Page 51 of That Weekend in Paris
“I feel the same,” I say. “But, of course, my success is not in the same stratosphere as yours.”
“What you’ve accomplished is amazing. I certainly haven’t been named songwriter of the year.”
“Thanks,” I say. “It’s not. . .I don’t mean to demean what I’ve done. It’s just, it is all relative, you know. And you do so much for others, Klein. I do try to find things that I think might be a little unique to me as far as how I can help others. There’s a program for creative kids who might not have the financial means to develop those talents outside of regular school. I do some work with them a couple of afternoons a week, and it’s been incredibly rewarding. You wouldn’t believe how crazy talented some of these kids are. There’s this one little boy named Raymond who, honestly, could be the next van Gogh. He paints, and he just has this unique fingerprint for his art that, when you see something he’s done, you automatically know it’s his, and you recognize the look. It’s really fascinating, and I have so enjoyed encouraging him and looking for ways to bring out his talent even more.”
“That is wonderful,” Klein says. “I’ve often thought about how many kids might have even the same set of talents that I have, if I have any,” he modestly corrects himself, “and just never get the chance to be heard or seen. It’s such a waste.”
“It is. I really believe we all have some talent that is unique to us as individuals, and it might get beaten down by so many different things. Poverty, someone putting us down at some point early on and making us doubt our abilities. I was lucky to have a mother who really was the opposite of that. She wanted me to be the next Dolly Parton.” I laugh a little and shake my head. “Minus the obvious attributes, of course.”
Klein smiles. “Tell me about her.”
“My mom?”
“Yeah.”
“She was amazing, really. She didn’t grow up with much, and we didn’t have a lot materially when I was little. She worked full-time at a sewing factory in our town. She made all my clothes, and we would go to Leggett’s on Saturday mornings to pick out a new pattern and fabric for something she would make me the following week. It was like I had my own Vogue catalog and seamstress willing to create whatever I had a fancy for that Saturday, whether it was a pair of shorts with daisies around the hem, or a sundress made from purple velvet. She was willing to make it for me.
“I actually think I get my creativity from my mama. She never had the opportunity to use hers beyond the things that she did for me, and the way she decorated our house. But she had an amazing talent for those things. And if she’d had opportunities when she was in school, and then the chance to go on to college, I know she would have been able to use her creativity in other ways as well.”
“Is that why you’ve chosen the volunteering that you do?”
“It is,” I say. “I mean, selfishly, I kind of had my mom all to myself, and she loved doing those things for me so much. But sometimes I wish she could have been recognized by others as well for her contributions to the world.”
“Is your mom still—”
“No,” I say. “She died five years ago. Cancer.”
“I’m sorry,” Klein says.
“There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t miss her with this hole inside me that I know will never be filled. She used to use country music songs to give me lessons in life. She said country music songwriters were better than therapists, that they already had all the problems defined and the answers figured out. So, if I would just keep listening to country music, I would never need a therapist.”
Klein laughs softly. “I would love to have met her.”
“I would have loved for her to know you.” I press my lips together and look away, wondering if I have revealed too much in the seriousness with which I have voiced this.
“I’ve felt that same guilt,” Klein says. “Kind of like survivor guilt, I guess. I wonder why I’m the generation who didn’t succumb to drugs, why I was able to untangle myself from the snare of addiction, and why both of my parents couldn’t do that. It’s easy to declare a person completely bad, and I went through a good number of years where I was convinced there wouldn’t have been anything good to find in either my mom or dad.
“But I think I know now that we’re all made up of good and bad, and I wonder what would have happened to them if they had had the opportunity to be exposed to a different life, a chance to clean up their act, and the kind of rehab facility I went to. I know they wouldn’t have had that chance because there wasn’t money for that kind of thing. But somehow, I don’t know, it doesn’t really seem fair, does it? That I should get a second chance for my bad choices, but they didn’t.”
“No,” I say. “It doesn’t seem fair, and that’s the sort of thing about life that I have no explanation for.”
“Did your mom get sick before you—” He breaks off there as if he’s rethinking the question.
But I understand what he’s asking, and say, “No, she died before I got sick. I don’t know. I’ve wondered sometimes if the stress of losing her might have been what caused whatever was brewing inside of me to get an advantage.”
“How long was she sick?” he asks. “Not very long, or at least not that we knew. She died within three months of the cancer being discovered.”
“So it was a shock to you,” he says with audible sympathy.
“Very much so. She was in the hospital because she’d had a reaction to one of the chemo drugs they were giving her, and I had spent the afternoon with her. But Josh and I had something we were supposed to go to that night, and I debated not going. My mom insisted because she felt so much better, and they were planning to send her home the next morning. So, I went, and she died at eleven that night while we were at a party.” Tears shred my voice, and I drop my head, trying to blink them away, but there’s no stopping them now. They’ve reached the surface, and sobs shake my shoulders.
Klein reaches for me, pulls me into the curve of his arm, and hugs me hard. I try to stop crying, but something about being held this way, comforted this way, makes me realize I never really got that from anyone after Mama died. Josh tried, but he never understood just how much I loved my mother. I think I tried to hide some of my grief from him. I didn’t want to feel ridiculed or questioned about my sadness. I just wanted it to be.
“Shh,” Klein says, kissing my forehead. “It’s okay. I’m here.”
I don’t know how long we sit there on the bed, me wrapped in his arms, sobbing quietly against his chest. But when my renewed grief finally eases, I realize how much I needed that, and say in a low voice, “I don’t think I even knew how much of that was still knotted up inside me. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry,” Klein says. “Clearly, she loved you so much, and she deserves to be missed like this.”
