Read Online Missing Mom by Joyce Carol Oates - Free Book Online
Authors: Joyce Carol Oates
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“Why, Nikki! Hi, honey.”
I imagined this. I imagined Mom at the door, after all. (The Honda was being serviced at a garage. Mom would pick it up in the morning.) This time, Mom wouldn’t be so shocked at my hair. She’d shake her head ruefully, she’d laugh.
I’d be a beauty, Mom insisted. No matter if I were bald.
“Mom? Are you home? It’s…”
Silly. I heard my silly voice.
There came Smoky, Mom’s burly gray cat, to push against my ankles and mew. The cat was behaving strangely, I thought. Smoky was a friendly cat, at least with people he knew, but he was behaving now edgily, anxiously. When I stooped to pet his head he stiffened, ducked, seemed about to run away. “Smoky, it’s me. Don’t be afraid of me.” I stroked his head, I coaxed a hesitant purr from him. I saw that his plastic food bowls were empty and the water bowl nearly depleted.
There were other things wrong in the kitchen but I couldn’t seem to see what they were. I saw, but wasn’t registering. Somehow, I kept waiting for Mom to appear. I was waiting for her footfall, her voice. “Nikki? Why honey, what a nice surprise…” I was remembering a day years ago when I’d come home from school and Mom was supposed to be home but didn’t seem to be home and I’d wandered through the house sort of looking for her and finally calling, “Mom? Are you home?” in a whiny voice but really I wasn’t thinking much about it, at the age of fourteen you don’t think much about anyone except yourself, certainly you don’t think about your mom, you don’t imagine a life for your mom in any way separate from or independent of your own, and finally happening to glance out a window in my room into the backyard I saw Mom in her garden clothes and straw hat weeding in one of her flower beds, exactly where Mom would be. And immediately I turned away and forgot whatever vague edginess I’d been feeling, not to remember for seventeen years.
Well, here was a wrong thing: one of the kitchen chairs looked as if it had skidded across the floor to collide with the refrigerator. If you knew Gwen you’d know that she would never have dragged the chair there, unless maybe she’d been mopping the linoleum floor, but she would not have left the chair there, as she would not have left soiled dishes untended to for even a short period of time.
I replaced the chair. I think I was acting unconsciously. I would not want Mom to know that the chair was out of place, that I’d seen it out of place and might have worried.
There was a strange smell here, too. My nostrils constricted, I could not identify it.
“Smoky! Poor guy.”
I poured dry cat food into a bowl for Smoky, and replenished his water bowl. Though Smoky ate hungrily, he seemed wary of me, cringing when I moved to replace the cat food box in the cupboard, freezing and glaring as if, for a split second, he hadn’t known who I was. “Smoky, come on. You know me .”
Mom talked to Smoky constantly, she’d talked to all our cats and when we’d had parakeets she’d talked to them. It became a joke in the household how Dad would reply absentmindedly, “What, Gwen? What did you ask?”
I kept up a bright one-sided banter with Smoky, for it seemed important to soothe the nervous cat. He needed to be assured that he’d be fed, everything was normal and routine at 43 Deer Creek Drive.
Through the rear kitchen window, framed by ruffled sunflower-print curtains Mom had sewed, I saw the bird feeder which Dad had positioned to be at about eye level; it, too, seemed to be depleted of food. Small birds hovered and fluttered in the evergreens nearby, chirping as if querulously. I could see most of the backyard: Mom wasn’t visible.
I was beginning to shiver. That day had been warm, a glaze of sunshine through a mostly overcast sky, now as daylight waned a decided chill rose from the earth. I’d run out of my brownstone apartment in jeans and a sweatshirt, bare-headed. With my hair so very short,
I imagined this. I imagined Mom at the door, after all. (The Honda was being serviced at a garage. Mom would pick it up in the morning.) This time, Mom wouldn’t be so shocked at my hair. She’d shake her head ruefully, she’d laugh.
I’d be a beauty, Mom insisted. No matter if I were bald.
“Mom? Are you home? It’s…”
Silly. I heard my silly voice.
There came Smoky, Mom’s burly gray cat, to push against my ankles and mew. The cat was behaving strangely, I thought. Smoky was a friendly cat, at least with people he knew, but he was behaving now edgily, anxiously. When I stooped to pet his head he stiffened, ducked, seemed about to run away. “Smoky, it’s me. Don’t be afraid of me.” I stroked his head, I coaxed a hesitant purr from him. I saw that his plastic food bowls were empty and the water bowl nearly depleted.
There were other things wrong in the kitchen but I couldn’t seem to see what they were. I saw, but wasn’t registering. Somehow, I kept waiting for Mom to appear. I was waiting for her footfall, her voice. “Nikki? Why honey, what a nice surprise…” I was remembering a day years ago when I’d come home from school and Mom was supposed to be home but didn’t seem to be home and I’d wandered through the house sort of looking for her and finally calling, “Mom? Are you home?” in a whiny voice but really I wasn’t thinking much about it, at the age of fourteen you don’t think much about anyone except yourself, certainly you don’t think about your mom, you don’t imagine a life for your mom in any way separate from or independent of your own, and finally happening to glance out a window in my room into the backyard I saw Mom in her garden clothes and straw hat weeding in one of her flower beds, exactly where Mom would be. And immediately I turned away and forgot whatever vague edginess I’d been feeling, not to remember for seventeen years.
Well, here was a wrong thing: one of the kitchen chairs looked as if it had skidded across the floor to collide with the refrigerator. If you knew Gwen you’d know that she would never have dragged the chair there, unless maybe she’d been mopping the linoleum floor, but she would not have left the chair there, as she would not have left soiled dishes untended to for even a short period of time.
I replaced the chair. I think I was acting unconsciously. I would not want Mom to know that the chair was out of place, that I’d seen it out of place and might have worried.
There was a strange smell here, too. My nostrils constricted, I could not identify it.
“Smoky! Poor guy.”
I poured dry cat food into a bowl for Smoky, and replenished his water bowl. Though Smoky ate hungrily, he seemed wary of me, cringing when I moved to replace the cat food box in the cupboard, freezing and glaring as if, for a split second, he hadn’t known who I was. “Smoky, come on. You know me .”
Mom talked to Smoky constantly, she’d talked to all our cats and when we’d had parakeets she’d talked to them. It became a joke in the household how Dad would reply absentmindedly, “What, Gwen? What did you ask?”
I kept up a bright one-sided banter with Smoky, for it seemed important to soothe the nervous cat. He needed to be assured that he’d be fed, everything was normal and routine at 43 Deer Creek Drive.
Through the rear kitchen window, framed by ruffled sunflower-print curtains Mom had sewed, I saw the bird feeder which Dad had positioned to be at about eye level; it, too, seemed to be depleted of food. Small birds hovered and fluttered in the evergreens nearby, chirping as if querulously. I could see most of the backyard: Mom wasn’t visible.
I was beginning to shiver. That day had been warm, a glaze of sunshine through a mostly overcast sky, now as daylight waned a decided chill rose from the earth. I’d run out of my brownstone apartment in jeans and a sweatshirt, bare-headed. With my hair so very short,
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