The mothers of my friends liked to visit my mom too. Maybe they were envious of her. Beautiful woman, happy home, husband with a good job. My dad wasn’t the president of the bank or anything, but he was a journeyman. Working with electricity is a dangerous job, but the trade-off is that it payswell.
Despite his good-paying job, he insisted on keeping an old Chevy truck that never ran well. “Broken more than it runs,” my mother would grumble. She had a car that worked just fine, so she didn’t complain too loudly about the oldChevy.
The Saturday she left was like all the other Saturdays before it. I sat playing with my dolls in the living room. My Barbie could bake blueberry muffins that were better than all the rest, just like my mom could. Dad was in the garage, probably lying under his truck, rolling out every so often for atool.
Mom came through the living room, her chin tucked against her chest. That’s what I remember most about the day she left. Normally she walked with her head up, her eyes calm and clear. But on that day, she rushed past me, only five feet away from where I sat. I looked up as she passed. I couldn’t see hereyes.
“Mommy, will you please get me yogurt-covered-raisins?” I knew she was going to the store. She’d told me ten minutes ago when she’d gone to change herclothes.
She never responded. She just keptwalking.
Her elbow jutted out, bent at an angle on the side of her body, and for years I would see that in my dreams. At eight I didn’t understand why it was bent that way, but eventually I figured it out. She was covering hermouth.
My heart told me it was to keep her sob inside, because even she knew what she was doing was going to damage me forever. My brain told me it was to keep her from telling me what she was doing, knowing I would find out soonenough.
I found the piece of paper first. Only five wordswritten.
I can’t do thisanymore.
Can’t do what? Iwondered.
The longer she stayed gone, the more Iunderstood.
I can’t be awife.
I can’t be amother.
I can’t make myself want thislife.
I can’t make myself love ourdaughter.
I can’t do thisanymore.
My dad threw away her note, but I grabbed it from the trash when he wasn't looking. For three years I studied the familiar handwriting, the scrawl matching the loving sentiments she'd written in my birthday cards. Words penned by the same hand, but the message vastlydifferent.
Owenand I used to see each other all thetime.
Meet me for a kiss before my afternoonclass?
I have a twenty-five-minute break at ten. Let’s grabcoffee.
Can I come over after your lastclass?
But now it’s like he has vanished. I’ve been waiting to run into him, a moment I assumed inevitable, but it still hasn’tcome.
One week went by. Then two. I didn’t know Owen was a magician, skilled in disappearingacts.
But I did know a person could live with a broken heart, and that’s what I was doing. Waiting for the pieces to go back together, to drift towards one another and form a makeshift semblance of what they had beenbefore.
I thought about calling my dad, but our relationship wasn’t really prepared for phone calls about boys. He’s always provided the basics for me, the base of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, but warm fuzzies? Not so much. He tried, I think, to give me a mom. He went on dates, and sometimes he’d go on more than a few with the same woman and bring her home to meet me. After a while, I felt like the lost baby bird in the Dr. Seuss book,Are You MyMother?
Eventually he quit trying. Then it was just us, two planets orbiting each other, not certain how to break the orbit and collide. Once I could drive, I did all the grocery shopping. Prepared meals, cleaned the house. When there’s a hole, it’s natural for whatever is left around it to slide toward the crater, to fill the space. That's what we did, slowly. Day by day, year by year, we slid into the void, until we became a fully-functioning, two personunit.
Right now Dad and I are both living on our own. I see him on Sundays, unless he’s gone hunting. And we’re not robots anymore. We’re friends. Partners. Two people felled by the samefoe.
Living with Britt is the opposite of living with my dad. She’s talkative, secure, and well-adjusted. She hails from a happy home with a mom and a dad, a sister and a dog and a two-car garage. When I picture her house, I add a white picket fence around the green lawn, even though I know it doesn’t have one. I’m not jealous of Britt. I’m happy my best friend had a glorious childhood with a mother who showered her in snuggles and love. I just wish I’d had thesame.
And Britt, my beyond-lucky best friend, has decreed that today is the day I stop thinking about Owen. She has just burst into my room with her freshly highlighted blond bob cocooning her face, eyesbright.
