By Ashley Bergeson
Fall 2013 Kaplan Award Winner
Once, it was summertime. Warm, yellow light streamed into the room where I was napping; the room at my grandmother’s house made up especially for me. As I laid back with my eyes open, staring up at the dust circles illuminated by the late afternoon sun, I could hear the clink of dishes being put away, punctuated by sharp bursts of laughter. I slid out of the covers, climbed over the side of the bed, and made my way to the kitchen. My grandma sat at the tile-covered kitchen table, hanging plants above her head that reflected the light on their slick, dark leaves. My mother sat next to her, a diet coke in one hand, the other running through her hair. Two cigarettes smoldered, neglected, in a brown-glass dish. I was halfway down the kitchen before they saw me. “Little no-nap!” my grandma chided, and I was scooped up and put back in bed. Lying there, I begged to go to the wading pool; could we please, and soon? With an unconvincing maybe given, I drifted off, dreaming of sandy toes and drippy ice cream cones.
* * *
Now, it’s morning. I am awakened by the sound of my father ironing his jeans and shirt mixed with the splatter of rain outside. (All of our clothes have to be ironed – even T-shirts — as they never make it into drawers and closets; rather, they’re dumped unceremoniously on the floor in a heap, and there become resolutely wrinkled). I get up, following the hissing and whooshing sounds of the steam iron. I find my Dad already dressed, but in weekend clothes. My mother’s bathrobe, a fuzzy burgundy thing and a tad threadbare, hangs limp on the back side of the door. And the bed is empty; she’s left for work already. These days, she is always at work, or at dinner, or somewhere.
We are tired of cheerios; so we go to Burger King. He orders half a dozen mini Breakfast Buddies; I eat one, and drink an orange juice. I am not very hungry though – I don’t much like breakfast, or weekends. They are a bit lonely — no school, no grandma’s house, not much but cartoons and Totino’s pizza. And in November, not much sunshine. But so we face it, together: the dreary weariness of almost-single parent (and child) hood.
* * *
I was seven or eight when she came back, and she was angry. I wasn’t sure about what, but I remember once I spilled some milk on the kitchen floor, and she yelled a lot, and I cried. And then she cried. She sat me down at the kitchen table, strewn with junk mail and debris from last night’s dinner, and asked me, head in hands, how to be a parent. I took this question very seriously – I felt she could use some instruction. “Well,” I began, “You can ask more questions. About what I would like. You know, like, to do. Or eat. Or you could take me to the park, or something,” I said, and then added: “but I like it when you make maple and brown sugar oatmeal. You make it better than dad. He adds too much water.” I was trying to be encouraging, I think.
Once, on the day before mother’s day, I came home from school with a craft – some paper and string contraption — but it wasn’t for her. When she asked about it, I said, “The other kids made stuff for their moms, but I kind of thought you didn’t like cards…or pictures…or crafts…so I made this for myself.” That time, she locked herself in the bathroom, crying and smoking, until my dad got home. I told her I was sorry, and I didn’t mean to hurt her. I made her a trivet the next day out of some cardboard and ribbon and wrote “Best Mom Ever” across the top. She thanked me and tossed it in a drawer.
* * *
Years later, I hear a story: a tiny baby girl is given away to her great aunt from a mother too young and wild to keep her. The aunt is terribly fat, and on welfare, and not picky about her men – the current one she found in a bar, and she keeps him because he stays. This little girl learns to sleep with her fingers in her ears for of what nightly noises she’s developed a terror of, inside a cinder-block rambler in Mountlake Terrace. When the girl reaches puberty, she is violated by the man she’s been told to call father.
She grows up in a world of food stamps, and hand-me-downs, and humiliation. She has a shock of red hair, too many freckles, and not enough teeth. She is never properly loved, and often improperly handled. The mother who birthed her comes back, and the great aunt passes, but the damage is already done: she’s learned to hate — but with no tools to express it, she learns to hide. The passage of time and age bring new and more advanced disguises: pothead, partier, liberal; and then Baptist, wife, mother – the latter, accidentally. Unfortunately, none of them take.
* * *
Tonight, we sit in the kitchen. It’s dark out, and the slick, dark leaves of hanging plants reflect the overhead light. Our glasses clink together, full of wine. The table is clean; this time, it’s mine. She is crying again, tears meandering slowly down wrinkled cheeks, but she isn’t angry anymore – only sad. “How can I be a better parent?” she asks in a thick voice. She holds out her hands. I take them. “Well,” I begin, “You can’t.”
She cannot go back and be one, rather. She cannot un-leave, or re-love, anymore than I can wipe the freckles off my own face. But I love this woman sitting in front of me, red hair long since faded to grey. I’m proud of her, and tell her so. We don’t always get the mothers we want, I say. But we get to love the mothers we have.