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  Ch. 7—The Apology a.k.a. The Calm Before the Storm?

  The door creaked as I slipped inside, hoping against hope that my mother was asleep. Or maybe I was asleep and the past two years had been a horrible nightmare like in that old television show where an entire season became a dream. Maybe my mother and John had run away to elope in Bora Bora—wherever that was. I could handle living by myself. I felt like I did that most of the time now anyway.

  “Christina, is that you?” My mother’s voice was hoarse, as if from crying. She stood up from the arm chair in the darkened living room and stepped into the dimly lit kitchen. Her eyes were red-rimmed and her face looked worn. I steeled myself, ready for the screaming, only to be wrapped in a hug. “I’m glad you’re home. I was so worried about you but I knew you needed time to deal with this. When you’re ready to talk, let me know. Let’s go to bed now. It’s late.”

  Dumbfounded, I watched her go to her bedroom. Shortly after, the light clicked off. I went upstairs and dropped my clothes on the floor. I pulled on my nightgown and brushed my teeth, avoiding my reflection in the mirror. I crawled into bed and waited for sleep to take me. Of course it stayed away as my mind replayed the night’s events and gnawed on the future. Why couldn’t my life be like that of a normal twelve-year-old? I should be painting my nails, gossiping on the phone about the next episode of Hannah Montana—a show I’d never watched, and playing without a care in the world. Instead, I was fatherless, felt like I was motherless, and had to worry about starting some new life. I didn’t even have a chance to get used to life I was in right now!

  And what did that mean, she’d wait until I was ready? And how could she be so calm? It didn’t add up. This couldn’t last. My mother got her way. When she wanted something or believed it to be true, there was no arguing. Just yes Mam. If she told you the sky was purple, you’d better say that it was purple. My mother was the most wonderful mother in the world when she was the mother I’d always known. However, even then, she had her moments when she would suddenly go ballistic and freak out at us about…the dog, the state of the house, how long I stayed in bed. I think she was that…bipolar something or other I’d seen on Oprah once. Needless to say, I could not trust the mother that met me when I came home tonight.

  I tossed and turned throughout the night, expecting a volcano to erupt downstairs, but it never happened. When I woke up, groggy and grumpy from too little sleep, I expected a showdown. Wrong again, mother was still in bed. I poured myself a bowl of cornflakes, tiptoed out to the front, screened in porch, and tucked my feet under me on the glider. I swung lazily back and forth as I ate. The lake was quiet. It was a weekday and the motorboats weren’t out. A bumblebee buzzed in a quiet hum around the wild roses and tiger lilies that tumbled down our bank. Mallards were asleep on the dock, heads tucked in under their wings. The rhythmic crash of the waves on the shore and the gentle sway of the glider had me nodding off over my bowl. I was too tired to worry about Mother’s reaction anymore. I set my bowl down, stretched out on the soft cushion, and slipped into a deep, dreamless sleep.

  The rest of the day was quiet, too quiet. My mother and I were painfully polite to one another. I did my chores, read the thirtieth book in the old Nancy Drew series, my current book addiction, and went for a swim. I didn’t go to Tadpole’s. John didn’t come for dinner. It was as if we were both waiting for something to happen, waiting for the other to make the first move. I would catch my mother watching me as if she expected me to come unglued. I wondered if she thought I was doing the same thing to her. I think I was.

  That night, she put on one of our favorite old movies, “Singing in the Rain,” and popped popcorn. She sat on the couch, me on the floor and once again she was soothingly stroking my hair like she always had, before…I was lulled into a sense of peace, that maybe things would be okay as the wonder of Gene Kelly’s tapping on the rain-filled set lit the room. I laughed inwardly as I watched. Daddy used to brag that he taught Gene how to Dance and famous Olympic skaters to skate. The smallest part of me fell for it every time.

  Right now, I was falling for this moment with my mother because it felt like Mommy was back. I wanted this, my mother like this. If I couldn’t have the life I had before with both Mommy and Daddy, I at least wanted to have my true mother, to have us enjoy each other like we always had, to spend time together. Why did anything have to change? I sighed inwardly, knowing change would be coming into my life again. There was no derailing this train. If my mother wanted something to happen, it would happen.

  In the meantime, I allowed myself to enjoy this moment and pretend it wouldn’t end. I breathed in the buttery scent of the popcorn, imagined I was dancing with Gene, and let my mother continue to stroke my hair. It didn’t matter how long the moment lasted, I had it right now.

  Magic lesson learned: sometimes the tried and true magic tricks, the old ones that everyone knows, worked best at bamboozling someone into believing the illusion. I knew that tonight would not last, that the hurricane was almost at my door, but I still let myself be fooled by this night that was just like old times. Maybe this night would be enough, my mother wouldn’t shake my life up again, and she wouldn’t need anything more than…me.