When the Messenger Is Hot (10 page)

They suggest groups. They say
There are support groups for what you are going through
.

Believe me, I wish there were.

They suggest other things. Yoga. Transcendental meditation. Reiki. Sacrocranial massage. Medication. They say,
You should go to a spa. Take a vacation. Take a class
. They look at me with their heads tilted. They give me earnest looks. They say,
Three years is a long time, it might be time to let go
. I'm not angry with them. Some of them have lost people too. But there's something they don't understand. My mother is coming back.

I realize that this doesn't happen often.

They give me books. I have read the Kubler-Ross book. Okay well, to be honest I read it in college. This time I just kind of skimmed it — denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance. As I said, the collective belief is that I'm stuck in the denial phase when in fact, my belief is that this is just a big mistake that will eventually be straightened out. If anything I'm in phase two because I have quite a bit of a bone to pick with whoever's in charge and frankly I'd be willing to strike all kinds of bargains if I knew who that was. But it's hard to be depressed when you know with absolute certainty that sooner or later the person who everyone else thinks is dead is coming back. There's nothing to be depressed about. And there's certainly nothing to accept.

I consulted the Ouija board. I never got anything much except consonants. Once I got MNOT which I interpreted every which way but never made any definite conclusions. Monotony? Mom not? Mom not what? Susan Minot? I read that book of hers about her mom dying but couldn't find any clues there either, and of course that book depicts the traditional, momdies-people-get-upset kind of scenario. I thought about going to Minot, North Dakota, but it seemed like a long way to go without some kind of guarantee.

I went to psychics. I thought a psychic would be the first to see my point of view, to say,
Of course it was a terrible mistake
, and that they would then immediately locate the perpetrators of the mistake, that they would say something like,
You need to go speak with Fritz Miller in the accounting department at Kidder Peabody. He'll give you the appropriate paperwork and straighten the whole thing out
. But they don't; they, too, offer earnest sentiments and tilted heads and the best they'll do is say,
She wants you to know she's fine. She's in a better place
. And when I'd ask for the exact location of the better place they say things like
the other side
, which isn't of much use, and I spent a lot of time trying to figure out the other side of
what?

So I stopped talking about it so much. I try to put on sad looks to make them think I'm okay. Which of course, is a fairly ridiculous concept, when you think about it. I did go to a group, briefly, right after Mom “died,” but it was depressing. They were all
sobbing
, talking about their
feelings
, talking about
moving on
. Some of them had lost sisters and children. And I mean, I can't say for sure whether those people actually died or not, I do understand that people die, most of my grandparents have died, and I didn't want to offend anyone, but I really wanted to say,
Have you thought about looking for them? Are you so sure they're gone for good?
In my case, my mom is too young, that's part of why I'm sure this mistake was made, but it certainly is more understandable when the parents go first, that is the natural order of things. But when younger people and especially when children die, I wouldn't be so quick to call that the end of it. That just doesn't make sense. But I kept my opinion to myself, because by the time I went to the support group it was about a year afterward and my friends and family had already made it clear that they thought maybe I shouldn't mention the thing about my mom not really being dead, you know, that that might not go over so well in a grief support group.

I've been back at work since shortly after the funeral, more earnest looks and whispers, and I try to keep her house up as best I can, which is sometimes hard because I live in Chicago and the house is in New Jersey, but I go back a few times a year and I have a gardener and a housekeeper come every once in a while so the place will look nice when she gets back. I did eventually cancel her subscriptions and her cable, which seemed silly to pay for not knowing exactly when she'd be back, and I took the dog, because obviously a dog can't stay alone for more than a day. And, well, I borrowed a few other things, like the TV from the den, when mine blew out, and a set of brand-new sheets I didn't think she'd miss, and her jewelry. (Which was a mistake because I was later burglarized, and although I did get some of it back, the box with the rings in it was never returned. So the only ring I have now is the one I was wearing that day, my grandmother's “mother” ring, with a diamond in the center and two pink stones on either side representing her two daughters.)

My mother's friends and family grieved. They sobbed, they went to groups, they
accepted
. I waited. And as it turned out, I was right. Mom came back.

Things were a little different than I expected.

