Night Road(17)

Jude was glad for the excuse to leave the room. She passed through the dining area, created by a long bird’s-eye maple table and ten chairs, to the open kitchen beyond. The only time she couldn’t see her mother was when she opened the wood-paneled door of the Sub-Zero refrigerator.

When she returned to the great room, her mother was standing at the end of the sofa, looking up at the huge canvas that hung above the fireplace. It was a gorgeous, abstract work of art—swiping, curling streams of amber and red and black that somehow managed to convey a buoyant happiness. Mother had painted it decades ago, and Jude still had trouble reconciling the work’s glorious optimism with the woman standing in front of it now.

“You should replace that piece. The gallery has some lovely work now,” her mother said.

“I like it,” Jude said simply, and it was true. This piece had been her father’s favorite—she remembered standing with him as a little girl, her small hand tucked in his bear-paw grasp, watching Mother paint it. Look at the way she does that, it’s magic, he’d said, and for a time Jude had believed it, believed there was a kind of magic in their home. “I remember watching you paint it.”

“A lifetime ago,” her mother said, turning her back on the painting. “Why don’t you go clean up? I’ll wait.”

Jude handed her mother the glass of wine and then left the room. She took a quick shower and changed into a pair of comfortable jeans and a black V-necked sweater and returned to the great room, where her mother was seated on the sofa, her spine straight, sipping at the wine like a hummingbird.

Jude sat opposite her mother. A large stone coffee table separated them. “Lunch is ready anytime you’re hungry,” Jude said. “I’ve made us a Waldorf salad.”

At that, they lapsed into their usual silence. Jude couldn’t help wondering why they continued this pretense. Once a month, they met for a meal—trading locations back and forth as if it mattered where they were. During a lunch of healthy food and expensive wine, they pretended to have something to talk about, a relationship.

“Did you see the article in The Seattle Times? The one about the gallery?” her mother asked.

“Of course. You sent it to me. You said how important motherhood is to you.”

“And it is.”

“Nannies notwithstanding.”

Mother sighed. “Oh, Judith Anne. Not that old whine again.”

“I’m sorry. You’re right,” Jude said, and not because it was the only response that would end the conversation. It was true. Jude was forty-six years old. She should have forgiven her mother by now. Then again, her mother had never asked for forgiveness, never thought it necessary, even though she’d checked out of motherhood as if it had been a cheap motel. Fast and in the middle of the night. Jude had been seven years old and suddenly upended by grief, and yet, after her father’s funeral, no one had thought to reach out for her, certainly not her own mother, who went back to work the very next day. In all the years that came after, her mother had never stopped working. She’d given up painting and become one of the most successful gallery owners in Seattle. She nurtured young artists while entrusting her daughter’s care to one nanny after another. They’d had no relationship whatsoever until about five years ago, when Caroline had called and scheduled lunch. Now, once a month, they pretended. Jude didn’t even know why.

“How are the children?” her mother asked.

“Wonderful,” Jude said. “Zach’s grades are phenomenal and Mia has become a talented actress. Daddy would have been proud of her.”

Her mother sighed. It didn’t surprise Jude, that small exhalation of breath. Dad as a topic was off-limits. Jude had been a daddy’s girl; neither one of them wanted to acknowledge that now, all these years after his death, although Jude still missed him and his bear hugs. “I’m sure you’re right,” her mother said, smiling tightly. “I assume Zach can go to any school he wants. I hope he continues with his plans to become a doctor. It would be a shame if he quit his studies.”

“I suppose that’s another reminder that I quit law school. I was pregnant and Miles was in medical school. We hardly had a choice.”

“You lost the baby,” her mother said, as if that was what mattered.

“Yes,” Jude said quietly, remembering. She’d been young and in love, and honestly, for most of her life, she’d been afraid of motherhood, afraid that she would discover in herself some genetic anomaly that had been passed down from Caroline. She and Miles had gotten pregnant accidentally—too soon, when they weren’t ready—and Jude had discovered from the inception how profoundly she could love. The very idea of motherhood had transformed her.

“You have always loved your children too much. You care too much about making them happy.”

Parenting advice from her mother. Perfect. Jude smiled thinly. “It’s impossible to love your children too much. Although I wouldn’t really expect you to understand that.”

Her mother flinched. “Judith, why is it that you give that girl from the trailer park the benefit of every doubt, and you give me none?”

“Lexi—and you certainly know her name by now—has been like a part of this family for the past three years. She has never disappointed me.”

“And I have.”