interest in earrings. In fact, I was the one who had insisted that at fourteen, it was time. She had shrugged noncommittally and said, okay. It was only when it looked like it might not happen in time for graduation that she had finally pleaded, âCan we please go get my ears pierced today?â
We pull up to the country club for the graduation ceremony. Emmy looks as if she is going to a hanging.
âWill you please tell her that she looks nice?â I hiss to Hank right before we go into the reception room.
âWhat?â Heâs clueless. âOh. You look nice, babe.â
That helps a little, but the day is doomed from the start. She is leaving a school she loves and sixteen close friends. And worst of all, she will not be getting an award.
She smiles through everythingâthe family portrait, the tedious speeches, the snapshots with happy friends, the hugs and goodbyes. She smiles and smiles and smiles until finally we are in the car on the way home and then she weeps. She weeps like a little girl.
FOUR
SUMMER 2004
Shortly after Emmyâs graduation, I am driving down a busy street in Charlotte when my station wagon, my quintessential âmomâ car, makes an awful grinding sound and then shudders to a halt. It only takes a couple of hours for the tow truck to arrive and take me and the Blue Monster, so named by one of Emmyâs friends, to the transmission shop, where the experts are baffled.
This is not a happy time for me. My collection of short stories came out recently, and while the reviews were generally favorable, several said the stories were âdepressing.â But mostly I am worried about my mother.
Then comes the call. Sandy, my motherâs landlord, tells me that my mother is in the hospital for something unspecified. I call the hospital and speak to Mom.
âDo you need me to come get you?â I ask.
âNo, itâs too much of a bother,â she says. Then she begins to cry.
My car is in the shop, so I find a ride to a car rental place, rent a little white economy car, and drive the five hours to Edenton. When I walk into the hospital room, I find my mother lying in the bed looking like a bewildered child. For a moment it is as if we are strangers.
A nurse comes in, smiles, and busies herself taking my motherâs stats. I stare out the window at the flat silver lake on the other side of the parking lot and wonder whatâs coming next.
The doctors canât find anything seriously wrong with my mother. Sheâs dehydrated, they say, so they pump her full of fluids and the next day sheâs ready to go home. Before sheâs released I go over to the church and meet with several of her choir members, hoping to find some way that she can stay in Edenton. They knit their brows. Theyâre concerned, but they arenât her family. I canât expect anyone to take her in and care for her.
âMom, I think you should come home with me. Iâve found an assisted-living place near my house,â I tell her.
âNo, no. We canât afford it,â she says.
So I leave her with a makeshift care arrangement and drive home feeling as if I have abandoned her on an ice floe.
When I get home, my car is supposedly fixed. I have my summer arts camp job, and for two weeks I forget about my problems as I revel in poetry and playwriting with my brilliant teenage prodigies.
But the car is not fixed, and neither is my mother. Mom is back in the hospital. This time I decide I will not leave without her.
Hank and Emmy are not thrilled. My motherâs plaintive cry âPat!â rings through our house. She needs help getting to the bathroom. She canât get out of the chair. She forgets which door is the closet and which is the bathroom. She throws our busy lives into slow motion. They donât understand. They canât see who she really is. They canât see past the illusion of the body, sheathed in papery
skin. I know
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