I Liked My Life(54)

Bethany was a rigid, soap-in-your-mouth, entertain-yourself breed of mom to Brady. If they weren’t among her things and addressed Dear Bethany (the same mother-in-law who told me Eve was a homely newborn), I wouldn’t have believed it. The last letter was from December of 1959 and had an obituary paper-clipped to it. Phil died in Vietnam. He was survived by two children, Marie and Paul. The article made no mention of their mother. I wonder what happened to them.

My first instinct was to call Brady, but then I realized telling him would be a mistake. He won’t notice if the boxes disappear and he’d likely overanalyze the letters. The woman Phil loved did not map to the mother he knew.

Bethany never said a word about what life was like before she married, but it’s not as if I asked. I took her as someone who trudged through each day without looking for enjoyment. I figured she got pretty much what she put in. The idea that she was once passionate but was destroyed by grief is tragic.

I take off at a steady pace, questioning how well I’ve known any of the women in my life. Left. Right. Left. My feet sync with my breath. I’ve stopped taking music. Running has become my daily sounding board, a role Maddy once filled.

My parents married later than most in their day. I was an accident. Mom was forty-six when I was born and often reminded me she was too old and tired for any crap. She was stunning in her prime, but I can’t think of a single memory where she was doting or imaginative. There aren’t any, I’m sure. The day I got accepted to Harvard she said, “Good luck finding a way to pay for it.” Maddy and I often joked that we learned what not to do from our families, but we’d have to figure out the rest on our own.

Everything about my childhood was aloof—no one was drunk all day, but no one tucked me in at night either. I know only the most basic facts about my mother. She deferred to God, even when parenting. She never explained the why of anything—whether something was unsafe or impolite or cruel—she just hoped I inherited her fear of the Lord. I remember her grabbing me by the arm on prom night and saying, “God will not forgive you if you get some poor girl pregnant.” As if prom was the only night that was a possibility.

What bothers me now, though, as I ruminate, is that I know all my father’s opinions from politics to the best fertilizer, but only the most rudimentary facts about my mother. She was a good cook; she liked to sew; she never complained. Never complaining, I recently learned, is different from having no complaints. For all the time I spent with her—eighteen years of daily conversations and another twenty in weekly contact—that’s all I can come up with. In the argument over whether knowledge is power or ignorance is bliss, it seems I’ve always come down on the side of ignorance. And when that’s the side you fall on, you don’t realize it until it’s too late. Maddy, Eve, my mother—the carousel of women I’ve disappointed. It’s as if I’m running because they’re chasing me.

I’m almost back to the house when Susan Dundel pops out in one of those skimpy, expensive Lulu-whatever outfits and starts running next to me like we’d arranged it. Maddy’s laughter pops into my head and I grin. Susan misinterprets this as an encouraging sign.

“I could tell you wanted companionship out here,” she says, matching her pace to mine. “You pass every night, and even sometimes again in the morning, and yesterday I thought, ‘You know, there’s no reason I couldn’t change the time of my run to give poor Brady some company.’”

Poor Brady. My new, least-favorite popular phrase.

“Frankly, Susan, I don’t.” It’s not difficult to shut her down, which says a lot considering I haven’t been laid since April. “I’m training for a marathon next month, and I need to do these runs on my own.” I say it with authority, but when I look her way to ensure the message was received all I see are her fake breasts flopping with each stride. I immediately lose all credibility.

She giggles. “I know, isn’t it horrible? There’s not a sports bra made that provides enough support for these things. My ex loved them though. Good for some things, but definitely not working out.”

Eve drives by on her way home from therapy right as Susan makes an elaborate gesture to her chest. I shake my head at the bad timing. Susan giggles again. “It’s hard for kids to see their parents moving on, but as you get out more, she’ll come around. My son flipped the first time a man spent the night after the divorce, but now he’s good about it. He’ll eat breakfast with a smile on his face no matter who I bring home.” She winks.

Her pride at that statement brings me to a halt. “Listen, I’m not moving on and I prefer to run alone.” She jogs in place as I walk away.

When I get to the house, I brace myself for a sassy comment about Susan, but it’s immediately apparent Eve has her own agenda in mind. Something is up—the kitchen is too clean, Alicia Keys is playing, and I smell rack of lamb, my favorite, in the oven.

“Why don’t you tell me what you want,” I quip, “so we can enjoy dinner without me wondering how much it’s gonna cost.”

Eve gives an innocent smile. “I don’t want anything.”

“Sure you don’t.” I grab an ankle to stretch my quad. I’m up to fourteen miles on my long-distance days.

“Really, I just need to, um, tell you about something I did.”

My stomach tightens. Money is a quick fix. There are plenty of teenage mistakes that don’t have a fix at all. “What?”