Where'd You Go, Bernadette(22)

Anyway, when we got to the ferry dock, the line was all the way out the loading lot, under the viaduct, and across First Avenue. We had never seen it that long. Mom parked in line, turned off the engine, and walked through the pelting-down rain to the booth. She returned and said a storm drain on the Bainbridge side had flooded the ferry terminal. Three boats were backed up, full of cars waiting to unload. It sounded totally chaotic. But all you can do when it comes to ferries is get in line and hope.

“When’s that flute performance?” Mom said. “I want to come see you.”

“I don’t want you to come.” I was hoping she’d forgotten about it.

She dropped her jaw all the way down.

“The words to it are too cute,” I explained. “You might die of cuteness.”

“But I want to die of cuteness! It’s my favorite thing, to die of cuteness.”

“I’m not telling you when it is.”

“You are such a rotter,” she said.

I popped in a CD of Abbey Road, which I’d burned that morning, and cranked it. I made sure only the front speakers were on because Ice Cream was asleep in the back.

Of course, the first song is “Come Together.” It starts with that great weird “shoomp” and the bass part. And when John started singing “Here come old flattop…,” what happened, but Mom knew every single word of the song! Not just every word, but every cadence. She knew every “all right!” and “aww!” and “yeaaaah.” And it kept going, song after song. When “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer” started, Mom said, “Yuck, I always thought this was totally sophomoric.” Still, what did she do? She sang every single word of that, too.

I hit the pause button. “How do you even know this?” I demanded.

“Abbey Road?” Mom shrugged. “I don’t know, you just know it.” She unpaused the CD.

When “Here Comes the Sun” started, what happened? No, the sun didn’t come out, but Mom opened up like the sun breaking through the clouds. You know how in the first few notes of that song, there’s something about George’s guitar that’s just so hopeful? It was like when Mom sang, she was full of hope, too. She even got the irregular clapping right during the guitar solo. When the song was over, she paused it.

“Oh, Bee,” she said. “This song reminds me of you.” She had tears in her eyes.

“Mom!” This is why I didn’t want her to come to the first-grade elephant dance. Because the most random things get her way too full of love.

“I need you to know how hard it is for me sometimes.” Mom had her hand on mine.

“What’s hard?”

“The banality of life,” she said. “But it won’t keep me from taking you to the South Pole.”

“We’re not going to the South Pole!”

“I know. It’s a hundred below zero at the South Pole. Only scientists go to the South Pole. I started reading one of the books.”

I wiggled out my hand and hit play. Here’s the funny part. When I burned the CD, I didn’t uncheck the thing iTunes defaults to when it asks if you want two seconds between songs. So when it came to the awesome medley, Mom and I sang along to “You Never Give Me Your Money,” then “Sun King,” which Mom knew, even the Spanish part, and she doesn’t even speak Spanish, she speaks French.

And then the two-second gaps started.

If you don’t understand how tragic and annoying this is, seriously, start singing along to “Sun King.” Toward the end, you’re singing all sleepy in Spanish, gearing up to start grooving to “Mean Mr. Mustard,” because what makes the end of “Sun King” so great is you’re drifting along, but at the same time you’re anticipating Ringo’s drums, which kick in on “Mean Mr. Mustard,” and it turns funky. But if you don’t uncheck the box on iTunes, you get to the end of “Sun King” and then—

HARSH DIGITAL TWO-SECOND SILENCE.

And during “Polythene Pam,” right after the “look out,” it—GAPS OUT—before “She Came in Through the Bathroom Window.” Seriously, it’s torture. During all this, Mom and I were howling. Finally, the CD ended.

“I love you, Bee,” Mom said. “I’m trying. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn’t.”

The ferry line hadn’t moved. “I guess we should just go home,” I said. It was a bummer because Kennedy never wanted to spend the night in Seattle because our house scares her. Once, she swore she saw a lump in one of the rugs move. “It’s alive, it’s alive!” she screamed. I told her it was just a blackberry vine growing through the floorboards, but she was convinced it was the ghost of one of the Straight Gate girls.

Mom and I headed up Queen Anne Hill. Mom once said the ganglia of electric bus wires overhead were like a Jacob’s ladder. Every time we drove up, I imagined reaching my fanned fingers up into the web and pulling them through the roof in a cat’s cradle.

We turned into our driveway. We were halfway through the gate. And there was Audrey Griffin walking up to our car.

“Oh, boy,” Mom said. “Déjà vu all over again. What is it now?”

“Watch out for her foot,” I said, totally joking.

“Oh, no!” Mom’s voice kind of barfed out the words. She covered her face with her hands.