My Dark Vanessa(121)

“Are you eating enough?” I ask.

She seems not to hear me, staring over my shoulder, her hand still resting on the back of her neck. After a moment, she opens the freezer, takes out the blue box of fried chicken.

We eat the chicken and thick slices of grocery store pie, and drink coffee brandy mixed with milk in front of the TV. No holiday movies, nothing heartwarming. We stick to nature documentaries and that British cooking show that she texted me about. While we lie on the couch, I let her wedge her feet under me, and I don’t kick her awake when she starts to snore.

Inside and outside, the house has gone to hell. Mom knows but has stopped apologizing for it. Dust bunnies line the baseboards and laundry spills out from the bathroom, blocking the door. The lawn is dead and brown now, but I know she’s stopped mowing in the summer. She calls it “gone to pasture.” She says it’s good for the bees.



The morning I’m set to drive back down to Portland, we stand in the kitchen, drinking coffee and eating bites of blueberry pie straight out of the tin. She peers out the window, through the snow that’s started to fall. An inch has already piled up on the cars.

“You can stay another night,” she says. “Call out of work, tell them the roads are too bad.”

“I have snow tires. I’ll be ok.”

“When was the last time you took your car in for an oil change?”

“The car’s fine.”

“You need to stay on top of that.”

“Mom.”

She holds up her hands. Ok, ok. I break a piece of crust off the pie and break that into crumbs.

“I think I’m going to get a dog.”

“You don’t have a yard.”

“I’ll take walks.”

“Your apartment’s so small.”

“A dog doesn’t need its own bedroom.”

She takes a bite, pulls the fork between her lips. “You’re like your dad,” she says. “Never happy unless he was covered in dog hair.”

We stare out at the snow.

“I’ve been thinking a lot,” she says.

I don’t move my eyes from the window. “About what?”

“Oh, you know.” She heaves a sigh. “Regrets.”

I let the word hang there. I set my fork in the sink, wipe my mouth. “I should pack my stuff.”

“I’ve been paying attention to the stories,” she says. “About that man.”

My body starts to shake, but for once my brain stays in place. I hear Ruby telling me to count and breathe—long inhales, longer exhales.

“I know you don’t like to talk about it,” she says.

“You’ve never been that eager, either,” I say.

She sinks her fork into the uneven wedge of pie left in the pan. “I know,” she says quietly. “I know I could’ve been better. I should’ve made you feel like you could talk to me.”

“We don’t have to do this,” I say. “Really, it’s ok.”

“Just let me say this.” She closes her eyes, collects her thoughts. She takes a breath. “I hope he suffered.”

“Mom.”

“I hope he’s rotting in hell for what he did to you.”

“He hurt other girls, too.”

Her eyes flash open. “Well, I don’t care about other girls,” she says. “I only care about you. What he did to you.”

I hang my head, suck in my cheeks. What does that mean to her, what he did to me? There’s so much she can’t know: how long it went on, the extent of my lies, the ways I enabled him. But the small part she does understand—that she sat in the Browick headmaster’s office and listened to him call me damaged and troubled and then watched photographic evidence of him and me fall to the floor—is enough for a lifetime of guilt. Our roles reversed, for the first time in my life, I want to tell her to let it go.

“Dad and I used to talk sometimes about what that school did to you,” she continues. “I don’t think either of us regretted anything more than how we let them treat you.”

“You didn’t let them,” I say. “You weren’t in control of it.”

“I didn’t want to put you through some horror show. Once I got you back home, I thought, ok, whatever happened is over. I didn’t know—”

“Mom, please.”

“I should’ve sent that man to prison where he belonged.”

“But I didn’t want that.”

“Sometimes I think I was looking out for you. Police, lawyers, a trial. I didn’t want them to tear you apart. Other times I think I was just scared.” Her voice cracks; she holds a hand to her mouth.

I watch her wipe her cheeks even though they aren’t wet, even though she’s not really crying because she won’t let herself. Have I ever seen her truly cry?

“I hope you forgive me,” she says.

Part of me wants to laugh, pull her in for a hug. Forgive what? It’s fine, Mom. Look at me—it’s over. It’s fine. Hearing my mother implicate herself makes me think of Ruby and the frustration she must feel sitting there, listening as I cloak myself in blame. After a while, she gives up repeating the same lines, knowing there comes a point when they no longer matter, that what I need isn’t absolution but to hold myself accountable before a witness. So when my mother asks me to forgive her, I say, “Of course I do.” I don’t tell her again she couldn’t have stopped it, that it wasn’t her fault and that she didn’t deserve it. I swallow those words instead. Maybe somewhere deep in my belly, they’ll take root and grow.