Mothered (43)

“After my mother died—she lived for three years after my father’s heart attack—I thanked Jesus. My parents were religious. And I actually got on my knees and clasped my hands and thanked Jesus for setting me free.”

The implied sorrow of her mother’s words—her mother’s life—swirled in Grace’s head. A tiny part of her thought Jackie had been on the verge of admitting to hastening her mother’s death. But they were still revelations: Grace hadn’t known that her grandparents had disapproved of her father or that they’d been religious. Or that Jackie had felt liberated once she was out from under them.

“I had to wait. To find out where Paul was. He didn’t come back right away—but he came back. I thought that was going to be the beginning of . . .” Tears filmed her mother’s eyes; she blinked them away. “We stayed in my parents’ house—where you grew up. Paul had picked up various skills along the way. He found a good union job as a machinist. I got pregnant. I was in more of a hurry than he was, but I was going on thirty-three—my friends from high school practically had teenagers by then.” Jackie licked her lips, swallowed, her eyes on something far away.

“I mean, things weren’t effortless. But Paul seemed happy about becoming a father. I was a happy little homemaker—oh you should’ve seen me. The late months of my pregnancy was the only time in twenty years when I hadn’t had a job. I cooked supper—not great suppers, some kind of meat with a side of potatoes. We ate a lot of potatoes. We laughed sometimes about how all of a sudden we were a nuclear family: working dad, stay-at-home mom, two kids—almost.

“We weren’t married yet, but we kept talking about it. I guess I did most of the talking. Paul started to get restless. We’d take drives on the weekends. Long drives to nowhere. Through small towns. It was nice, seeing all those little places. Haven’t thought about that in a long time. He tried. I give him credit for trying. But in the end . . .” Jackie slowly let out her breath. “I was so mad. I hated him, except that I still loved him. I fucking hated him and I fucking loved him.”

Grace had always known her father had skipped out on the family, but it hadn’t made her angry until now.

“He wasn’t who you thought he was,” she said. Hadn’t she said that to a damsel or two? She could easily imagine how Young Jackie would’ve dismissed the warning signs. And idealized him in his years of absence. The damsels did it all the time—projected onto the men who they wished they were, blind to the true natures of the boyfriends and husbands they’d chosen. It was part of why Grace was still single; she didn’t trust herself to see a man, a long-term partner, with true accuracy.

“No,” Jackie insisted. “He was exactly who I thought he was. A man who couldn’t set down roots. And maybe my parents were a little right: he didn’t like having responsibilities.”

One thing had always bothered Grace and still troubled her more than anything else—even with the knowledge of her mother’s shattered heart. “Would he have stayed if . . . if Hope hadn’t . . . Or if there’d only been one of us?”

A wry smile twisted the lines on Jackie’s face. “That’s what everyone thought. It was easy to let them think that.” She sagged a little and shrugged. “I don’t know, maybe that was the last straw. But I knew, I understood . . . it would’ve been hard to keep him around regardless. I’d hoped he’d take to being a dad, enjoy playing with you, and teaching you. He always said he loved new things and loved a challenge. He didn’t even give himself the chance with you girls, not really. I think it scared him.”

Grace didn’t feel much sympathy for this faceless father who was afraid of his own children. Still, if she had any hope of finding out what he’d been up to over the past thirty-five years, she needed a crucial piece of information. “Are you ever going to tell me his name? I’ve considered doing one of those DNA tests, see if I have any relatives—”

“Please don’t do that,” Jackie said quickly. “I never told you his full name so you couldn’t look him up.”

“But why?”

“Because I would die if I learned he’d finally settled down somewhere, had a family that wasn’t me. Take the DNA test when I’m gone, if you have to. But I couldn’t live knowing he finally set down roots. With someone else.”

All these years Grace had thought her mother hated Paul; now she knew it was actually Jackie’s love for him that had kept her so reticent. Paul No-Last-Name wasn’t a player or mean or drunk. It had never occurred to Grace that her mother had such a fairy-tale-gone-wrong past.

There was so much more Grace wanted to know, but this was beyond what she’d ever expected. Sometimes she’d fantasized about a tall, handsome daddy who knelt down with open arms to embrace children who weren’t her or Hope. Now she understood this was her mother’s worst fear.

“Thanks, Mom. I really needed this.”

Jackie looked tired. “I thought we’d talk about Hope. But I guess this is part of it, isn’t it? The most useless thing I’ve ever wondered is if . . . if Hope wouldn’t have died if Paul . . .” She pulled her legs up and held out her arm, ready for Grace to help her to her feet. “Guess it’s dumb to reimagine what couldn’t happen.”