“Come on, Mom.” I grabbed her hand and pulled her through the aisles, searching out the dressing rooms.
“This will be lovely on you, I can already tell,” the girl at the changing room said. My mother brushed away the compliment.
“I’ll wait here.” I sat on a bench. “Come show me when it’s on.” I couldn’t recall when we had last done something together, just the two of us. She and my father were such a unit. They had each other; that was the one unchanging fact of their lives.
My mother’s voice rose from the other side. “I don’t know,” she said. “Is it too much?”
The salesgirl waved me in. My mother stood in the wide corridor, facing a mirrored wall, eyes lowered to meet her reflection. She shifted at slight angles, holding herself in serious regard. The dress shimmered against skin browned from afternoons at the pool. Since retiring, she had taken to doing daily laps at the nearby rec center. Swimming had brought a youthfulness forward in her face, even as the lines of age deepened, crinkling her eyes and smile. I thought about her previous visit here, a young woman in her twenties, in the first months of dating my father; they’d be engaged in less than a year, no sense of what their lives would bring. There was so much about that time of her life I didn’t know. It was the arrogance of the child, to presume the mother’s life only begins with your arrival. She ran a hand across the soft swell at the middle of the dress where her belly pressed out, just barely. Her shoulders lifted and fell and her hand dropped away.
“You look beautiful, Mom.”
She turned from the mirror, looking young and shy, and smiled. She paid for the dress and we made our way back through the mall, the shopping bag in my hand, hers resting in the crook of my arm. We’d gone in the wrong direction and were turned around. “They want you to get lost so you’ll keep shopping,” she said. We made our best guess and continued on. “I hope your father’s not gotten too bored.”
“He’s probably made friends with half the patrons at the bar.”
“He’s like that, isn’t he? I’m perfectly happy with a day on my own, but he likes to be social. I think you’re more like me.” She patted my arm, gentle puffs of cottony air. “But this was fun. I’m glad you came.”
“I’m glad you got the dress. It’s perfect on you.”
“I wouldn’t have bought it without you.”
“I am always happy to help other people spend money.”
She laughed. “Your sister was always so thrifty. I suppose she got that from me.”
Cassie, again. I was surprised, but of course, I, too, never spoke of her—not to Stephen, not even with Safie. No one but Tyler knew Cassie had ever existed. And there was something in that—your sister. The words a gift, making Cassie mine.
“Was Cassie thrifty? I don’t remember that about her.” It’s not something I would have noticed. I was too young, I wouldn’t have known to recognize something like that.
“Of course. I remember taking her dress shopping for her bat mitzvah. Do you remember that dress? The pale green one, with the long skirt?”
I strained to pull the image forward. There were photos of the day, and though I could remember those, I tried to locate an actual memory of Cassie and the dress. “I think I do.”
“She was a nightmare to shop with. Not you, you were always easy. But you think I’m difficult. Cassie would get so stressed about spending any money. It wasn’t even her money. I said—it’s one dress, it’s your bat mitzvah. Let yourself enjoy this. And of course she thought everything looked just horrible on her. Teenage girls are so hard on themselves. All that beauty, and they have no idea.” My mother’s voice trailed off. “She was practically in tears, trying on the dresses. And I’m sure I didn’t help. I would get so impatient with her. I remember being so frustrated she couldn’t see what she looked like, and I thought I could convince her.”
“I always thought she looked amazing. Even in that ugly army jacket.”
“That jacket drove your father insane.”
“She never took it off,” I said. “—ah, we’re here.” We’d made it back without realizing. The bar was across from us. My father was talking with a man, somewhere near his age, also sitting alone. The man pointed at the television screen. A flash of uniforms.
My mother stood beside me, small and quiet and calm.
“I’m sorry we never did your bar mitzvah. I just—I couldn’t. That year.”
“Mom—” I grabbed her hand. “You know Cassie wasn’t your fault.” She flinched and turned her face from me. “She wasn’t. I missed her so much. I couldn’t believe she would leave me like that. I thought—if she loved me, if she really loved me … I was too young to understand. I’m sorry if I blamed you—”
“Mark, no—”
“I am. You didn’t deserve that. Cassie was …” I stopped, searching the words. My mother’s hand trembled in my own. “Cassie lived on her own plane of existence. She didn’t belong with us no matter how much we wanted her to. I know she was hard. But you were a good mother. You gave her your love. It wasn’t your fault if she couldn’t take it. You offered it. That’s all we can do.”
My mother looked at me and then away, milky eyes shining. Music played from a speaker overhead, the percussion mixing with the thrum of the crowd. She started to speak then turned toward the restaurant.
“We should go find your father,” she said, “before he loses his mind wondering where we are.”
We couldn’t decide what to do with the rest of the afternoon. My mother was too cold to wander outside and my father bristled at the idea of a museum. I would usually get irritated by his silentinflexibility, her refusal to just say what she wanted. But I didn’t mind. I was happy to be with them. And then I spotted one of those covered double-decker tour buses. “Come on,” I said, already crossing the street.
I paid for our tickets and we climbed the narrow steps to the second level. The driver, deep voice rolling and showy, pointed out landmarks as we circled Chicago’s blocks, telling tales of mobsters and the Great Fire. Lake Michigan bloomed into view—massive, still, steel blue. I thought of Stephen and his childhood on the Michigan side. I thought of the next person he would date, how happy they would be on their trips there together.
