Page 127 of At First Smile
“Honey—”
“Stop! Just …stop,” I snap.
A sharp intake of breath is her only response.
“I wish you saw me as something more than just a problem to be solved.” Standing up, I begin to pace. The cool hardwoodunder my bare feet does nothing to extinguish the fire raging inside me.
“Honey, that’s not how I see you.”
“Eat your carrots, Pen, they’ll help your eyes. You should get this experimental procedure that has a point five percent chance of working. Pen, you should marry Alex; he’ll take care of you.” I wave my arms and I mimic my mother’s midwestern accent. “If you can’t cure my blindness, you want someone else to take care of me.”
“I just want to help you,” she sniffles.
Part of me wants to say anything to stop her tears. To put on my usual smile and say, “I know, it’s okay.” It’s what I did on Wednesday as I sat with a pretend happy expression on my face while Nelson and Cortes talked to me about the promotion. It’s what I do so often with others.
They’re the blind ones.Rowan’s words almost wrap around me as if they are his strong arms.
“Maybe you should have focused more onyourvisual impairment, than mine. Focus on seeing your daughter as capable.”
“Honey, I’m… I don’t know,” she stammers.
“I’ve only ever been a problem for you to solve or ship off to someone else to deal with.”
“What does that mean?”
“School therapists. Vision specialists. Summer camps. Aunt Bea. If you couldn’t have my eye disease cured, you’d stick me with anyone else just so you didn’t end up with your helpless blind daughter. Well, I’m blind, but I’m not helpless. No matter what you or anyone else thinks.”
The words sprint out of me as if soldiers, swords ready, charging into battle. It’s not just the resentment that’s quietly brewed inside me over the years with my mother, but a lifetimeof others’ perceptions that fuels my fury. My new therapist will have a field day at our session next week.
“I will not apologize for wanting what’s best for you… For getting experts to help you. That’s my job as a mother.” Her water-logged tone is fierce.
“What about just loving me as I am, rather than for what I’m not?”
“I know how fucking amazing you are.”
My frustrated pacing ceases with her forceful protest. Mom isn’t a demure “get my smelling salts” kind of woman, but she’s not prone to cursing. They only get pulled out when the Buffalo Sabres lose or if she’s angry,really angry.
“If I’m so amazing, then why ship me off to California?” I hiss.
“That’s not what I?—”
“It fucking is. You let your teenage daughter move across the country without you and never came to see her!”
“You wanted to go!” she shouts back.
“And you made no protest.”
“You’re right.” A quiet quake ripples along her words. “Aunt Bea and you were so close. She was so much like your dad, and you bloomed with her. I thought it was best for you.”
Forehead puckered, I glare at the phone as if it’s her. “It was also good for you. It fixed the problem. I was someone else’s burden.”
“That’s not true.”
“Then why are you obsessed with me finding someone to take care of me?”
“Because I want you to have what I had with your father…and what I have with Charlie. It took me a few frogs to find my second chance for a happy ending after your dad died.” There’s no mistaking the sad wistfulness in her words.
I lean against the wall. “A relationship isn’t a happy ending.”
