The Mothers(64)

“Oh, I hope you don’t mind,” Mother Betty said, “but I told Agnes you could carry her to the drugstore.”

No, no, she didn’t mind. She learned the curves of the roads that led to the Mothers’ homes. She’d never even thought of them having homes before—she wouldn’t have been shocked to learn they stashed bedrolls in the choir closet and slept right on the pews. But Mother Agnes lived in a gray apartment building downtown, Mother Hattie in a rusty red house near the Back Gate. Mother Flora lived in an assisted-living home called Fairwinds, which was across the street from an elementary school and a child-care center. She was surrounded by death and children, children outside her window toddling to day care, children running around on playgrounds or biking home from school. Mother Flora was tall and willowy. She’d played basketball as a girl. Nadia learned other things, like Mother Clarice used to be a special-education teacher, and her friends called her Clara. Mother Hattie was the best cook. Mother Betty had been the prettiest.

Nadia wasn’t quite sure how old the Mothers were but they must have been in their eighties or nineties by now. No surprise the DMV wanted them off the road. But she still felt sorry for them, especially Mother Betty, who for years had risen before everyone and arrived at Upper Room with her keys, so she made sure to pick her up early. She didn’t feel guilty about sneaking out of the house anymore. Her father was getting stronger. In the afternoons, he walked in slow laps around the backyard, practicing his breathing exercises. She sometimes watched him through the glass while she read her bar exam books. She never wanted him to know she still worried about him, so when he took his medicine at night, she busied herself in his room, dusting the nightstand or putting his laundry away or idly straightening her mother’s perfume bottles. She used to love playing with her mother’s perfume, particularly one black bottle. Her mother only spritzed it on her neck when she and her father were going out for the night. So when Nadia held the bottle to her nose, she longed for a night when it’d been exciting to watch her parents disappear through the door because she’d known they would always come back.

She mothered as a penance, like sliding fingers along rosary beads. Each mile, its own prayer. If she gave her time selflessly, maybe she could forget the wrong she’d done. If she worked for no reward, if she was kind to people who could offer her nothing in return, maybe then her sins would be washed away. One afternoon, on the way to the drugstore, she mentioned that she’d recently found her mother’s prayer book. Found, she’d said, because that was the simpler way to tell the story, editing out Luke’s role altogether. The Mothers began to chatter, the way they often did, jumping in and interrupting and finishing each other’s sentences.

“Oh, she used to love that thing. Always carryin’ it under her arm.”

“Didn’t her mama give it to her?”

“Mhm, that’s what she told me. She was a minister, y’know?”

“Not a minister, just a preachin’ woman.”

“Oh, what’s the difference?”

“Minister needs a church.”

“Fine, a preachin’ woman. You knew that, girl? Your grandmama used to baptize folks in the river.”

Nadia had always been curious about her grandmother but her mother did not like to talk about her much. “Oh, she was strict,” her mother would say when Nadia had asked, or “She sure loved Jesus.” Always broad, general statements, as if she were describing a character from a TV show she no longer followed. From the few photographs of her in the photo album, her grandmother seemed like a stern woman, but beyond that, she was a mystery. When she told the Mothers this, they nodded sagely.

“Well, they weren’t much close.”

“That’s a nice way of puttin’ it.”

That night, when Nadia asked her father what the Mothers had meant, he told her that when her mother was pregnant with her, her own mother had thrown her out of the house.

“She said that no child of hers would be living in sin under her household, so I sent your mom a Greyhound ticket and she came out here to live with me.” He sighed. “Your grandma wanted nothing to do with us and that was fine with me. But I never understood why she wouldn’t meet you. Us, that’s one thing. But a child? Your own grandchild? I don’t know how anyone wouldn’t want to know their grandchild.”

She asked her father if her grandmother was still alive, and he shrugged. “As far as I know,” he said. “Still down in Texas, I’m sure.” As if he’d seen the wheels turning in her head, he added, “I’d leave all that alone. She made her choices. Chasing after her won’t do no good.” She found a brown Polaroid in a photo album of her mother posing with her brothers in front of their home. An address and date were scribbled across the back. She searched for more recent photos of the home online and tried to imagine her mother as a girl, dancing on the porch. Maybe her grandmother still lived there. She didn’t seem like the type of woman who would move around. She wondered what her grandmother would say if she showed up on that porch someday. Would she blink away grateful tears, glad to finally meet her granddaughter? Or would she shoo her off the steps like she had shooed her own daughter? Would she be angry that the source of their rift had materialized right in front of her?

“Did Mom ever think about . . .” She paused, outlining the gold buttons on her purse with her finger. “Not having me?”