Eva barely speaks to me on the way home, so I call my dad to remind him that he and Mom were invited for a Labor Day barbecue on Monday.
He says he hasn’t forgotten and that Mom is looking forward to seeing us in a few days.
Mom. My mom, who used to play bridge, and once belonged to a million women’s civic clubs, and successfully used the school’s bake sale as a chance to prove her worth. Her cakes were always the fanciest, her cookies the best.
When I think of my mom, I still have this one picture from when I was a child. Mom and Dad were going out to a party, and she’s wearing this gorgeous white silk hand-painted kimono-style gown. It was the late 1970s, and it suited her. Full hair, long sleek gown with hand-brushed strokes, flames of yellow and orange, like a starburst or a jeweled candy. I remember shouting her name from the top of the stairs, and she turned in the doorway downstairs and looked up at me, and she was like a movie star. Beautiful dark hair piled high on her head, with dangly jeweled earrings and a gold clutch in her hand. Her eyes shimmered and her lips curved, and she was the most regal queen of all.
My mother.
My mother, who is losing her mind because of Alzheimer’s. And how is that fair? She was the main reason I took the job in Seattle and moved us across the country.
I remember all the things I used to throw in her face as a teenager. I remember how and why I left home, angry, bitter, too damn cool for wealthy suburbia with its Junior League meetings.
It wasn’t until I became a mother myself that I realized I wanted my mom, but I wanted her the way I wanted her, not the way she was. I wanted my mother to care about the things I cared about, to validate my view of the world. Not hers.
And the crazy thing is that now that she can’t talk to me about anything, I realize she wasn’t just a dumb beauty. She wasn’t a shallow mom. She simply didn’t talk about the things she felt very strongly about. It wasn’t that she didn’t feel. She just didn’t believe it was polite to show it. Tell it. Reveal it.
I get it now, but that doesn’t take away all my anger, because the problem is—and, yes, it’s my problem—she’s slowly dying, and we never really talked, never really shared, never really came to an understanding about anything. She was the impeccable wife of the CEO, and I was the hothead rebel daughter who lived in New York and smoked pot and enjoyed sexual intercourse.
“We’re looking forward to seeing you guys, too, Dad.” My voice suddenly has a lump in it, and I swallow hard. “It’ll be a fun barbecue. Nothing fancy, so we can all relax.”
“Sounds good, Marta. See you Monday. Have a good weekend.”
“You too. Bye, Dad.”
Hanging up, I glance at Eva. She still has her nose jutted in the air. My righteous little Mensa child. So brilliant at home. So socially pathetic at school.
“Grandma and Grandpa are coming over Monday for a Labor Day barbecue.”
“How’s Grandma feeling?” Eva asks, her tone softening. She’s amazing with my mom. Far more patient than I am or ever was.
“Okay, I guess. Grandpa didn’t really say.”
She nods and looks out the window, her brow creased again. Something’s on her mind, but she doesn’t talk about it and I don’t push her. She’s a bright girl, sensitive, and let’s face it, she’s got me for a mother and no father. Considering the odds stacked against her, I think she’s doing pretty well.
At home, I make lunch while Eva begins to sharpen the first of thirty-six number two pencils.
She’s sharpened only six in the electric sharpener, but my nose already itches and burns while thoughts of lead poisoning dance through my head.
“Why don’t you sharpen just one twelve-pack?” I suggest, making Eva her favorite sandwich, two slices of bland turkey with a smear of mayo on extremely white bread.
She doesn’t even look up as she jabs in the next pencil.
“We have to have all pencils sharpened.”
“But you can’t use all of them on the first day.”
“The school supply sheet said they had to be sharpened.”
I rest the mayo knife on the cutting board. “And it would just kill you to break a rule, wouldn’t it?”
She glares at me and pushes another pencil into the sharpener, measures the progress with what’s quickly becoming a practiced eye. After drawing out the pencil, Eva studies the tip, then puts it back in for another whirr, whirr, whirr.
Now sharpened, the pencil is returned to the box and she reaches for another.
I go back to finishing her sandwich.
I didn’t want to return to the Pacific Northwest, and I definitely didn’t want to live in suburbia. I love big cities, and none suited me better than Manhattan with its river of taxicabs and racing engines. I like the sirens at night and the bright lights and how just two blocks off one noisy street can be another all narrow and quiet, lined with the leafiest green trees.
The heavy humidity in summer suited me, and I never felt alone or lonely, not with the thousands of impatient pedestrians, not with the battles for cabs or the ridiculous cost of housing. All the things that made it hard were positives for me. All the difficulties were challenges I enjoyed meeting.
“Your lunch is ready,” I say, cutting her sandwich and putting it on the plate.
“Can I have an apple?”
“Yes.” I reach into the fruit basket beneath the counter.
Eva watches me slice the apple. “Are you going to the meeting today or not?”
“You really want me to go.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“For the same reason you ask me to brush my teeth.”
I put down the knife. “What?”
“Some things we do because we have to do them. That’s what you’re always telling me. Brushing your teeth, seeing the dentist, getting shots.” Eva presses the next pencil into the sharpener for what seems like an endless moment. But when she removes it, the point is perfect. She blows the dust off the tip and places it in the box. “Going to meetings is the same thing. You don’t like it, but they make things better.”
“For whom?”
“Everybody.” Her shoulders lift, fall. “You. Me. The school.”
I can see even more clearly the reason why Eva’s struggling socially. She doesn’t talk or think like a typical nine-year-old. She talks and thinks like a little adult. Because we’re alone together so much, Eva talks to me about everything, feels comfortable challenging me about anything, but then she gets to school and can’t find the right nine-year-old tone and banter. Girls her age gossip and whisper. Eva discusses culture, education, and politics.
My fault, I’m afraid.
She was born in New York, and we had a great apartment in TriBeCa. From the time she was a toddler, Eva went to preschool and then elementary school with children whose parents were as diverse as the names in the phone book, parents whose work ranged from jobs with nonprofits, to the struggling musician and artist, to coveted positions with the United Nations.
Now my East Coast Eva tries to fit in with children who view adventure as a four-star resort with twenty-four-hour room service and an eighteen-hole golf course.
“I’ll go,” I say, still leaning against the counter. “We’ll go. Happy?”
She beams at me and immediately starts cleaning up her pencil mess. “So what are you going to wear?”
“No.”
“No what?” she asks innocently, stacking the remaining boxes of unsharpened pencils on the counter by the phone.
“I’ll go to the meeting, Eva. But I’m going as I am.”
“Don’t you think you want to dress up a little?”
I know in her eyes I’m the mom who doesn’t volunteer very much in the classroom. I’m the mom who doesn’t know all the kids’ names. I’m the mom who sits alone at the country club pool. “I’m not going to dress to impress.”
“Other moms do.” She’s gotten the Formula 409 and a paper towel from under the sink and is spraying and wipin
g away all pencil residue.
“And if that works for them, great. It doesn’t work for me.”
She almost slams the 409 on the table. “Why not?”
My hands go up. “I think it’s fake.”
“Why? Because you want to make a good impression?”
“It’s more than that, Eva. It’s changing who you are just to satisfy others. It’s worrying about what people think—”
“Which is important—”
“No! No, it’s not.”
She stares at me long and hard.