Page 56 of Running Into You
I take a large drink from the glass of wine in my hands. Fuck it.
“You left dad for him.” It comes out like an accusation which is fine by me because that’s exactly how I meant it. Her eyes widen at me with a mixture of shock and amusement.
“I did no such thing. I left your father because I didn’t want to be married to him anymore.”
“Did you even try to work on the marriage?” I hiss.
“Why would I work on something I didn’t want in the first place?” She sits back in her chair and gives me a disappointed look. It’s a look I know very well.
“Why did you marry him in the first place?” I’m finding it difficult to keep my voice down. I take another drink of wine. I’m not sure that’s going to help with the volume control.
She shrugs. “It suited me at the time. Marriage and motherhood were all the rage in the mid-nineties. I decided to give it a try. I suppose I never really took to it.” The admission stings. She’s talking about my very existence, like she decided it on a whim.
I’ve put more thought into whether to get bangs than she did on whether to become a mother.
“No,” I say bitterly. “I suppose you never did.”
“Now just wait a minute, Elizabeth. If you are inferring that I was not a good mother—”
“I was implying that you weren’t a good mother. To clear up any confusion on the matter, I’ll be more direct. You weren’t a good mother. You still aren’t.”
“That’s preposterous. I see your flare for the dramatics is still intact, Elizabeth. I had rather hoped that would pass with your adolescence, but apparently not.” Her face flushes and I’m delighted to discover that red is a terrible color on her.
I feel as if a dam inside me has broken and I’m not able to hold back what I’ve kept inside me for so many years. Maybe I don’t want to.
I drain my glass and smile at her. “What instrument did I want to play in the eighth grade?”
“What?”
“You heard what I asked you, mother. Answer the question.”
“You played the clarinet,” she answers triumphantly.
“I played the clarinet, yes. But what instrument did I want to play?”
“The flute?”
“Alto sax. I was crushed when I didn’t get it. Stayed in my room for two entire days. How old was I when I got my period?”
“Really, Elizabeth what—”
“How old?” I lean forward, daring her to answer.
“Fourteen.”
“Twelve. I didn’t know what to do and I couldn’t get a hold of you at work, so I called Rilla’s mom. She came over with pads and talked me through everything. When I told you about it the next day, your exact words were ‘You act like that’s an accomplishment, Elizabeth.’ You didn’t ask how I was feeling. You didn’t ask me if I wanted to ask you any questions or talk about it. You went back to the book you were reading.”
I wait for her flippant response, but it doesn’t come. She sits across from me and for the first time in my life, I believe I’m witnessing my mother speechless. She stares at me, pale and panicked. This is the first time it’s ever occurred to her that she underperformed at a task.
“You don’t know me, mother. At all. You don’t know me, and that’s all on you.” My tone is calmer now, the anger dissipating, almost becoming indifference. “I don’t know you very well, either. That’s on you too. You really weren’t around much.”
“I didn’t think I needed to be. We had so little in common. You were always so much like your father,” she says bitterly, staring at her hands as she speaks.
I know she doesn’t mean it as one, but it is the greatest compliment I’ve ever received. She has no way of knowing this, as I’ve never told a single person, but the biggest fear I have is that I will become her. Some day. Somehow. By some series of choices or circumstances. I have lived in silent fear that I am destined to be like her. It’s held me back from committing myself to anyone. It’s pushed away all consideration of children.
As I sit across from her in this stuck-up restaurant, I’m able to see her as something other than my mother. I see her as the stranger that she is. I see that she’s nothing like me. Or maybe rather that I am nothing like her.
“You shouldn’t have needed to be able to see yourself in me in order to care about me,” I say calmly.
