Birthday(6)

I remember last September. It was a month after my twelfth birthday that I finally worked up the nerve to watch the first birthday tape. She hadn’t been gone that long and listening to her voice felt like water after a long day in the heat. I watched her speak to me over and over, until the tape started to decay, and it took all my willpower not to immediately watch the next one—the last one. Now, a year later, I’m glad I waited.

I find the tape labeled 13TH BIRTHDAY, pull it out, shut the closet door behind me, and walk to my bedroom. I can hear Dad in the small kitchen, listening to Merle Haggard and pouring whiskey over ice cubes while he thaws a pair of steaks.

I close my door behind me and jam a towel in the space under it. With shaking hands, I slip the handycam tape into the VHS-sized adapter and sit straight-backed as the video begins. There’s a moment of static and then the screen glows blue and green. I recognize our old apartment’s balcony. Dad and I moved the summer after … everything. He realized we couldn’t make rent on just his salary. It didn’t feel like home without Mom anyway.

Pots of herbs and tomatoes hang off the railing and flowering vines climb up to the roof. In the midst of all this greenery sits my mom, so much skinnier than I want to remember her. A floral scarf conceals her bald head. She wears another scarf around her shoulders and a long-sleeve cardigan even though it’s obviously a warm spring day. She has the same cheekbones as me, the same high eyebrows, the same large eyes that seem to fill up her face.

“Hello, Morgan,” she says. I can hear blue jays singing.

“Hi, Mom,” I whisper.

“Happy thirteenth birthday!” she says, her eyes wrinkling when her smile widens.

“Thanks, Mom.”

“Thirteen…” she says again. Her smile turns sad. “I can’t believe you’re a teenager now. That a whole year has passed.” She gives a soft, tired sigh. “We just picked you up from your grandma’s house and she says you ran laps around the backyard all afternoon.” I smile. “Are you still on Dad’s football team?” No. I quit because my body started making me feel sick, because I felt too sad to go to practice, because little parts of what’s wrong with me kept slipping through.

I squeeze my eyes shut to try and push those memories away. Dad shouting at me and making me “get in there” with the other boys. Eric bringing guys like Nate and Chud from the team to hang out with us.

“I hope so,” Mom goes on. “You’ve always been so graceful on the field, all legs and speed, though Lord knows I barely even learned the difference between a blitz and a bootleg.

“Well,” Mom says, “whatever you’re interested in nowadays, I’m sure you’re after it like a creature possessed.” She looks up out of the frame and shakes her head a little. “You’ve always been so obsessive over the things you care about. It’s one of your best and worst qualities, I think.”

“Yeah, Mom. You’re right,” I say, my voice quaking just a little. What I don’t tell her is that since quitting football I’ve been making secret movies with our old handycam for over a year now. I haven’t wanted Dad to find out. He’d probably think it’s a waste of time and a waste of money on tapes, which I guess it is. And how would I even tell him? “So, Dad, I quit football, but what I really want to do is make it in Hollywood!” I feel ridiculous and sad even thinking it. I already know what he’d say. “You don’t escape a place like this on dreams and luck. I can’t pay to send you to college. You want out of this town? You do it with football, not movies.”

No point having a conversation if I already know how it ends.

Through the door, I hear steak sizzling and picture Dad, tired and half awake, pushing the meat around in a skillet, making a big dinner for the two of us.

I pull my attention back to the video and see the back of a small head—my head, two-ish years ago—enter the frame from the left.

“Mom?” eleven-year-old me asks. “What are you doing?”

I lick my lips and quickly squeeze my eyes shut. I remember this moment. I remember waking up and following my mom’s voice out to the balcony. I remember seeing her in front of the camera, smiling but sad, and feeling like I was trespassing on something grown-up. In that moment, I was frustrated with her for being sick, and now the guilt of that feeling runs through me like a fever.

“Making a birthday present for when you’re older,” she says, leaning down to kiss me on the forehead. “Whatever you need, could you go ask your father?”

“Okaaaaaaay…” little me says and leaves the frame again. Mom’s eyes come back up to mine.

“You were such a wonderful child,” she says quietly, her voice fading. She looks more and more tired every minute that I watch her. “And I’m so glad I got to know you before…” She gives a longer sigh this time. “For all the things I don’t know about thirteen-year-old Morgan, I do know you must be growing into a fine young man.” My shoulders slump at that. “Are you still friends with Eric?” she says. She cocks her head, giving me time to answer. But I can’t. The memory of what happened at the water park today comes charging back. A wave of disgust with myself rolls over my skin.

Mom starts to speak again. “Keep that boy close. I do my best not to be superstitious, but you two need each other.” There’s a long silence where she just looks into the camera and smiles. “I need to rest now, okay?”