Mom had been babysitting a neighbor’s three children at the time of the fire, mere blocks away. When word of the blaze got to Mom, she frantically sprinted home, hell-bent on hurtling herself inside the burning structure and saving everyone she loved so much from catastrophe. But, alas, by the time she got to the house, it was already abundantly clear it was too late. Four of the only five people my mother loved in this world were already gone.
As for the fifth person in this world my mother loved, her father, he was a traveling salesman on a trip at the time, marooned that fateful night with a flat tire about two hours away. Or, at least, that’s what Charles Charpentier swore to investigators, when no witnesses could confirm his whereabouts, one way or another.
To this day, I think my mother mostly believes her father’s version of events, which is why she always includes him in her happy family paintings. Including her father in her paintings is my mother’s way of declaring to the world: Charles Charpentier’s sole surviving child rejects the wicked rumors about him—the whispers that swirled around Scarsdale immediately after the fire, and then continued swirling endlessly, long after the man killed himself on the one-year anniversary of the tragedy.
According to my grandfather’s doubters, Charles Charpentier was a compulsive gambler who’d arranged to burn down what he’dthoughtwould be his empty house that fateful night, in order to collect insurance money and pay off his mountain of debts. To my mother, on the other hand, her father was a tragic figure who lostalmosteverythingthat horrible night, all at once... and, tragically for her, the only thing that remained, the man’s eldest daughter, simply wasn’t enough to keep him from putting that gun to his head and pulling the trigger.
Interestingly, Mom always places her father off to the side in every painting—as if he’s watching his family’s revelry from a distance, but not participating in it. I think Mom keeps her father at arm’s length in this way, each and every time, because, in the deepest recesses of her unwell mind, she’s not sure what to think about him. Consciously, she’s decided to believe in his innocence. But, subconsciously, I’m guessing she’s got her doubts. Perhaps she includes her father’s figure in her paintings, in the first place, as a declaration of love and support for him... but she then feels compelled to set him apart, away from her beloved mother and sisters, as a show of loyalty to them... just in case, on the off-chance, the incessant whispers and gossip about her father were actually true.
“She’s in the yoga room,” a voice says. And when I turn around, it’s one of the nurses. Tina. A middle-aged woman in blue scrubs who’s worked here forever.
“Thanks,” I say. “I’ll look for her there.”
Tina comes to a stop next to me, her eyes trained on Mom’s canvas. “No grandma this time? Poor Grandma hardly ever makes the cut.”
“Mom’s grandmother should be grateful to make it into any of Mom’s paintings. By all accounts, Grandma was a raving bitch.”
Tina chuckles.
“My guess?” I say. “Grandma won’t make it into a painting until Christmas.”
“Christmas?” Tina says. “Dang it, I hope not. We’ve got a pool about when Grandma’s going to make her next appearance, and I put my ten bucks on Thanksgiving. If Grandma shows up to eat turkey, I’ll win a hundred bucks.”
“Sorry, I wouldn’t count on it, Tina. Apparently, Grandma hated my mother’s cooking and told her so, repeatedly. So, I’m thinking the last thing Mom would want to do is give Grandma a seat at the Thanksgiving table, only to let her bitch about Mom’s turkey being too dry.”
“Shoot.”
“But, hey, I guess it’spossibleMom could paint Grandma at the Thanksgiving table, to let her rave about howperfecteverything is.Mom’s been known to paint revisionist history a time or two. Orforty-two billion.”
Tina points. “Who’s the baby? I don’t think I’ve seen him or her in one of your Mom’s paintings before.”
“I believe that’s my nephew.”
Tina grimaces, apparently assuming the baby must be deceased, if he’s making an appearance in an Eleanor Rivers original.
“He’s alive and well,” I clarify quickly. “My sister brought him to visit yesterday for the first time.”
“Oh, I was off yesterday.” She peers at the tiny blonde figure as he plays with a red ball in the hinterlands of the grassy park. “Wow, one meeting with him and your mother’s already put him into one of her paintings? He must have made quite an impression. It took me working here eight years before your mother finally made me an ice cream vendor in one of her paintings.”
I shrug. “She’s always loved babies. It’s when they get to age seven or eight that she has no fucking clue what to do with them.”
Tina flashes me a look of sympathy, before returning to the canvas. “Why do you think your nephew is way off in a corner like that, so far away from everyone else? I would have thought she’d at least let one of her sisters throw that ball to him.”
“Your guess is as good as mine,” I say. But I’m a liar. I know exactly why my mother has banished my nephew to a far corner: it’s a sign of his paper-thin connection to “her” family. But why would I admit that to Tina? Especially when, like Tina said, the fact that Mom’s included him at all, after only one visit, is a sign of progress, however small.
“She adores you, you know,” Tina says. “She talks about you all the time.”
I smile politely and shove my hand into the pocket of my jeans. But I know the truth. If my mother talks about me at all, it’s only to brag about my money. The truth is, my mother isn’t capable of loving me in the way other mothers love their children. But that’s okay. She doesn’t need to be capable of it. I’ve long since stopped hoping for, or expecting, motherly love from her. All that matters to me now is that she is, in fact, my mother, and thatIloveher. All that matters is she’s on the short list of people I’d do anything for, protect until my dying breath, and loveunconditionally, forevermore, whether she’s capable of returning my devotion, or, shit, even simplylikingme... or not.
19
REED
In the yoga room, I discover Mom at the front of the class with her boyfriend, Lee—a paranoid schizophrenic who’s so heavily medicated, I’ve never heard him say more than four words during any given visit. At the moment, the class, including Mom and Lee, are attempting to do the Warrior Two pose, although what they’re managing, to be generous, isn’t exactly the stuff of yoga instructional videos.
“Reed is here,” the instructor says to Mom, making her turn around. And when Mom sees me standing in the doorway, she claps, rises from her pose, and makes her way over to me.
When Mom arrives, I squeeze her frail body into a tight hug and tell her I love her. She doesn’t return the words, but that’s not a surprise. She once told me those words aren’t in her vocabulary, because whenever she says them, someone dies. So, really, I suppose I should consider my mother’s refusal to tell her only living son she loves him a gift. She’s merely trying to save her son from dying, after all. And there’s nothing wrong with that.
