The Animators(115)

She appears to give this a think. “You’re right,” she says finally. “Or you ain’t wrong. Let’s say.”

She puts out her Doral, lights up another. She’s got something to tell me, and she’s going to stress-smoke it out. “I saw Irrefutable Love.”

I halt, pencil trembling in my fingers. “You did? When?”

“Just the other night. Found a copy in your DVDs.”

“Oh.” It takes a force of will for me to put pencil to paper again.

“I liked it,” she says.

“Really? What did you like about it?”

“It was funny. Real funny. Even when it was sad, you know? The sadder it was, the funnier it got. It was funny like you’re funny. I knew it was you. You were all over that thing.”

“I’m funny when I’m sad?”

“Yeah.”

“Good to know I’m Steamboat fuckin Willie when I’m suicidal.”

She sighs. “Don’t get like that, goddammit. I’m trying to give you a compliment.”

No wonder I’m so uncomfortable. “Sorry.” More silence. More tracing.

“It was real inneresting,” she says. “I have to say, I don’t know anybody else who thinks the way you do, Sharon Kay.”

“Heh.”

“And you like shitheads.”

“Come again?”

“You don’t like good men. The ones you date. It don’t seem like.”

“Well.” I fuck up the chin curve. Erase, try again. “It might be as much me as it is them. Or so I’ve come to believe.”

“If they don’t like you, they’re shitheads,” she says firmly.

I try tracing her neck again, the loose, silky swoop of skin there. Wait for her to finish. “I’m not sure,” she continues, “but maybe there’s something I shoulda told you, that I didn’t. Somewhere along the way. And I’m real sorry for that. Because I think it’s made a lot of trouble for you.”

“Try to keep still.” Neck, neck, sternum under the sweatshirt. Can’t see a firm line for the back of her neck; it’s all ponytail end, then spine. No line is straight.

“I didn’t know y’all were staying with Teddy,” she says. “I just figured you girls stayed out there cause there was more there than in Faulkner.”

“Mom, why else would I have possibly stayed in Louisville?”

“I don’t know.” She grimaces, shifts her butt. “I was surprised you put that bit in the movie, about him. That was him, wasn’t it? Finding them pictures. You all digging around where you weren’t supposed to.”

“What the shit. Did you just blame that on me?”

“Well, you were.” Then, quieter: “Did that really happen?”

“Yes.”

I see her swallow, her neck moving with effort. She closes her eyes. “Jesus wept,” she whispers.

I can’t do it. Her neck is fucked. I draw a deep gash through the page before ripping it out and crumpling it up. “What’s done is done,” I say. “At least I didn’t reveal that we might be related. Give everybody something to whisper behind their hands about the next time you go to Walmart.”

Mom pauses. “I’m sorry I told you that.”

“I’m sorry you told me that, too.”

“Because I don’t think that’s right.” Her eye twitches. “I was thinking back on it later. And I don’t think it was him. I really don’t.”

“I can’t believe we’re going over this again.”

“I remember things,” she says, “but it’s like another person doing them. Like I was somebody else. I don’t know. I got married real young. I was eighteen. I remember when you were eighteen. You were leaving home. Getting married was the furthest thing from your mind. I guess I thought your dad and I could leave together, though anybody woulda told you there was no way he was gonna leave for anywhere that wasn’t home. It was stupid. I had your brother, and then I had your sister. And it made me happy, for a little while. And then it’s like it all wore off. And I was stuck there. Like my life had been decided for me. The less I could do, the more I wanted. Wanted things I couldn’t have and I wanted things I couldn’t even think up yet, but I could feel myself wanting. And that feeling, it’s like itching. Like to drive you crazy.” She shakes her head slightly. “I just wanted and wanted and wanted. You ever felt that way?”

“Yes,” I tell her. “I have.” I feel something warm light my chest. It’s maybe the first time in my life that my mother has put something into the right words for me. “That’s kind of what I was trying to show. In the movie.”

“I know,” she says. “I know you.”

My throat tightens. I lean over to pick up the pencil so she can’t see my face. I bend down and start over.

“Teddy’s a good guy,” I manage. “But he’s so angry at me right now. And he has a right to be. He didn’t want me to make the movie. He didn’t want me to put him in it.”

“Well, you didn’t. It’s not about him. It’s about you.”

“He still hates me.” I shift position. There’s no way this picture won’t offend her. “I messed that one up. He broke it off.”