I'm Glad My Mom Died(47)

As soon as the phone’s in my hands, I know I’ve made a mistake, but it’s too late now. Forty-five missed calls from Mom. Twenty-two unread emails from her. I start reading through the messages frenetically, and each one gets more aggressive than the last—she calls me a dimwit, loser, scumbag, devil child. Joe says we’re running late for the airport. I don’t care.

I read another email. This one’s titled “Letter To Your Fans.” I open it up and find a scathing note attached, a note that Mom tells me she’s posted to an online Jennette McCurdy fan club in an attempt to get my fans to flee from me. She says that she’s gonna steal all my fans, that she deserves them more than I do, that she swears to God she’s gonna sign up for Vine and they’re all gonna love her comedy videos.

I wonder if Mom’s bluffing, so I check the fan club she referenced. No bluff. There’s Mom’s message right on the front page of the fan club. I almost can’t believe it.

I go back to my email and another new message from Mom has popped up. I open it:


YOU caused my cancer to come back. I hope you’re happy knowing this. YOU have to live with this fact. YOU gave me cancer.



I draft a response to her, asking if we can just sit down and talk this out face-to-face. I’m sure that if she’ll just grant me that, I can explain myself enough to earn her approval. I’m desperate, pleading.


My dear Nonny Mommy—

Please can we at least just meet up in person to talk about this? Please. Just me and you. We can sit down and talk this out. I can answer any questions you have. Please Mommy. I hate letting you down. I would do anything to not disappoint you. I feel confident that if you knew the whole situation you wouldn’t think these things about me. I love you so much. I want to be close to you again. I miss you.

Love, Nettie



I click my phone off and tuck it into Joe’s pocket. He asks what she said. I tell him nothing. I’m numb. Catatonic. The entire plane ride home, I don’t say a word.

Over the past few years, Mom and I have grown apart in a way that I never thought was possible. Between fame and Joe, the strain between me and Mom has gotten nearly intolerable. Plus there’s the strain of her cancer. Maybe all of this is actually just about the strain of her cancer.

Why can’t she admit that she’s dying? Why can’t I admit that she’s dying? I hate her for caring so much about fame and she hates me for caring so much about Joe. There seems to be more hate than love for each other right now but maybe we’re both just scared. Maybe we’re just letting this wedge between us grow because deep down we both know that soon enough this wedge will be out of our control.

The plane lands. While we’re circling the tarmac, I open my email draft to Mom. I hit send. Moments later, my phone pings with a response from Mom:


Sure, we can meet up. P.S. Reminder to send fridge money. Our yogurt has soured.





46.


“JENNETTE? WILL YOU SING ‘WIND Beneath My Wings’ at my funeral?”

Mom and I are sitting at the Panda Express on Cahuenga Boulevard for Mom’s birthday dinner. Mom’s chewing steamed broccoli and I’m chewing steamed cabbage and we’re both going through the motions of our relationship because that’s what we do nowadays.

This started the first time we got together after the Hawaii trip. Dad drove her to my place and lifted her up out of her wheelchair and set her down on the couch. While we waited for our tea to steep, I waited for her to bring up the Joe situation since I thought that’s why we were meeting up in the first place—to talk about it. But she never brought it up. She just asked me trivial questions about work, and I asked her trivial questions about the last episode of NCIS. Mom’s big into Mark Harmon.

When’s she gonna bring it up? I wondered. And I kept wondering until, before I knew it, our two hours together were over and Dad came back to pick her up and take her home.

By the time we’re here at the Panda Express on Cahuenga Boulevard, this way of communicating—polite small talk with an undercurrent of pain and resentment—has been our new reality for several months, enough time that it’s not new anymore. That’s why it shocks me that Mom has asked me to sing “Wind Beneath My Wings” at her funeral.

Mom’s cancer falls under the category of things that we pretend don’t exist because they’re uncomfortable to talk about. Mom asking this question is a breach of our unspoken rule. I don’t know how to process this, or how to proceed.

“Um…”

“You’ve gotta do it with emotion, though. You’ve gotta believe your words. It won’t work if you’re only giving fifty percent.”

I haven’t even agreed to sing it yet and Mom’s already giving me performance notes. “Uhhh…”

“Lemme hear you try it.”

“Mom, we’re in Panda Express, I’m not gonna—”

“Just try it.”

“?‘It must have been cold there in my shadooooow…’?” Involuntarily, my singing voice starts pouring out of my mouth. My body is programmed to Mom-on-Demand. A nearby employee watches me out of the corner of her eye as she mops.

“?‘To never have—’?”

“More emotion, more sadness. Feel it, Angel.”