All She Ever Wanted (15 page)
“Why do you want to go to a snooty, expensive school like that? What’s wrong with the community college over in Bensenville?”
“Mom,
please
! Albany State is a much better school!”
“You’ll be out of place there. It’s a school for rich kids. The boys you’ll meet there would never marry someone from our background. At least at the community college there will be others like you. You could live at home and save room and board.”
“No!” I wailed. I sank down on the living room floor in front of the couch. “I don’t want to marry someone from our background. I’d rather not get married at all! And I don’t want to live in Riverside for one more minute. Don’t you understand that? I know Daddy is a convicted criminal.” She appeared startled. “I learned the truth a long time ago,” I continued. “And I hate the way everyone looks at us and whispers about us behind our backs. I want to get out of here and go as far away as I can and start a new life all over again—like you did.”
“You don’t know a thing about me—” she began, but I shouted her down.
“I know that you left Grandma Fiona and ran away from Deer Falls and never went back! All my life people have been telling me to get good grades and get a college education so I could make something of myself— and now I’m so close! If you would just cosign this loan for me, you’ll never have to see me again as long as you live!”
My mother closed her eyes and slowly tore the form in half.
“No!” I screamed.
“I’ll get you the money,” she said quietly. I scrambled to my feet and pulled the mangled papers out of her hands.
“How? Are you going to steal it, like Daddy? Well, don’t bother! I’m leaving home and never coming back!”
I packed my meager belongings in the suitcase Connie had given me for a graduation present, and left. I was so angry and frustrated that I walked out to the county highway and hitched a ride to Bensenville with a car full of hippies. They dropped me off at the Greyhound station, and I caught a bus to Albany the next day. By the time I reached the campus, I had pieced the loan form together with tape and forged my mother’s signature on it. A receptionist guided me to an information board, and within two days I had found a house full of hippies who were looking for another roommate, and a summer job at a coffee shop close to campus. My working hours were from five-thirty in the morning until one-thirty in the afternoon, so I was able to work a second job washing dishes at a restaurant from four o’clock in the afternoon until closing. I worked myself to exhaustion every day that summer, but I didn’t care. Nobody knew the old Kathleen Gallagher who’d had cooties and a Communist uncle and a thieving father. I was starting life all over again.
Two weeks after moving to Albany, I came home to my apartment after a long shift at the restaurant and saw Uncle Leonard’s beat-up car parked at the curb. It could have been any one of my family members, since they all used his car. Even Poke took it for joyrides whenever he felt like it, never caring that he was only fourteen.
But when I got closer I saw Uncle Leonard himself sitting on the front stoop with his head in his hands. He looked like a cadaver in the yellowgreen light of the street lamp. He saw me approaching and stood.
“Kathleen… something terrible has happened,” he said. He gripped my arms, and I wasn’t sure if he was holding me up or leaning on me for support. I waited the longest moment of my life.
“Your mother is dead.”
B
y the time Kathleen finished telling her story to Joelle, she felt as though she had aged thirty years. She could feel the tension in her shoulders and neck, the writhing knot in her stomach from reliving her past. And she hadn’t even told Joelle the worst of it. Sooner or later she would want to know how her grandmother had died, but right now, Kathleen couldn’t bring herself to say the words out loud.
Why did she still feel as though her mother’s sudden death was her fault, even though it had happened after she left home? She would have to tell Joelle the details before someone else in the family did, but she had raked up enough muck for one morning.
“I have to stop for gas,” Kathleen said, switching on the turn signal to exit the highway. “Do you need to get out and stretch? Want a sandwich or something?”
“Sure. … Mom, don’t you want to just drive into Riverside and find all those horrible people who laughed at you and show them how rich and successful you are now?”
Kathleen’s answer was quick: “No. I don’t.”
“Why not?”
The truth was that no matter how hard Kathleen had worked or how successful she’d become, the shame would never go away. She may have changed, but the town’s perception of her probably hadn’t, and after all this time she still feared their scorn.
“No one will believe it’s true,” she said quietly.
“Mom, you’re driving a Lexus, for crying out loud.”
It was on the tip of Kathleen’s tongue to say:
They’ll assume I stole it
.
She pulled the car to a halt beside the gas pump, and Joelle hopped out with the grace and energy of youth; Kathleen climbed out as if she were eighty-four instead of fifty-four. She filled the gas tank, and when she went inside to pay for the gas and buy sandwiches and drinks, Joelle set a package of Hostess Twinkies on the counter.
“These are for you, Mom. To make up for all those times you couldn’t afford them.”
Kathleen was so touched she could only manage to say, “Thanks.”
She waited until she’d negotiated the entrance ramp and they were back on the highway before she said, “Do you understand why I wanted a different life for you?”
And why I was so upset with you for shoplifting?
she wanted to add.
“I guess so. …”
“And now that you know a little more about my past, do you understand why I resigned from my job at Impost? They weren’t asking me to break the law, exactly, but it was much too close to the line for me to feel comfortable.”
“What about Grandma’s story?” Joelle asked after a moment.
A shadow of dread passed over Kathleen. “What do you mean?”
“Well, you wanted me to hear your story so I could understand you better—and I do, now that I know what a lousy childhood you had and everything. So… what about your mother? Why did she spend so much time in the outhouse? What was
her
story—what was
her
childhood like?”
“My mother would never talk about herself.” Even as she said the words, Kathleen realized that she had never talked about herself, either, for all these years. But what if Joelle was right? What if there was something in her mother’s past that would explain her behavior? Kathleen knew that she needed to forgive her mother for the mistakes she’d made, just as she hoped Joelle would forgive her. But had she ever bothered to try to understand her mother?
