“With Dad.”
“Your father is in the house?”
Dad’s not allowed to come in without Mom’s permission. The judge told him it’s not his house anymore, even if his father was the one who bought it.
“He’s driving around looking for you with Sweet Caroline. She called him because we were worried. You didn’t come home last night.”
“I did come home,” she says.
It seems like she’s going to sit next to me on her mat, but she doesn’t. She goes into the kitchen and leans against the counter.
“I came home after my drive and I found your letter,” she says. “At first I was shocked. All those hurtful things you said. I was confused. But the guru helped me understand.”
“You saw the guru?”
“I went to see him, and we talked all night.”
“What did you talk about?”
“You.”
“I don’t like you talking about our family with strangers.”
“He’s not a stranger. I trust him. We have a connection.”
“How can you have a connection? You just met him.”
“Some day you’ll have a connection with a woman, and you’ll understand what it’s like.”
I try to imagine telling Judi everything about me—the problems with Mom and my feelings about Sweet Caroline and my father. It seems impossible to share that stuff with another person.
“He helped me to understand you,” Mom says. “And to figure out what I should do.”
Mom comes over and sits across from me on the floor.
“Sanskrit, you said I’ve been a bad mother to you.”
“Not bad,” I say.
“That’s what you said in the letter. Is it the truth?” I’m so uncomfortable, I can barely sit still. “Is it?” she says.
“Yes.”
I brace for Mom to get angry, but she doesn’t. She just nods her head.
“The guru told me I needed to be a hundred percent honest with you. Like you were honest with me.”
She closes her eyes and takes a breath.
“Here it is: I try to be a good mother, but I fall short. Sometimes I want to be better and I don’t know how, and sometimes I don’t want to be better. Sometimes I wonder why I’m a mother in the first place.”
“You’re a mother because you had kids.”
“There was a lot going on when I had you. Family pressure—”
“I don’t want to hear this.”
“You need to hear it. You’re suffering because of it. Because of my bad choices. Your letter made that clear. At first I was angry that you would even talk to me like that, but then I realized you were right.”
I try to change my position on the mat. My legs are falling asleep, my thighs numb and tingling.
“Your letter woke me up, Sanskrit.”
“I wrote it when I was really angry—”
“The truth was too painful for me to look at on my own. You helped me, Sanskrit. The guru said that your name was more than just a name. Maybe I knew before you were born that you were going to bring me the message I needed to hear, and that’s why I called you Sanskrit.”
“How would he know?”
“Oh, sweetie,” she says.
Mom leans towards me, legs crossed, her hands on her thighs. She can stay in this position for hours. Maybe even days.
“I have to do better. I have to be a real mother to you.”
“I’d like that.”
“But how can I love you, when I don’t love myself?”
“What does that mean?”
“If I don’t learn to love myself, I can never be the kind of mother I want to be. The guru explained that to me.”
“You’re saying you want to be a good mother?”
“More than anything,” Mom says.
She scoots closer, her knees against my knees.
“That’s why I’m leaving,” she says. “The guru is going back to India, and I’m going with him.”
“How does that make you a good mother?”
“This might be hard for you to understand at your age, but I’ve put everything else in my life first. It’s time for me to put me first. My happiness. My joy.”
“This doesn’t make any sense.”
“The guru is my chance at happiness. There’s real love between us. A spiritual love, not like I’ve had in the past. It’s a new start for me, Sanskrit. ”
“Wait—What about us?”
“That’s why I need to talk to your father. You’re going to live with him while I’m away.”
“That’s impossible. He can’t even keep a plant alive.”
“Sweet Caroline told me he has a cactus.”
“He lives in an apartment!”
“A nice apartment.”
“You’ve never seen it!” I say.
“It will bring you and your sister closer.”
“Who wants that? Mom, this is crazy.”
Mom stands up and crosses her arms over her chest.
“I’m shocked that I’m getting such flack from you. I thought you’d be happy for me.”
“Why would I be happy?”
“I’m doing it for you,” she says. “Because of your letter.”
“But I didn’t mean what I said. It was just angry stuff. You know how people get angry sometimes and say things they don’t mean? That’s what the letter was.”
“I know that’s not true.”
I can’t think straight. My head is going a mile a minute.
“When are you leaving?” I say.
“In a week,” she says.
She reaches out and puts a hand on my chest. My heart chakra or whatever she calls it. She keeps her hand there like she’s trying to comfort me. But it just feels like she’s pushing me away.
“One week,” I say.
“Yes,” Mom says with a smile.
“My life is just beginning.”
That’s what Mom says to Dad. He sways on his feet like he’s been hit.
Sweet Caroline stands to the side, rubbing tears from her eyes.
Mom just broke the news to them, and they look like they’ve been in a car accident.
“ ‘My life is just beginning’? What kind of statement is that?” Dad says.
“An honest one,” Mom says.
I watch from behind the kitchen counter. I duck down a little so one of the gift baskets is in the way. My family is less painful when viewed through cellophane and foreign chocolate.
“You’re forty-one years old. Your life has been going on for a long time,” Dad says. “We had a marriage. We had children.”
“Have children,” I say. “We’re still here.”
“Of course you are,” Dad says.
“What about my bat mitzvah?” Sweet Caroline says.
“Oh, that’s right,” Mom says, like she just remembered Sweet Caroline is getting bat mitzvahed in the fall. “I’m sure I’ll be back for that.”
“You don’t sound sure,” Sweet Caroline says, biting at a nail.
“This is a new chapter for me,” Mom says. “I don’t understand why I can’t get a little support from the people around me.”
“Because it makes no sense!” Dad says.
“I don’t expect someone whose life has been on hold for twenty years to understand.”
“That’s a low blow,” Dad says.
“It’s true,” Mom says. “Your father wouldn’t fund your start-up, and you crumbled.”
“That’s not how it happened,” Dad says.
But that is how it happened, at least as I understand it. Dad refused to work for Zadie’s terry company and tried to get Zadie to fund his tech start-up instead. Zadie refused, saying it was a big waste of money. Dad has spent his life trying to prove him wrong.
“Please stop fighting,” Sweet Caroline says.
“We’re not fighting,” Mom says. “Nothing to fight about. I’ve already made up my mind.”
“So you’re leaving your children?” Dad says.
Mom twists her head around, doing the neck rolls that help her relieve stress.