She'd been waiting in a bus depot sixty miles southeast of Minot, North Dakota. How about that? She was told that there were delays. That there were weather problems. That there were engine problems. That there were traffic problems. I said,
For three years?
She said,
Tell me about it
. Then she said,
Finally they admitted there was a mix-up with my ticket. Your ticket?
I said.
Yes
, she said,
I only got a one-way
. I asked how she got there. She said,
There's a tunnel system
. I said,
What do you mean, tunnel system?
She said,
There's a tunnel system underground that shuttles people out of graveyards when mistakes like these are made that go to this bus depot in North Dakota, and from there you're supposed to get a ticket back to wherever you came from. But in this case another mistake was made
.

I knew it!
I said.

Fuckers fed me coffee out of vending machines and those nasty cheese crackers for three years
.

Mom, you used to love those cheese crackers
.

You try living on cheese crackers and coffee with “whitener” for three years. It's not nutritious
.

Mom
, I said,
I'm just so glad to see you
.

I'm glad to see you too, sweetheart
, she said.
Is there any mail?

I tried to explain that everyone on the planet besides me had thought she was dead all this time, thus the lack of mail.

Well, Christ
, she said,
that's quite an assumption to make
.

I know!
I said.

Where's doggie?

He's in the yard
. Mom ran to the yard and yelled for the dog, who came running.
Doggie! My doggie! Mama's baby doggie! I missed you so much! Mama's doggie do. Poor baby, missed his mama! Yes I'm here! Mama's here!

Now, it was about in the middle of the dog reunion that I realized I didn't get so much as a hug a few minutes before when Mom came back. Which was weird, because she used to be pretty huggy with me. I will admit, she always had a weird relationship with the dog. But you know, she'd been
dead
. It's not like she just went out of town. Weirdest of all, I felt a little jealous. I'd been starting to feel like the dog was mine.

Anyway, the neighbors saw us in the yard and of course they were beside themselves, because unlike me, no one was expecting this. The Marksons next door, whose son I used to babysit, walked over crying hysterically, and seemed confused. Mom tried to explain just as Ginny the religious fanatic from up the street walked by with her dog, screaming at the sight of my mother. She crossed herself and actually fell down on the grass screaming some prayers or something. Later that day we figured it was Ginny who called the local news stations, because suddenly there were half a dozen trucks with those big extending antennas or whatever they are, breaking the branches off the trees, which you can be sure that my mother yelled at them about. Those trees are about a hundred years old. Anyway, my mother
invited them in
, the reporters, put on a big pot of coffee, and held a press conference in the living room. She explained the whole story about the bus depot and the cheese crackers and not one of them asked any kind of pressing question about how unbelievable the story was, suddenly everyone seemed to have no questions about what they wanted to institutionalize me for saying not too long before. They were like,
Bus depot, underground shuttle, sure
. And she had the death certificate, and she told them if there was any question at all to call the doctors, and the minister who gave her eulogy, and everyone who came to her funeral and saw her in the coffin three years ago looking pretty dead. And they did check that all out and it was all verified although there was curiously no evidence of the bus depot in question or for that matter any other returned-from-the-dead people. But no one questioned that my mother was back. She obviously was.

Out of all the hoopla came an unexpected bonus as far as my mother was concerned. She became a celebrity. She went on talk shows. She gave interviews. It seemed to extend past the allotted fifteen minutes. And then it happened. My mother got an offer to have her own TV show, a sitcom based on her life/death/return from the bus depot. That's what they called it, actually.
Return from the Depot!
Featuring my mom as herself, and a little Bichon Frise as “Doggie,” and Lindsay Wagner as Ginny the religious fanatic and Alyssa Milano playing me.
I know
.

My mother was never an actress. She was, briefly, on the pageant circuit in Iowa, where she grew up. She had played classical piano in high school, won a few pre-Miss Iowa pageants, and then met my dad when she went to college when she was about eighteen and had me a few years after that. When they got divorced she moved to New York intending to be a concert pianist, and she was talented and got some work, but never got the recognition she craved. So she taught from the time I was about ten. Anyway, she obviously saw the show as her chance, and she got them to write it into the script, the piano thing, but I think she was more excited about being famous than anything else.

Of course the show was a big hit. There was a lot of curiosity, even though it really wasn't all that much different from any other sitcom, although I will say that my mother always had the potential to be a star. She probably should have gone into acting long ago, because she always had a diva thing going on. So she was a natural.

