Southern Fried Sushi (32 page)

A card fell out, tucked in the back of the album. Thank you for the beautiful roses for our wedding, read the handwriting. You blessed us with such beauty, and we’ll always remember your gift. God bless you
.

A snapshot inside the card showed a radiant bride clutching a ribboned bouquet of white, arm around my smiling mother.

I sat back, chin in hand. I’d imagined Mom sometimes over our years of frozen hurt and anger, but these happy faces didn’t match. Giving hugs. Giving flowers. A completely different woman than I knew before … and I started to wonder if I’d ever really known her at all.

The house was quiet like after a snowfall, hushed, wrapped in cotton. I closed the photo album and walked down the hall to her room, which I always avoided. Switched on the light and just stood there, taking in all the details Lowell and I tried so hard to sponge away: framed paintings of roses, Bible verses, an antique trunk covered with a colorful gypsy-patterned cloth.

I ran my fingers over her brush and hair clips on the dresser, left just as if she’d put them down a moment ago. Touched my little elementary-school picture she’d tucked in the corner of her mirror. Her tube of lipstick. My favorite amethyst drop earrings in a dish.

I took the top off her golden-yellow globe of Avon perfume and smelled summer evenings in New York, elegant purse tucked under her elbow as she led me off the subway to a modern art gallery or weird museum … those amethyst earrings glinting. I could recall a few pleasant days.

A Bible verse on a card: “For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.”

I covered it with my palm, wondering over the words, which pricked me with surprising emotion.

And there, a little framed photo of Mom as a high-school graduate. Even in black and white, I could see her hazel eyes, multicolored like mine—the only thing about her that looked like me. And held just as much promise and sorrow.

I could scarcely breathe, so thick were the images and scents of the past as I slid open her dresser drawer, staring down at the neat boxes of hair pins and earrings. Her slim gold watch still gleamed in its box, tick-tick-ticking as if waiting for Mom to slip it on.

“For we are God’s workmanship …”

For an instant I felt like an intruder, a stranger, invading Mom’s private spaces after years of absence. But I had to. Pain welled up, but it was good pain, like the sting of removing a splinter. She would have wanted me here, sifting through her colorful tangle of necklaces like all our memories, intertwined forever.

A covered velvet box hid in the corner. I pulled the top off, curious, and couldn’t believe what I saw: Mom’s gold wedding band and engagement ring.

I hadn’t seen them since New York as a little girl, after Dad left. Sure, she’d worn them a year or two longer, in vain hope, but they eventually disappeared. I assumed she’d pawned them or thrown them away, but no, they hibernated here, outliving even her. They still gleamed so bright I could see my reflection—and at the same time looked unspeakably lonely, cordoned off and lifeless all these years.

I took them out and held them, cold, in the palm of my hand until they drew warmth from my skin. Closed my fingers over them and then opened them again, watching the gold and diamonds gleam and sparkle as they were made to do for a lover.

It ached to see them, and I couldn’t explain why.

And then suddenly, as my eyes hovered over my empty left ring finger, I understood. Dad. Carlos. Good-byes. Mom felt that ripping in her chest, just as I had.

She knew how it felt to reach out for love, to feel her heart leap up at the sound of a name, the warmth of a hand in hers. To ride the subway through the city and know that out there, somewhere, across those millions of hearts, one beat only for her.

And then, in one horrible moment, to have it snatched away forever, like a blanket on a bitterly cold night. Promises broken, words severing in an instant what had taken years to build. Separation. Divorce. Arguments. Eviction. Alone.

No wonder she seemed to die not in Virginia but years ago, succumbing to the illness and depression that tormented her. Black and lonely nights. Reaching out for anyone and everyone who offered hope, no matter how shoddy or half-baked.

“For we are God’s workmanship …”

I squeezed the rings in my hands as tight as my eyes, remembering how I’d thrown Carlos’s ring in the mail within a week. Mom had kept hers for nearly twenty years, throughout all her moves and houses, and stored them close to her heart.

Perhaps Dad meant more to her than I ever realized.

I slipped the rings on my finger for safekeeping and sat down on her bed. Smoothed her blankets and bedspread. Wondered, for the first time, if she’d missed Dad like I missed Carlos. If she’d missed me, too, as she slept there, knowing she’d lost me just as surely as she’d lost Dad.

The weight was too heavy. I placed the rings back in their box and silenced their memories with a pop of the velvet lid.

I was just sliding the drawer closed when my fingers touched something hard and beaded, tucked loosely under a silk handkerchief. I thought there could be no secret more overwhelming than Mom’s rings, but when I brushed aside the silk to find a beautiful little book, I couldn’t resist.

The cover sparkled with tiny Indian mirrors, beads, and embroidery. Colorful and exotic—just Mom’s style. In fact, I’d seen lots of these books years ago in New York … in Mom’s eccentric collection of “mind help” stash, along with the Raelian pamphlets and self-hypnosis mumbo jumbo.

It dawned on me slowly at first then like a grim wave. A book of wisdom from some Indian guru, or Hindu life forces, or whatever. Another church. Another wisdom. Another sham.

Next time Faye says something about her “new life” with God I’ll …

I opened the cover and, to my astonishment, found no elephant goddess or guide to karma. It wasn’t a book at all. It was a journal—blank-paged, marked with a pale-blue silk ribbon—like the ones we sold at Barnes & Noble. Filled, from beginning to nearly the end, with Mom’s familiar blue ink handwriting.

Oh, Mom’s journals. I remembered those.

I flopped down on the bed, recalling her notebooks stuffed under chairs, shoved in wads, scratched on napkins—usually when Mom went off her medication. She’d rant about her problems with Dad, wanting to die, and waiting for her “celestial family” to take her from our cold and evil earth. I threw them in the trash and tried to sponge those words from my mind.