“You don’t know
anything
about your mom?” Joelle persisted.
“Not much. … Just a few family stories that have been passed down over the years. My great-grandfather supposedly left Ireland in the 1920s and started all over again in America with my grandmother.”
“You mean your
great-
grandmother.”
“No, his wife stayed behind in Ireland with the rest of the children. Only my grandmother Fiona and her father came over.”
“That’s weird.”
“Yes, I suppose it is. Anyway, Grandma Fiona left New York City at some point and started all over again with my mother and Uncle Leonard in Deer Falls, that little resort town in the Pocono Mountains.”
“What about Fiona’s husband?”
“I don’t know anything about him. I think he might have died around that time. Anyway, my mother left home during World War II and started all over again in Riverside—where we’re going.”
And Kathleen had left there in 1968, starting all over again in Albany. What a legacy! Running away from life’s problems.
“Why did everyone keep leaving home?” Joelle asked.
“I guess for the same reasons that I did—they wanted to take control of their lives, change the direction they were heading, get out of whatever rut their parents were in.”
Joelle nodded, looking thoughtful. Kathleen felt a little thrill—they were communicating. And without any help from homely Dr. Russo, thank you very much. Kathleen had a question for Joelle, but she proceeded carefully, as if one false move would send them sliding all the way back to where they’d started, like a tiresome game of Chutes and Ladders.
“What do you want your life and your future to be, Joelle?”
“I want…” She stopped, shaking her head. “Whatever. Never mind.”
“No, I’d really like to know.”
“It will only make you mad.”
“That’s okay. I still want to hear it—not so I can talk you out of it, I promise. But so that we can get to know each other a little better. Please?”
Joelle exhaled, and when she finally spoke, her words came out bitter and tight. “I
hate
my life.”
Her words stunned Kathleen. How often had Kathleen voiced the same thoughts when she was growing up—hating her life, hating her poverty and shame. But Joelle had everything Kathleen had dreamed of and longed for. How could she say she hated her life?
“Why?” Kathleen managed to ask.
“Because it’s so phony and plastic. I can’t stand the way you and Daddy and all my friends’parents live—it’s like you’re not really living at all!
You’re just making money and spending it—and not even enjoying it. And you’re all so
boring
. At least your father and your Uncle Leonard sounded like interesting people.”
Kathleen wanted to interrupt, to argue that being a criminal or a Communist made life difficult, not interesting. She wanted to defend herself and prove that she really
was
living and enjoying her life. It was the life she’d chosen and worked for. But she held her tongue and allowed Joelle to finish.
“I don’t want to live the way you and Daddy do. I want to do something that
matters
.”
“Don’t we all?” Kathleen murmured.
“I mean, I don’t care if I have a job that makes a lot of money. I want to do something to
help
people.”
So many thoughts came to Kathleen’s mind: how Joelle had been pampered and catered to since the day she’d been born; how she’d never even helped out around the house, much less helped strangers; how she was accustomed to nice stuff, expensive stuff, and lots of it. Joelle had no idea what it was like to have to scrimp and save just to buy a bottle of shampoo, or how disgusting your clothes smelled when you bought them at the thrift store, or what it was like to go to bed on a bare mattress with an empty stomach. Joelle threw more food into the garbage every day than Kathleen used to eat in a week when she was a child. Her daughter was rich and spoiled and dearly loved, and she took it all for granted.
But Kathleen didn’t say any of those things. Instead, she pulled out to pass a slow-moving truck, and waited until she was sure her voice would sound encouraging, not critical or sarcastic. “You don’t have to wait to help people, Joelle. Why don’t you go to Mexico on the youth group mission trip this summer?”
“Mexico!”
Joelle’s expression of disgust was priceless, as if she was imagining what it would be like to sleep on the floor or to sacrifice her daily shower and her favorite TV shows or to eat mystery food. And how it would be to rise at dawn to do manual labor all day, coming home sweaty and dirty. Kathleen fought to suppress a smile.
Joelle eyed Kathleen carefully, as if suspicious of her motives. Kathleen hoped her face didn’t betray her amusement.
Finally Joelle lifted her chin and looked away. “Maybe I
will
go to Mexico.”
Kathleen finally grinned. “My uncle Leonard would be proud of you.”
They pulled into a motel in Bensenville a little after three o’clock. Joelle had been dozing. Kathleen rubbed her shoulder. “Joelle, we’re here.”
She opened her eyes and gazed around, still groggy. “Is this the town where you grew up?”
“Not quite. There aren’t any hotels in Riverside. This is the closest town that has one.”
“Why aren’t we staying with your family?”
“Um… no room.” Hadn’t she been listening? Didn’t Kathleen just explain how poor her family was, what a dilapidated house she’d lived in? Kathleen wanted a clean bathroom and a firm mattress—and as little contact with her family as possible. Joelle should thank her for it.
They checked into the hotel, and Joelle flopped onto one of the beds with the TV remote. Kathleen couldn’t seem to relax. Retelling the story of her past had reminded her of how much Mrs. Hayworth had once meant to her, and she was sorry they’d lost contact. On impulse, Kathleen pulled the phone book out of the nightstand drawer to see if there was a listing for her. There was, and it was at the same street address in Riverside where she’d always lived. Kathleen quickly dialed the number before she lost her nerve. She found herself half-hoping Mrs. Hayworth wouldn’t answer, afraid of the memories that would be unearthed if she did. Cynthia answered on the second ring.
“Why, Kathleen Gallagher!” she said after Kathleen identified herself. “How are you? I was just thinking about you the other day when I read about your brother in the newspaper.”