At the end of the show's first season they brought in Alan Thicke for a guest spot and he fell madly in love with Mom right away, sent her all kinds of crazy flowers and gifts, and it took her all of about three months to agree to marry him. I couldn't blame her for wanting to be with someone. But I was a little jealous. All that time I'd been waiting for her to come back, I thought we'd get to spend more time together. I had a long time to think about how stupid I'd been so many times, what a waste of time it was, blaming her for everything that was wrong in my life. It didn't occur to me that she was just a person who wanted a kid but maybe didn't realize what that would really involve. I thought if she came back I'd be a better daughter. I thought she'd be a better mother. I thought, dying and coming back, especially after being gone so long, it would have to change things. You would just naturally want to make things right. I think there were other things she was trying to make right. I wasn't included.

So I eventually went back to Chicago, which was quite a bit lonelier than ever without the dog. Alan moved in with Mom and she'd call once every week or so to say hi and tell me what the dog was doing and then she'd get off the phone giggling because Alan was trying to have sex with her all the time including whenever she got on the phone with me.

And then the other day I went to the supermarket and when I got inside the store I took off my glove and happened to notice that one of the pink stones was missing from my grandmother's ring. And I'm not one who ever sees a lot of signs (in spite of this whole mom-coming-back thing I don't have an overall mystical kind of life outlook) but I called Mom immediately from my cell phone and Alan answered and I asked if Mom was there and he said,
Who?
and I said,
Mom, your wife, Mrs. Thicke
, and he said,
I don't know who you are or how you got this number young lady but most people know I'm married to Carmen Electra and I'm going to contact my security company immediately
. So I called her at work but the woman who answered sounded an awful lot like Mrs. C. from
Happy Days
, and she was pleasant with me but she hung up as soon as she said,
I think you have the wrong number
. I called the Marksons, who said,
Sweetie, we thought you let this go already
. I called Ginny the religious fanatic who said something about
messing with god's will
and said a Hail Mary and hung up on me. I ran to the checkout counter to look at the
TV Guide
. I looked up the listing for
Return from the Depot!
And there was a big ad for the show with a picture of Mrs. Cunningham with the rest of the cast, no mention of my mother, and no indication that she was just replaced or something. It seems clear she was never there.

Now, I know what you're thinking. You're thinking this is the part where I realize, via a simple metaphor, that my mother is not coming back, the part where I snap out of my denial and realize that there will be no big reunion, that she will not send me vitamins or make me chicken soup again when I'm sick, or buy me a new teakettle when mine gets rusty, where I realize that we will never go outlet shopping again, never decorate another Christmas tree, that we will never again giggle uncontrollably about my cousin's famously cheap Christmas presents like the orange garage sale bodysuit she sent my mom one year with the $3 tag still on it that I made her try on that made her look like a demented superhero, where I understand that I will never get to show her the home movies from my childhood that Dad put on video that I forgot to bring to Jersey the last time before she died, understand that the plane ticket she bought to Chicago will never get used, that when the plane ticket is not used we will not be having coffee on my porch, that she'll never get to meet Bob or Lisa or Michael and that they'll never get to meet her, that we will never trash another distant relative's poor fashion choices, where I understand that I will never get to tell her that I met the guy from
The Young and the Restless
she always liked, never get to tell her about some great boyfriend (hypothetical), that I will never get to tell her that even though she was completely crazy that I would never in a million years want any other mom, that Mrs. C. would pale in comparison, the part where I realize that I will never get to ask her all the questions I wanted to ask her, like where is the touch-up paint to the station wagon, like how do you knit a popcorn stitch, like the exact basil-to-oregano ratio for the perfect marinara, like how come I have no brothers or sisters, like what was I like when I was a kid, was I a bad kid? I'm sorry if I was a bad kid, like what were you like when you were a kid, you were probably a good kid, the best kid, like what was life like during wartime, what was it like to have two parents, what was Grandma like then, like what was it that made you so sad sometimes, the part where I understand I can't discuss her funeral with her like it was a party, tell her how many people came and what they were wearing and what asshole didn't show up because he had a birthday party to go to, where I understand that I can't ask her what was it like for her when Grandma died, the part where I understand why my mother wasn't there to help me get through my mother's death, because it still makes perfect sense to me that anyone would need their mom at a time like that. But it isn't. It's the part where I go to the jeweler's.