A Mother's Goodbye

Kev appears in the doorway, his beer already half drunk. ‘What are you doing?’

‘Nothing.’ I close the drawer before he sees, not that Kev would know what it all was. But looking as shiny and new as it does, he might realize it has to have been stolen. I’m not quite ready for his explosion when he does.

I rise from the bed and pat him on his arm. ‘We’ll talk to her when she gets back. Let me make dinner.’

Amy doesn’t come home until midnight. Kev has taken his medication – he’s still on it, after all these years, for the low-level chronic pain he’ll always have – and I wait up alone, curled up on the sofa, the windows open to the spring night. I feel a heavy, dragging sadness about everything – Amy, Lucy, Grace. I meant to read to Lucy before bed tonight, but with Amy and everything else I forgot. I haven’t had time even to think of Grace… and of Isaac.

Amy creeps in quietly, and then stops in the doorway as she clocks me. I muster a tired smile, fear outweighing any anger I might feel at her flagrant disobedience.

‘Welcome home.’

Amy shrugs off her jacket without replying. I watch her for a moment, her tense body and defiant expression. ‘I know,’ I say quietly. She still doesn’t say anything. ‘About the make-up.’ I take a deep breath. ‘You’ve been shoplifting, Amy.’

She turns to me, startled for only a second, and then she folds her arms, tilts her chin. ‘So?’

‘So?’ I stare at her, at a loss because she is so unreachable. ‘I didn’t raise you to be a thief, Amy.’ Too late I realize how accusing that sounds, and so I try again. ‘Amy, you’re better than that—’

‘How would you know?’

‘Because you’re my daughter and I love you.’ I hear the tears thickening my voice. ‘Don’t you want more for your life?’

‘Than what?’ She’s so scornful. ‘Anyway, wasn’t this about having more?’ She turns away.

‘Amy, stop.’ My voice comes out hard and I press my shaking hands together. ‘You’re going to return that make-up.’

She stares at me for a long time, her lips pressed together, her eyes narrowed. ‘And if I don’t?’ she asks at last, the same scornful note in her voice. I’m shocked at how cold she seems, how uncaring. Is it an act? Or has she really become that indifferent, that hardened?

‘Don’t push me, Amy.’

‘Why?’ Her voice trembles and rises. ‘It’s a little too late to give me away, isn’t it?’ And with that parting shot she flounces to her bedroom.

I sit on the sofa, an icy coldness stealing through me. Am I responsible for her rage, or was Amy just doing what she knows so well how to do, and saying what wounds me the most? I can’t bear to think that it might be true, that all of this might be my fault. That in trying to hold onto Isaac, I might have pushed away my daughter.

I don’t know how long I sit there, feeling so cold inside, my knees gathered to my chest. Eventually I fall into a doze, and when I wake up grey dawn is filtering through the curtains, casting the living room in a shadowy light. My body aches. I drag myself to bed, hoping to sleep for a few hours, but it seems as if only a moment passes before Lucy is shaking me awake, complaining that her stomach hurts. Before I can formulate a reply, she throws up all over me. That’s Memorial Day weekend taken care of.

By the time I head back to work on Tuesday I am feeling the strain of everything –Amy, who maintained a huffy silence throughout the weekend; Lucy, who is back at school even though she still looks washed out; Kev, who was grumpy all weekend because of everything; and Grace. Of course Grace.

She is alwa

ys on the periphery of my thoughts, as is Isaac. I wonder how she is doing, if the chemo is still wringing her right out, if she is lonely or afraid. Kev’s remark about me being the last person she’d call twanged a raw nerve, because I know it’s true… which means Grace doesn’t have anyone else. Anyone at all.

I end up checking my phone constantly to see if she’ll call again, knowing I’d drop everything if she asked, for Isaac’s sake. And maybe even for hers. I send a couple of texts, asking how she is, trying to keep it light and helpful.

She never replies, and three whole weeks go by without a word. We’re coming up to the last Saturday of June, the day of Isaac’s visit, but I feel like calling her to ask if they’re coming would be insensitive. Still, I want to know, just as much as I want to know how she is doing. How Isaac is doing.

Then, one Wednesday in late June, she finally calls. Her voice sounds tired, although she attempts to inject a bright note into it.

‘I’m sorry I haven’t been in touch. You’ve probably been wondering…’

‘It’s okay,’ I say quickly. ‘I understand you’ve had a lot going on. How are you… how are you feeling?’

Grace lets out a shuddery sigh. ‘A little better. Well, I still feel like shit, but I’ve had some good news.’

‘Oh? That’s great.’

‘Relatively speaking, of course. The tumor has shrunk enough so my doctor can operate. I’m scheduled for a double mastectomy next Friday.’

‘Oh. Wow.’ I’m not sure what to say. Congratulations doesn’t seem right, even though it’s obviously good news, just as Grace said.