The Year of My Miraculous Reappearance (19 page)

On the drive home I was quiet a lot of the way. I guess I was thinking about everything that happened.

After a while I said, “I know this sounds weird. But I feel like I gave that horse a lot of good advice. Like … I'm not sure what I'm trying to say. Like, if only I could say stuff that smart to myself.”

“What was the subject?” Pat asked.

“Fear.”

“Ah. Yeah. That's a big one.”

Nobody said anything for a long time. Then Pat said, “Maybe next time you get scared you can talk to yourself the same way you would talk to a spooky horse.”

“That's kind of a weird idea,” I said.

“Doesn't mean it wouldn't work.”

“True,” I said.

Sometime in the late morning on Monday, I passed my history teacher standing out in the hall. She smiled at me, and I smiled back. And then she said it.

“I hear you're quite the artist.”

I just stopped in my tracks. My throat felt dry, and the first time I opened my mouth, nothing happened, so I tried again. “Who told you that?”

“Joe Werther was talking about you in the teachers' lounge. Showing around the picture you drew of his Irish setter. He just couldn't say enough about it. I thought it was a wonderful picture, but he said you couldn't really appreciate it unless
you knew his dog. He said you really captured her, right down to the expression on her face. He thinks you're quite talented.”

I'm not sure what I said. Probably nothing at all. I was just too stunned to say anything, I think. If I did say anything, I was probably mumbling, and I bet it sounded stupid.

The bell rang, which meant I was late to math, but I didn't go straight to math. I went to Mr. Werther's room. The door was closed, because class had started, but I opened it and peeked in. He saw me and looked up and stopped talking. Got up and came to the door to see what I wanted. I almost ran away. But I thought about Feather, and I stayed.

Mr. Werther smiled at me. “I wish you hadn't run out so fast on Friday.”

“You told all my other teachers I was a good artist?”

“I'm sorry. Was it a secret?”

Then I laughed. I couldn't help it. “Yeah—I mean, no. Of course not. Thanks.”

We both just stood there a second, and then he said, “Where are you supposed to be this period?”

“Oh crap. Math. I knew there was something I was forgetting.”

I ran there as fast as I could. The whole way, I could feel I still had this weird little smile going on. I couldn't make it go away. Maybe I didn't really try.

I walked home with Rachel at the end of the day. She wanted to know when I rode before, so I told her about Trudy.

I said, “Back when my uncle Jim was alive, he had this farm. It was about three hours from here. In the valley. I remember it was really hot there, but I used to love to go. And he had this horse named Trudy. This big old palomino. I was only about three or four, but she was so gentle they could just put me up on there bareback. She didn't even need a bridle. I just held on to her halter rope. I loved her so much, I never went in the house. I mean not if I could help it. When I wasn't riding her I used to pick apples and pears from the trees— Uncle Jim had fruit trees—and feed them to her over the fence. But then Uncle Jim died. He had to go in for this surgery that was supposed to be no big deal. Or maybe they just told me that so I wouldn't worry. Anyway, he died.”

“That's sad,” she said.

It wasn't that sad, really, because I was so little and I really didn't know my uncle Jim very well. He always looked like a stranger to me and I think I was a little bit afraid of him. But I didn't say that, because I didn't know her that well yet, and I didn't want her to think I was weird.

“What's really sad,” I said, “is that when I got old enough, I asked my aunt if I could go out to the farm and see Trudy. She said Trudy died. Some idiot neighbors were out hunting drunk and they shot her and she died.”

“On purpose? Or did they think she was a deer or something?”

“I don't know. I didn't ask. I was so busy thinking how
nobody told me. Like, how could they not get that I would want to know? After that I didn't want anything to do with horses. You know how some people are.” I was hoping she would know, so I wouldn't have to explain it.

“No, how?”

“You know. Some people just don't want to get near anything that could hurt.”

“That's everybody. Isn't it?”

“Not really. Some people can have a dog, and then if the dog dies, they get another one. Other people, they say, No, that's it. Too painful. Not going through that again.”

“I would get another dog,” she said.

“I think I would, too,” I said. “Now.”

“What changed?”

“Pretty much everything.”

My mom was driving me crazy.

I felt so bad saying that, but I had to say it, or I'd have been even crazier.

It hit a kind of all-time low that Friday night.

I got home from school, and there she was, meeting me at the door, all sort of … eager. Perky. Or something.

It sounds like a good thing, I know. But when she did it, somehow it felt really wrong. Really forced, like it made her nervous to do it, so it made me nervous to have to be there and watch.

She'd had her hair straightened and dyed it blond. Or bleached it, or whatever. It sounds trashy, but it was just the
opposite. She was trying for a more sophisticated look. She never wore her robe around the house anymore. She got dressed. And did her nails and put on makeup and everything, which I think comes off as sort of weird if you go to all that trouble and then just … you know … stay home.

I think it's because she was trying to throw off the whole trailer-trash image. I really hate to use words like that about my own mother, but sometimes you just have to say what you mean. I also think it was because she was always scratching around for something—anything—to do.

She said, “It's Friday. T.G.I.F., huh?”

“Right,” I said. “Whatever.” I just couldn't do perky with her. Not even when I tried.

“I thought we could order a pizza. Wouldn't that be fun?”

“Uh. Yeah. Pizza would be good.”

“And maybe a game of Monopoly and then we can stay up and watch Letterman.”

I swear it was all I could do not to roll my eyes. I was thinking, I'm not your gal pal. Can't you have fun on your own? I was thinking, I don't like Letterman, I like Leno. But of course I kept my mouth shut.

