She’d never been a fan of being photographed. I didn’t imagine she’d like having a video camera stuck in her face, especially now. I remembered Ben chasing her around with his Polaroid for a while when we were kids, trying to get a photo of her. She’d always duck out of the way, turn around, cover her face. In the end, she got so annoyed with his constant attempts that she broke the camera by throwing it across the room.
“I already talked to her,” Izzy said. “When I went in and brought her tea after school? She loves the idea!”
“Really?” I said.
Izzy nodded. “She said I could interview her and she could, you know, like, tell me the story of her life. She said she thinks it’ll be good to have a record of her time with us here, something we can look back on later.”
My mother was notorious for hating interviews. In an article in theNew York Timesa couple of years ago, she was referred to as “the reclusive American painter Mavis Holland.” She often sent Paul in her place to gallery openings and museum events.
“I just…” The words dried up. Wasn’t this what I wanted? For my daughter—for both my daughters—to get to know my mother? What was I so afraid of? Why did the very idea of it make my skin crawl?
“You said I should make an effort,” Izzy said, exasperated. “That you wanted me to be more involved.”
“Yes, that’s true. But I didn’t—”
“Well, this is what I came up with, Mom. It’s my way to be more involved. If you don’t approve, then—”
“I think it’s a great idea,” Mark said. He looked from Izzy to me, said, “I’m sure your mother approves. She just wants to make sure we’re respecting your grandmother’s wishes and privacy.”
“Of course,” Izzy said. “I’m not going to shoot stuff that would embarrass her or anything. I’m not a total idiot. I’m not gonna show her on the commode or all wasted and drooling from her meds or whatever. Really, she seems excited about being interviewed. You can ask her yourself! And I think it would be kinda cool, you know? It’s a way for me to get to know her, and her to get to know me, which is what you want, right, Mom?” She looked right at me, challenging me to tell the truth.
I swallowed, couldn’t make any words come out, so I gave a weak nod.
“Well, I can’t wait to see the result,” Mark said. “I love that you’re taking on such a big project. Your documentary will be amazing, Iz, I just know it.”
Izzy smiled, her face coloring a little.
We ate in silence for a minute, until Olivia animatedly returned to the subject of her ballet rehearsals.
I looked down at my plate, catching movement. There was a fly there, perched on the edge, tasting the maple syrup with its terrible little proboscis. I flicked it away, and it took off in a zigzagging flight path like a little drunkard.
“You okay, Mom?” Izzy asked.
“Just a fly,” I said.
“Where?” asked Olivia, putting her hands protectively over her own plate.
“It flew away,” I said, looking around, not sure where it went, whose plate it might dive-bomb next. “But it just reminded me… you haven’t been keeping food in your room, have you, Izzy?”
She looked at me like I’d just asked if she had a secret pet shark in her closet. “Um, no, Mom.” She stabbed a raspberry with her fork like it might try to run away.
When Izzy was little, there had been an incident with red Jell-O that ended with the hallway carpet being permanently stained. After that the no-food-upstairs rule had been instated.
“Well, I went in there this morning and there were flies,” I said. “A bunch of them.”
“Eww!” Olivia said. “Izzy’s got flies!”
“Shut up, rodent face!” So much for Izzy turning a new leaf and being nice to her sister.
“Izzy,” Mark said, a warning tone in his voice.
“Maybe you can put them in your movie,” Olivia said. “The flies. Maybe you could train them or something. Like a fly circus.” She giggled.
Izzy gave her sister a disgusted look, then turned to me and Mark. “There weren’t any flies in my room when I left for school this morning,” she said.
“Are you sure they were flies?” Mark asked me as he helped himself to more pancakes.
“They were definitely flies,” I said. “There was just one of them down here on my plate. Didn’t you see it?” I looked around the room, up to the ceiling, wondering where it had gone.
