I have my grandmother’s hands – my mother likes to remind me of this every now and then.
Have they always been like this? – I ask. There is indeed a knobby sense of touch in her reach. Almost 80 years old; the touch, not my mother. Every time she mentions this claim of an idiosyncrasy I think of her grandmother, my great grandmother. I imagine that she’s always been around; only the wrinkles and the torn white skin came later. Now, that is.
I should tell you, before I begin telling you anything else, that I have no sense of vision. I inherited this from her, my mother. No practical spirit, either. Also her. And the hands. They seem alright for the present. I suppose it is my lucky draw. My brother has a bad breath.
Her presence was luminous, and yet she was the most silent person I have ever known – my mother continues with her ancestral diatribe. I usually unplug at this moment in the lengthy version of ‘how she came to have the knots for hands she has’, but today I decide to listen.
She tells me – Your great grandma was more than a quiet participant in the great noise that is our family. She rarely opened her mouth, and when her lips parted, all she seemed to muster was: “more coffee, anyone?”
Imagine a life stuck between refreshments and afternoon recess. And with my family. No wonder she chose silence.
It was an older kind of a world – my mom continues with the story – but I felt at home in it. I felt loved, wanted, needed. No one desires me here. She stops. I look up from the rackety newspaper and give her a cordial nod. It seems to work, at least for awhile; and yet, all I want to do is scream, from the top of my lungs – DESIRE? WANT? NEED? I have never felt any of these, not the real thing. No one desires me here – except maybe the pimpled faced boy across the street, but he certainly doesn’t count. I have always been taken for an unbearably quiet, unnerving child. Perhaps it is a result of my intolerance of light. And the constant blinking. I like to keep to myself. Yet somehow, whenever I think of the time my mother and I spent together, I think of that solitary figure, the great grandmother. I think of her solitude in the midst of all the family clutter. And I envy her, as much as I envy my mother, for her hands and her determination to tell stories, over and over again.
Do you want some tea? – I ask.
She responds. She accepts. She does my favorite thing – she smiles. If any, my mother has a beautiful smile – I’d love to my dear, and she sends me one of those – ‘I love you my pup’ kind of a smile. I nod and disappear into the kitchen.
I try to work the kettle but as always it is way too loud for my taste. It reminds me of an old Gestapo-like structure, the noise it accounts for, all the hissing sounds that come with the hot water. The odiousness of it, the irreproachability. I refuse to surrender to the sounds, and tip top around the kitchen space, hands gloved with mittens over ears, doing a quazi-Indian routine, to avoid the shrillness of the his.
Tea and crumpets in tow, I return to the room, to my mother, who has in the meantime occupied herself by reliving other patched-up past memories. I place the tray on the empty wooden table, right in front of her so that she doesn’t ask me to fetch her anything (I hate those short-hand orders), when she impels me to speak – Why do you hate me so much?
I thought I had dodged a bullet with the semi-official nod of approval when this comes along. It must be that time of the month – she picks the first two weeks to test my patience. My father died the first week of a rainy November and she uses his death date as the perfect calendar recall – to pester her children with the dullness of a suffocating love.
Of course I love you – I retort. I do not say it often enough, it might wear off – I add.
This last remark gets her going. She’s on fire –
All I ask of you, and your brother, is to acknowledge my existence. Nothing more. I did not raise you with hatred. Your father, god rest his soul, loved you. I love you. But you seem to have forgotten that. I do not blame you. I wish I could forget. I wish I could, but I have not option. I’ve been blessed with the curse of long memory.
Mom – I say – I do love you, and I come whenever I can. You understand, right? (Indeed, I come twice a month. I, too, follow a schedule.)
This time, it is her silence which drives me insane. She can tell that I find it excruciating when other people play the quiet card. It is annoying, especially coming from someone who is all heart and light, like my mother. I count, silently. 1 minute. 2 minutes. 2 minutes 20 seconds. 21 seconds. A new record?
I refuse – and she speaks (she has not mustered the art yet) – to believe in long distances and broken promises. I did not raise negligent and forgetful children. – She even gives me one of those looks, you know the kind when an older person thinks that they have outsmarted you by beating you at your own game, while teaching you a valid life lesson.
This is her way – her way of letting me know that despite all, all my choices (moving away from home, living out of wedlock with a man twice my age who hates family reunions) and my imperfections (my vision and my stubborn ways), she loves me, like no one ever can love a stray cat. And all I can think of in those few moments before I find the strength to cross over the several (five) steps to the lounge chair she peoples and give her an excuse for a hug is ‘God, what if I turn up just like her in 50 years’ time?’
She reaches out. For the first time I notice how fragile her shoulders have turned, how barren her once voluptuous chest. Should I worry? Is it possible that I might lose her too? Now, when life is a mess, and my brother, with his disassociated self, only contributes further to a disastrous state of things. Quality of breath aside, he is the resident family pain, if there ever was one: a loud, insulting, lascivious bear-like bore. A bully that came out of this heart that winds down in front of me. No, I decide this scenario is not plausible. No, this fiery tongue-in-cheek lady cannot go. I will not let her.
I cannot believe that life could be so cruel to such an auspicious mind – she comes back full swing. She means me, I am the failed protégée. Apparently, when I was a kid, four or five, or six maybe, a local washed-up talent scout informed my parents of my MENSA potential. Yes, I did graduate from school, undergraduate at Brown, graduate at UofR. And I am afraid of living alone, dying alone and changing the indoor lights in my apartment’s hallway, alone. I work at the information desk at the local community college. I do not teach inspirational courses with inspirational titles. I do not write for Hallmark cards or a prime-time sitcom. I am unpublished, I have perished from the academic radar. No publishing house would touch my thesis – no interest in 17th century Japanese art prints; it has all been done before, I’ve been told. So I went quietly insane, and my vision followed. You might say I am my mother’s quiet disappointment.
I know Mom, I know I’ve let you down – I seem to agree. At this point, I’d better agree with her line of thought or I’d never be able to get out of Dodge. These visits drain me emotionally. It takes me almost two weeks to recover, and then time for another visit comes along.
It’s not you, my dear – she’s finally admitting it – it’s what it should have been. I used to think it was important to know the surface of things. I almost believed that you of all would be able to know it, the surface of things. And to contribute, to matter. To be in the world not just as one more body but as a mind that generations to follow would remember. I now see that I pushed you too hard, your fragile self was not prepared for any of it. Please, forgive me.
This is my queue. Each of our visits ends with a plea – to forgive her for something that was never there. And I humor her wish, I tell her she’s forgiven (for something she’ll never know she had not committed).
I leave her in the solitude of her thoughts. I am too ashamed so I leave her while she’s talking. This way she will be lost long enough for me to make my quick exit. That is my contribution to my mother’s life. I come, I humor, I leave.
My grandfather was a strong supporter of man’s contribution to the dismaying complexity of social order. He contributed my sense of guilt: after cheating on my grandmother, he lost his appetite and a 100 pounds. He shrunk himself with contribution. So do I. My poison – trying to avoid the truth, telling my mother how I plagiarized my way in and out of college. The auspicious mind, my ass.
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