college. I'm the only one who stayed to take care of you," I tell her.
"That doesn't mean anything," she repeats.
I don't reply, nor do I feel any remorse. I have played this game for too long, I know her part too well.
"Why do you have to go to Washington anyway?" she continues, "Why would you want to leave me? I'll be all alone. Do you want that?"
"You will not be all alone," I remind her, "Aunt Dora will be here and she -"
"Oh, Dora, let me tell you something about your Aunt Dora," my mom says, "When we were kids she cut off all my hair while I was asleep. Did you know that?"
"She did not cut off your hair, you yourself did that," I explain, annoyed, "Anyway, you have to get used to her being here. You have to try and get along."
"I don't have to try to do anything," she replies defiantly.
I sigh and sit on the bed, the stupid unsigned permission form still in my hand, "So what will you do when I go to Minnesota this summer? You gonna stay here alone then?"
She looks at me alarmed, "You're going to Minnesota? When?"
I roll my eyes at her, "This summer, you already know about it."
"What are you going to Minnesota for?"
"To visit Dad," I tell her incredulously, "Why else would I be going?"
She laughs at me and finally lights her cigarette, "You're not going to Minnesota, Lala."
"Yes, I am, Iris," I reply, "Dad said over Christmas that as soon as school got out I could go stay with him."
"Well, he just said that to get you to stop harassing him," she says and she goes to sit at the window seat again, "You're not going to Minnesota, Lala."
"Yes, I am," I insist, "Oh, forget it, what do you know anyway?"
"I've known him a lot longer than you have," she says, "I know what he's like. He hates hassles and inconveniences. That's what you are to him."
"That's what you are to him," I say, "You're so pathetic and predictable and manipulative. I mean, you had a nervous breakdown three years ago. It's over, get on with your life."
Her eyes have swelled with tears and her voice trembles, "What do you know of it? How could you know how I feel? You have no idea how much it hurts-"
"Yes, I do, Mom," I interrupt, "Of course I do, because I live with it everyday. It has to stop. The world doesn't stop because you're sick. God, no wonder her left you."
Her tears spill over but she doesn't sob or whine of anything, "Don't kid yourself, Lala. He didn't leave me. He left us. And Julian too. He left all of us."
"Well, you didn't give him a choice," I reply.
"Of course I gave him a choice," she says, "Stay or go. He chose to go."
"He loves me." I say it for no particular reason and suddenly I am crying too. I am defeated. She got to me too.
"When was the last time he came here or called on the phone?" she asks me, "Even when he lived here he wasn't here. Once a year we'd go to Tahoe and he was the world's greatest father. And the rest of the year he was having affairs with his T.A.'s."
"You don't know that," I deny, "You don't know for certain."
"Yes, I do, Lala," she replies and she ashes out her cigarette right on the windowsill.
"You think I've forgotten?" she asks me, "I know what it's like to be loved by him. It's like the sun shines on this little patch of earth where you're standing. And you feel like the most important person in the world. Except eventually that sun sets. It just dims and dies and shines on someone else. And you're left in the dark. With this horrible sunburn."
She comes to the bed and takes the paper away from me. She takes it over to her desk.
"That's not love," she says as she scrawls her name across the bottom.
She holds the paper out to me but she doesn't look at me as I come to retrieve it.
"I don't know why you'd want to leave here anyway, especially in the summer. Lucas does the garden beautifully and the orchard is like a forest. Like a wild forest in the Adirondacks or something."
She's smiling as she goes to sit at the window seat again, "It's like a little piece of heaven."
I walk backwards to the door, the permission form clutched greedily in my palm, "It's not like heaven," I say.
"Yeah, but it's near," she turn to look at me but her eyes appear vacant and she seem to look right through me, "It's pretty close wouldn't you say?"
I stand in the doorway and watch her a moment, "Not near enough," I say in return as I pull the door closed behind me.
Copyright 2000 Halima Thompson
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