I recognized Mom’s script all right—swirly, loopy letters as if running away from her. Fields of blue words planted in row after row, as far as my thumb turned the pages.

The cover sparkled like the rings, and I wavered. Maybe it was better to let sleeping dogs lie and just leave the past in the past. And as I closed the journal, several dried and pressed roses, nearly transparent in their fragile beauty, sifted into my lap.

I cupped them in my hand. Roses? In Mom’s journal? I would have expected astral fortune cards, not roses.

My brow furrowed as I flipped through the pages, finding several more paper-thin specimens, all cream and pink with age but still lovely.

And then—the word
Shiloh
caught my eye.

I just sent Shiloh another package. She might not receive it, but at least I’ve done what I could. I know I messed up. I’ll never be the mom—or wife, for that matter—I always dreamed of. But all I can change is today. Live differently now. Smile now. Pray now. Working in my garden and in my classroom strengthens me, invigorates me—and promises me something better. A better life. Yes, that’s it! A better life with God. I see His glorious creation, without explanation and reason (no scientist can create a zucchini or a child!), and I’m invited into it. I water and trim and fertilize, and fat blooms smile back. Red tomatoes fall round into my hands. A blind girl learns Braille. Adyn writes his name
.

But it’s my roses that speak to me at home when I’m alone with my thoughts. Why? Because they carry thorns. Reminders of this fallen world, our sin—my sin—and how it hurts. How thorns pierced Jesus’ forehead and nails pierced His flesh for me. When I was still His enemy. And yet when the blooms come, they carry scents of heaven
.

A perfect picture of our sin and God’s mercy. Beauty and pain, all woven together—just like my life. Oh, what an amazing work God has done in this cold little heart of mine!

My jaw fell open. Mom? Mom wrote THIS? It’s not possible! She wasn’t lucid enough! Wasn’t … I don’t know, but it couldn’t be her!

That’s why the Bible says, “We have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed.” That is me, and I will never be the same!

Beauty and pain side by side, just as I had considered in the living room. Right in front of me, in Mom’s frilly letters.

“I was pushed back and about to fall, but the L
ORD
helped me.” I pressed my eyes closed, remembering the book in Barnes & Noble with startling accuracy. “I will not die but live, and will proclaim what the L
ORD
has done.” “For we are God’s workmanship …”

Astounded, I paged through the journal, staring at the lines of blue and hardly believing my eyes. I knew this writing. Those loopy l’s and a’s. But had Mom—my unstable, ranting, suicidal mother—actually penned these lines?

Her words called like a clear stream, whispering, enchanting. I couldn’t stop reading.

I see the work of God again as I prune and trim my roses, getting ready for the big frost that will put them all to sleep for the winter. And yet today, on an Indian summer morning reprieve from the cold, I found they had burst into bloom again! Without warning, just a chorus of fresh, bursting pink and white flowers as if a wedding party paraded through my garden
.

One last flourish, ill-timed but unspeakably beautiful in its quiet fanfare. In fact, more beautiful than all the summers put together because around it, life has bled. Dwindled. Slipped into the silence of autumn and fallen leaves. It is here, where life seems most drab, that these shining pink voices call the loudest
.

My life again, in flora. When I should double over in despair from my past, never to rise again, suddenly I shout! Dazzle! And come to life!

This is my moment. One last flourish. Not for me anymore, thank the Lord. But for Him. I see it now! Even the coldest fall can no longer silence my voice. Come, fall!

Come, winter! I am not afraid. I will keep on singing until my last petal falls
.

The pages blurred. If I was a betting woman, I would have given all my money (if I had any) to prove these words imposters. Just like Mom.

Impossible! She couldn’t have written this! I pressed my palm to my forehead, turning pages in disbelief.

Mom studied religious philosophies and cults from all over the world, giving all her money and her mind to follow the weirdest beliefs ever invented. But nothing, nothing had ever caused her to speak such beauty—from her heart, a heart so glorious and confident it moved me.

I ran my finger over her words again: “One last flourish.” Did Mom know she was going to die?

I no longer cared about The Green Tree or Lowell or Barnes & Noble. I had to know. Now.

With shaking fingers I switched off the bedroom light and plopped down in the warm lamplight of the living room, journal in hand.

When I awoke, Mom’s journal had fallen in my lap. My face pressed against the side of the armchair, leaving deep marks across my cheek. Yet none of it mattered. I had crossed over into another world, right there in the living room.

Mom. I couldn’t shake the beauty and poetry echoing from her words into my very marrow. She whispered, she cried, she missed, she reached out. She had spoken to God in tender joy, like a relationship … a romance even … and He to her.

For a moment I felt like an outsider again, standing by the table while Jamie and Becky prayed, watching something unspeakably precious unfold.

Instead of the old complaints, I found faith and thanksgiving.

Instead of anger, I found peace. And instead of bitterness and hate, I found—to my utter astonishment—forgiveness.

Not perfect forgiveness, but real. Aching. And still stepping forward, one foot at a time.

If I dared to make such a statement, it was as if Mom had come to life.

She prayed for strength. Prayed for courage. Prayed for me. For Shiloh P. Jacobs, who wouldn’t even take her phone calls.

My hands trembled on the pages as I saw my name written in her distinctive lettering, spotted with wrinkled tear marks. I followed them with my finger, line after line, and then abruptly stopped: “And that’s why I planted my white Kobe roses, named after a city in Japan that rebuilt itself after the earthquake.”

I knew the Kobe earthquake, for crying out loud! I had written about it! The Great Hanshin earthquake in 1995 that destroyed one of the biggest cities in Japan—in the world, even. How on earth did Mom know? Had she read my articles?