I glance at Iris, and she nods as if to say that I should sit too. So I do.
“I have some things to tell you,” she says. “Things that might be difficult to hear. Things that might make you think very differently of me.”
“Mrs. Alden, nothing you’re going to tell Jack is going to make him think badly of you,” Iris calls from where she’s making us drinks.
My mother’s expression says that she’s not convinced by what Iris’s saying.
“I want to talk to you about how I met your father.”
I’ve heard this story. My mother was over from Europe, staying with distant family for the summer. What’s there to tell?
Iris comes over carrying a tray holding two mugs of hot chocolate. I’m not sure my mother has ever drunk from a mug before. She sets one in front of Mom and one in front of me. She goes to leave, and I catch her hand. “Please stay.”
“Jack, this is between you and your mother.”
“Iris, I’d like you to stay,” my mother says, her voice soft.
“Are you sure?” she asks.
My mother nods. “Yes. I’m sure.”
Iris holds my hand as my mother then confesses her real background, and how she and my father lied to his family about where she came from.
I can’t take it all in. My mother isn’t who I’ve believed her to be my entire life. My mind is a tangle of thoughts and feelings. She always told me she had no living family when I was old enough to ask. Is that true? Do I have family nearby? In New Jersey?
Everything she’s ever told me about her background and family has been a lie.
I don’t know what’s real about my life.
“I saw so many parallels between your father’s and my story, and you and Iris,” she continues. “I was worried. Life is different these days. The internet means you can never leave your pastbehind. You can’t reinvent yourself in the same way I did. I remember how much effort the lying had been. How hard it’s been to keep up pretenses at times.” She pulls in a breath. “I didn’t want it to be as hard on you as it has been on your father.”
“It seems to me you were being a hypocrite,” I say. How dare she criticize me for wanting Iris when she wasn’t some English aristocrat’s daughter as she alluded to, but born to a family in New Jersey she disowned. “You clearly think it was okay for my father to marry a woman who wasn’t from the right social circles, but not for me.”
“I wanted it to be easier for you,” she says, her tone pleading. “I didn’t want you to live a life worrying about being found out.”
My mother’s expression is usually completely unreadable. Today she looks bereft. Undone.
“Times have changed,” Iris says. “I don’t know life in New York high society, but from what I can see, I don’t think the boundaries are as clearly defined as they once were.”
My mother nods. “Maybe not. I know it’s easier when people aren’t gossiping and laughing about you, and you know they have reason to. I was lucky. I was with James and nothing else mattered.”
Her words thaw my mood a little. I’m glad she and my father found a way to be together if that’s how they felt for each other. They clearly loved each other a great deal. Back then the pressure on my father to marry someone suitable was probably far greater than I’ve been subjected to. It must have been a concern for them.
So I don’t understand why she can’t have more empathy for me wanting to be with Iris.
“I didn’t want you to live your life in constant fear of being found out and being ridiculed.”
She’s talking about herself. That’s how she’s spent her life and pity settles in my stomach. The thought of my mother livingher entire life worried that she could be found out that she wasn’t who she said she was fills me with sadness and pity. What a horrible life she must have had full of fear and pressure and expectations. It’s one I don’t want for myself.
“It doesn’t matter,” I say. “Because I don’t want to live my life in those circles anymore. I don’t want to spend my life going to charity functions just to be seen. Or sitting on boards that don’t really do anything. I want to live my life differently.”
Iris reaches over and squeezes my hand.
My mother clears her throat and pulls back her shoulders, regaining some of her composure. “I don’t know what that means.”
I sigh. “No, I don’t quite know what that means either. But I’m going to figure out how I want to live my life and do it exactly that way.”
My mother’s throat bobs as she swallows. “I would just ask that you try and see things from my perspective. I was trying to protect you, protect the name that your father and I spent our lives trying not to sully, so you wouldn’t have to deal with the consequences of having a mother who wasn’t… wasn’t anyone.”
