Mothered (76)

“You don’t know that.”

Jackie licked her spoon, nodding. “I can’t deny it anymore. I wanted to, because I was afraid, but . . . I have what Robert had.”

“Which was?”

Her mother gazed at something far away and shrugged. “Something no one understands, unless you see it, and feel it. It was hard watching him decline. And his behavior—I resented it at first, I thought he was being brutish. But then I came to see that what he’d lost in physical vigor he gained in mental clarity. And he wasn’t just being mean—he was as hard on himself as he was on me. I gradually started to understand . . . the power of the truth.”

Grace realized she couldn’t wait a week for the thermometer to arrive; she’d have to get one, even if it didn’t have all the bells and whistles, in her next grocery order. Jackie might claim she didn’t have a fever, but there was something loopy about the look in her eye. A jittery kind of excitement. She didn’t act or appear like she was completely present, which made Grace wonder if she herself looked like that in the minutes or hour after one of her confusing dreams.

“Are you feeling better? Did it help to sleep?” She half expected her mother to start describing endless hours of nightmares. Did I see my father?

“I’m feeling better because I finally accept my fate. It’s a gift to finally see everything and everyone for what they are.”

Grace wished she could turn to Miguel and swap grins, nervous and amused, while sharing the telepathic understanding that they were witnessing someone in an altered state. Jackie sounded like she was in a feverish or religious delirium, but Grace suppressed the urge to crack a sarcastic comment.

“Do you want something else to eat?” Grace nested the empty cups together, ready to head back downstairs. The room was less creepy when Jackie was awake, but still.

Her mother ignored her question and continued with her urgent train of thought. “Before Robert died he admitted many mistakes. Mistakes he made with his first wife—he’d cheated on her, and hid things from her. And while he was a good father in his later years, he’d come to understand how he’d been neglectful. He hadn’t felt, as a younger man, that anything he might say or do would impact his sons, so he let Clara do the child-rearing. It was only when they became young men and he saw the directions they’d gone in—selfish, wayward—that he started imparting fatherly advice. His relationship with them improved tremendously, though he had to accept that he couldn’t change them; his job was to accept them.”

Grace quirked an eyebrow. Was this heading toward an apology or an admission that her mother had judged her too harshly?

Jackie still had that faraway gaze; she barely seemed aware that Grace was standing there, anxiously waiting to leave. “Robert had never really understood how you and I came to live such separate lives. He accepted it, and never pressed me on it . . . until he got really sick. Then he accused me of so many hurtful things. Abandoning you. He wondered if I was more hard hearted—selfish—than he’d ever understood. Had I been one of those cold parents who resented all the responsibilities that came with raising children? And then I finally started to tell him. About waiting for Paul. And wanting to get married and be a housewife. I told him more about Hope.”

Her mother’s head swiveled and she finally met Grace’s eyes. Jackie’s contemplative spaciness was abruptly gone. In its place was something cold and impenetrable; Grace retreated a step. “He was the first person I ever told. About what you did.”

Grace shut her eyes, shaking her head. “I didn’t—”

But Jackie didn’t care what she had to say. “He helped me understand what my responsibility was—I had to stop avoiding the past, and acknowledge it head on. I’d been ignoring it, and ignoring the consequences of keeping that secret. And he said that after he died I should go to you, and help you.”

“I don’t need your help.”

“I told him I didn’t think you’d ever admit it, that you’d blocked it all out. And he reminded me that my mission wasn’t to change you if that’s not what you wanted. But I had to try and bridge the gap—between us, and give you the missing piece of your life. It’s up to you if you put it all together now. I wasn’t distant from you for all the reasons you probably imagined—maybe you think these reasons are worse. But I lied for you, to protect you. I wasn’t going to lose another daughter, but for so long you were just the reminder of all the mistakes I made. All the things I couldn’t undo. But Robert made me see I wasn’t helpless. He gave me . . . the power of truth.”

Her mother shut her eyes and lay back on the pillow, a beatific smile on her haggard face. “Now it’s yours. Do with it what you will.”

Grace rolled her eyes and left the room. She was tempted to close Jackie’s door behind her—let her mother make a little more effort if she needed Grace’s help—but Good Daughter that she was, she left it open.





49


What the hell had gotten into her mother? Did she think she was some sort of avenging angel? Grace hadn’t known Robert well enough to guess if he would’ve planted such shit in Jackie’s head as he lay on his deathbed. Perhaps her mother had gone mad with grief, and for all these weeks she’d been battling to hold it together. People said that sickness brought out a person’s true character—a sense of humor, a bitchy despair, a serene acceptance. Maybe Jackie had a savior complex, however misguided it might be.