With open arms
The thing that struck me when I drove into the driveway was how much the place had changed. The same fault line was destructively working its way diagonally across the asphalt but the line was almost at the other side now. Soon there really would be a border between two kingdoms. I smiled, remembering our game. White chalk had followed the fault and continued it to the other side of the driveway to mark out the territories my sister and I would defend. I couldn’t remember the last time I had seen her. Five years passed since I last stood on this driveway and it seemed that nothing remained as it was, not even san andreas driveway. Everything was worse.

Unloading baggage I was conscious of slight movement in the curtains behind the picture window and guessed my mother had heard my arrival. It still surprised me that she never came out to greet me but waited inside behind the door she’d keep locked until the exact moment I stood outside it and knocked. When I was younger I wondered what it meant, but now I didn’t care. It was how it was.
I was here because my mother hadn’t been returning my calls lately, and since my sisters weren’t talking to me the only way I’d know for sure she was all right was if I went there myself. So far she seemed fine, her modus operandi unchanged.

I approached the door and waited a minute before knocking, knowing she was waiting for me to knock. When the door didn’t open I knocked. Had you been standing where I was you would have thought the door opened itself but I knew better that my mother had opened it and was standing behind it. Even the way she opened the front door was quirky, I thought, shaking my head.

"Why are you here", she asked, studying my face from behind thick farsighted glasses that made her eyes look too large for her face. No smile, no hug, no change: the greeting was the same as I’d expected.

"Because you weren’t returning my calls", I replied, searching her eyes for some answer, anger, anything. I would have welcomed any reaction, even a slap in the face.

"Oh, I’ve been so busy", she said, indicating with her arm we should move into the kitchen. She explained "You know my hours have been cut to two days per week at the library and money is so tight." Then after a slight pause added, "I didn’t mean to worry you".

She made a pot of coffee and I sat at the kitchen table, our ritual, while I tried to assess the condition of the house without making it look too obvious. I had to admit to myself things certainly looked in order.

The coffee smelled good and strong and I enjoyed the familiarity of my mother’s footsteps on the linoleum-tiled kitchen floor. The same two squares were loose as last time and made a sticky sound when she walked over them. My finger traced a squiggle across the still perfectly white surface of the table and, smiling to myself, I remembered how I’d spill my milk on purpose and wash the table with the milk, thinking it would help keep the table white; apparently, it had worked.

I found the surrounding surprisingly comforting. My mind came back to the present and I silently questioned whether if could have really been five years since I was last here. My mother, placing two coffee mugs on the table along with milk and sugar, sat down across from me and motioned with her hand that I could choose a mug. A few degrees hotter and the coffee would have burned my mouth but it felt hot and soothing as I swallowed. "Thanks", I said, raising my mug like a toast. "You’re coffee is still the best", I added. "It’s just coffee", she shrugged.

There were a few moments of silence, not awkward though, and the clinking and sliding of spoons on mugs bridged it. "Mom, I got fired," I blurted out next. "I didn’t deserve it but I’m not going to fight it", I added. Then, looking at the table I asked quietly, "Would it be OK if I stayed here a little while until I figure out what to do? It would really help me out financially." I looked up at my mother and saw her eyes looking beyond me, toward a thought.

The truth was that I hadn’t been fired but had quit my job. I just didn’t want to go to work anymore. I couldn't find a reason to keep working, fixing my appearance each morning to make myself look as if I’d moved on, as if I could ever put the death of my baby daughter behind me. I felt relieved, as if I'd reached the end of a struggle and I was glad to finally stop pretending that anything I was doing was meaningful. I had been going through the motions for so long my emotions seemed numb now. Here I was sitting with my mother but at times I became the an observer, keeping a running commentary on our visit, even as we talked. I found it all exhausting.

"You know you are always welcome" my mother replied, her eyes meeting mine. I thought I saw happiness in her glance but the look disappeared quickly. "You can even take your old room", she replied.

"How pathetic", I thought, but thinking about it later, after bringing my suitcases up there, it seemed appropriate. Now that Brian and I were divorced I was kind of like that teenager I had been; similar except for the grief, or was it guilt, that like a shadow, was always present.

That evening we didn’t really talk that much. There were things I wanted to say - like questions about my sisters - but decided against it. I didn’t want my first night home to involve an argument. I figured my mother felt the same way or she would have been more vocal. She kept the subject to fairly innocuous, surface topics like her job, the unusually cold weather, the unexpectedly high price of gas. If I were to die tomorrow, I thought, now back in my squeaky, single bed after 22 years, nothing we spoke of today would have brought any comfort to her that at least we had re-connected when we had the chance. She'd tell people, "Well, I saw her the night before and she seemed fine to me, I mean, we didn't talk about anything upsetting or anything.....yes, we were very close". We had been once.

"It's so sad", I thought, as tears stained by cheeks. It seemed to me we were always speaking in riddles, never getting to the heart of the matter. "It’s not my fault dad died", I sobbed into my pillow, but I couldn't shake the conviction that my family held me responsible. "Why don't we ever talk about it", I worded through a silent sob that left me breathless and crying convulsively. "I miss you so much, dad", I told him, picturing him as he was the day before he died. "Hadn’t he looked happy?" I wondered, again, the question hot having been answered after five years. I imagined him happy in his life on the other side, wishing I could visit him there. I didn't want to let the vision end but eventually succumbed to sleep against my will.

In the morning, mom seemed more lighthearted to me and I hoped it was because I was there. "Maybe coming home was the right thing to do afterall," I thought, hopefully.

"Good morning," I said to her when I came into the kitchen. Her back was to me and she didn’t answer, so I said it again. She was humming a simple tune and seemed lost in distant thoughts but there was no mistaking the smile on her face. I walked up along side her and leaning into the perpendicular corner where the edges of the counter met, leaned toward her, giving her a kiss, smelling the scent of her pancake makeup and familiar Estée Lauder perfume. You look happy, mom," I told her.

I had obviously jolted her from some revelry because her back became rigid as soon as I touched her and it seemed to me it took a few seconds to register that I had spoken.

"You startled me", she said, embarrassed.

"Oh, I’m sorry", I replied, suddenly embarrassed, myself. "What were you thinking about," I asked, surprised at my boldness.

I was startled by her sudden movement after I asked that. She turned off the burner, put down the spatula and directly toward me, looking me in the eye.

"I spoke to your father last night," she said, smiling. "He’s fine and he misses you," she added.

Had you felt my chest at that moment or looked at my neck you would have known my heart began racing and my eyes grew wide. "She’s crazy", I thought to myself, concluding that was why she hadn’t been returning my calls.

©2004 Pamela Hamilton