I feel bad saying all this, because before I was bitching about how she was never a real mother. So it sounds like I'm just miserable and complaining either way. But there was something more to it. I just couldn't put my finger on it. It's like, when she's acting like a real mother, it isn't exactly real.

But I was trying hard to be supportive. Every time I started
to lose it with her, I just thought, She's trying, so you try, too. She's reaching out, so the least you can do is meet her partway.

All I said was, “Double cheese and pepperoni?”

“Perfect!”

I took the phone in my room and locked the door and ordered the damn pizza. Then I called Pat.

“Pat,” I said, “she's driving me batty. She wants to have a freaking slumber party. I don't want to do this, Pat.”

She said, “Don't take this wrong, okay? Hear this the way it's intended. What are you afraid of?”

“Nothing.”

“Sounds to me like you're scared to death of something.”

“Really? I don't know. I mean, I don't think so.”

“Think it over before you answer,” she said. “You know how that fear thing can be.”

I breathed in and out real deeply for a minute, and some of the crazy feeling started to clear away. Next thing you know, I was answering her question.

“I'm afraid if I let her get close to me and really talk to me, she's going to tell me how sorry she is and ask me to forgive her.”

“And you're not ready to forgive her.”

“I guess I should be, huh?”

“Honey, if you told me everything between you and your mom was water under the bridge, I'd know you'd gone back to lying to me. It takes years to look at all that stuff from a different perspective. It's a whole long process. It's not just something you up and do because you figure you're supposed
to. Oh, you can say ‘I forgive you' to someone. But real forgiveness—that's a life's work for most people.”

“So what do I do?”

She thought about it a minute. “Try cutting her a little slack on one tiny thing. One thing that's small enough you really can let it go. Volunteer something. Maybe she'll take that as a down payment.”

“Okay,” I said. “I'm going in. Wish me luck.”

I was sitting across the Monopoly board from her, and every now and then she would belch, and I was trying not to pass judgment. I'd had two and a half slices of pizza and she'd killed the whole rest of the damn thing. She even finished my crusts. I never saw anybody eat like that in my whole life. So much for my midnight snack. But I said nothing.

She was rolling the dice in her hand, not quite managing to throw them, and she looked up from the game, right into my eyes. Like a frog she was about to dissect. “How was school?”

I refused to lie. “I hate school.”

She looked disappointed. “Why?”

“Did you used to like school?”

“No. I hated it.”

“Well?”

That's when it hit me. Something else that scared me. Every time she tried to get to know me, I kept seeing this person who was, like, a total stranger. Even scarier, it seemed almost like this someone was even a stranger to her. It's like she
was trying to get to know me and herself at the same time. And it was weird, and upsetting, because she was my mother. I recognized her voice, and I was used to the shape of her sitting around the house. But this was like a conversation with an adult stranger.

And then, underneath that, was something even weirder and scarier. This wasn't a stranger at all, and I knew it. This was my real mom, and part of me almost remembered her. We just hadn't seen each other for such an incredibly long time.

I tried to shake it off.

I said, “I'm sorry I was so hard on you about the job thing.” She just froze, her hand holding the dice. Yes, amazingly, she still had not thrown the damn dice. See how unnatural this whole thing was? She just kept looking at me.

I said, “I know it's weird and scary to have to think about going out and getting a job. So … I'm sorry I came down on you so hard about it.”

On the one hand, I'm not sure I would have thought to say that if Pat hadn't suggested it. But at the same time it felt like something that just bubbled up all on its own.

“Thank you, Cynthia.”

I closed my eyes and prayed Pat was right. That this would hold her for a while. I said, “Mom, throw the dice, okay?”

After Letterman, she wanted me to stay up and talk to her. And, I mean, there has to be a limit. I can try my best, I can really bend over backwards for her, but after a while it gets to be like abuse.

“Mom. It's late. I'm tired.”

“Oh, come on. It'll be fun.”

Yeah. Right. More fun than a barrel of scorpions. I said, “Why don't you just go to sleep?”

All of a sudden she looked at me like she was about to cry. “I haven't been able to sleep much. It's really hard. I just really wanted the company.”

“Oh.” Thank you so much. For making me feel like crap about it. “Want me to make you a glass of warm milk before I go to bed?”

“That would be lovely, Cynthia. Thank you.”

I got the feeling that she didn't care so much about the milk as getting me to stay up a little bit longer.

I said a little prayer that she'd stay in the living room and leave me alone while I heated it up. She followed me into the kitchen like an old dog. Sat at the table and stared at me. I was really at the end of my rope with the staring thing.

I stood at the stove and kept my back to her.

She said, “I know it broke your heart when I sent Bill away.”

It hit my back and just sort of bounced off me. I wouldn't turn around. I wouldn't answer. I would not forgive her for that. Not that. It was wrong of her to ask me to forgive her for that. It was asking too much.

I just kept stirring the damn milk. I didn't know what else I was supposed to do.

“I'm sorry,” she said.

I took down a glass and poured the milk into it. Set it on the table for her. Made sure not to look her in the eye.

“Let's just work on getting him back here,” I said. “That would be a good next step. You just stay sober and bring him back here for the summer and that'll go a long way.”

“I won't let you down,” she said.

She had to say it to my back. She had to call it after me fast as I was going off to bed and glorious privacy at last.

Next time I went to art club, Rachel was out sick, and that guy, the only guy in art club, tried to follow me home. Well, walk me home. I guess I shouldn't make it sound like he was stalking me. He just started talking to me on the way out. Then next thing I knew I was, like, halfway home and he was still there.

He was one of those guys whose face looked good enough, but since he carried himself like a nerd, you couldn't really say he was handsome. But he was okay, except his ears were a little too big.