Darling Rose Gold(72)

“I’m sorry I never told you any of this,” Mom said. “You deserve to know if you want.” She sat back in her chair, exhausted, and I knew she was finished.

I was exhausted too. I’d expected a sad story, but not this sad. I understood now why she had been so cagey all those years when I’d asked for details about my extended family. She wasn’t trying to hurt me: she was being protective. I thought back to the morning I’d lied to Dad about having cancer. I wasn’t trying to hurt him—I just wanted the Gillespies to accept me. Our methods might have been warped, but Mom and I had good intentions. We needed to be loved.

Nobody had ever looked at me the way my mother did. Not Dad, not Phil, not Alex. When I opened my mouth, the rest of the people in the room ceased to exist for her. When I was hurt, she ignored her own throbbing pain. Mom wanted to destroy my bullies more than I did. I might have forgiven them, but my mother would never forget.

The debt between a child and her mother could never be repaid, like running a foot race against someone fifteen miles ahead of you. What hope did you have of catching up? It didn’t matter how many Mother’s Day cards you drew, how many clichés and vows of devotion you put inside them. You could tell her she was your favorite parent, wink like you were coconspirators, fill her in on every trivial detail of your life. None of it was enough. It had taken me years to figure this out: you would never love your mother as much as she loved you. She had formed memories of you since you were a poppy seed in her belly. You didn’t begin making your own memories until three, four, five years old? She’d had a running start. She had known you before you even existed. How could we compete with that? We couldn’t. We accepted that our mothers held their love over us, let them parade it around like a flashy trinket, because their love was superior to ours.

“Thank you,” I said. “And I’m sorry for everything you’ve been through.”

Mom shrugged, cheeks flushed. I could tell she didn’t want to talk about it anymore.

My mother’s childhood stories were a warm-up to the questions I really wanted to ask. I felt bad about her past, but worse about my own. I wanted her to admit she’d taken my childhood from me, the same way hers had been taken from her. I wanted Mom to take responsibility for her wrongs. I needed her to look me in the eye and say she was sorry.

I had rehearsed this speech since the day I’d had the restraining order lifted. For months afterward, I hesitated to call the prison. Did I want to reopen this drama? I had no business poking a beehive.

“Another thing,” I said.

Mom glanced up. “Anything,” she said. This was the most earnest I’d ever seen my mother. She knew how to play earnest like an Oscar-winning actress.

The door on the far side of the room opened. The guard from earlier emerged. “Time’s up, Watts,” he barked.

“Already?” she said.

She stood, so I did the same. She wrapped me in another bear hug and whispered in my ear, “To be continued?”

This first visit had gone better than I could have hoped. I’d come to see my mother as a last resort, expecting the meeting would end in me storming out and never seeing her again. So far, she’d been willing to meet me halfway. She hadn’t lied, as far as I could tell. Maybe we could get past our past, after all.

“How about next week?” I whispered back.

She pulled out of the hug and gripped me by the shoulders, searching my face for signs I was kidding. When she saw I was serious, her face broke into a wide grin, split lip and all. She squeezed my hand tight. “I would love that.”

I watched my mother follow the guard through the door, shoulders back, head held high. She whistled, winked, and waved one more time before the door closed behind her.

That was the Patty Watts I knew.





21





Patty


Rose Gold is still not home. She should have been back an hour ago. She hasn’t called or texted.

Maybe Gadget World is busy today. Maybe her manager asked her to work late. Maybe she’s getting drinks with friends I don’t know.

I send her a text.

    Me: Hi honey, will you be home soon?



I stare at the screen. No reply comes back.

Adam gurgles from his bassinet, unaware his mother is MIA. I get off my recliner and walk to the kitchen, pull his bottle from the fridge, move more frozen milk from the freezer to the fridge. Thank God Rose Gold has been pumping and storing all this milk.

I warm the bottle, then bring it back to the living room. I cradle Adam in my arms.

“Big strong boys need to eat, eat, eat,” I sing. He gulps the milk.

I distract myself with attending to Adam. After he finishes the bottle, I burp him. I give him an extra-long bath, making sure he’s spotless. I dress him in his duckling jammies, then rock him back and forth. I imagine every night like this one from now on: Adam and me winding down in a quiet house somewhere. Just the two of us.

I was born to be his mother.

I move the bassinet from the living room to my bedroom. By seven thirty, Adam is sound asleep inside it. For now the bassinet will do. His crib is in Rose Gold’s locked room.

I call her phone twice. No answer.

We could leave first thing tomorrow.

I force that line of thinking from my mind. It would look fishy if I took off the morning after Rose Gold didn’t come home.