Guilt also appears beside Mom, rubbing her shoulders. Even though Guilt is a big, lumbering Emotion, there’s something slimy and sly about her. She fills the room with her aura.
“Hello, odd one,” she greets me. I don’t take my eyes off my mom.
“She’s too good to talk to the likes of you,” Resentment tells her, smirking. The other Emotions have gone.
Mom is silently crying. Despite the evidence and the impossibility of it, she wants to believe her real daughter is out there somewhere, waiting to be found. She wants to believe that her child isn’t the cold person beside her. I need to fix this. I have to fix this. “It’s not your fault,” I say to her as I ignore the two guests sharing the space in the kitchen. “Whatever you think happened. The accident—”
“The accident.” Mom sniffs. She shakes her head, wiping away some sweat on her forehead with the back of her arm. Is the incident with Tim what’s rattled her? Or is it this conversation, here, now? “That’s when it all started. You never found out about it because we never talked about it. For Tim it was a matter of pride. He didn’t want to think about our four-year-old daughter wandering all the way out to the road without our knowing and getting hit by a car.”
“How long was I in the hospital?” I ask next.
Trying to regain her composure, my mom starts on the dishes yet again. Resentment leaves but Guilt remains. “Just a day,” Mom replies. “The doctor said it was a miracle. You got away with just a few scrapes and bruises. They only kept you overnight for observation.” She laughs softly, her shoulders shaking. “Since the driver that hit you was the one to call 9-1-1, Tim and I got to the hospital later. As soon as I walked into your room and you turned … that was the moment I realized you’d changed. You looked at me like you didn’t even know me.”
I stand, moving to the counter to help her dry. She doesn’t object. “It really could just have been shock.”
Mom shakes her head so adamantly that some of her hair comes loose from her ponytail. She’s going to cling to her delusions. “No. No. I rocked my daughter to sleep every night, I sang her songs, I dressed her, I fed her, I played with her, I carried her inside of me for nine months. She knew me, and I knew her.” She scrubs a dish so hard that she slips a bit and dishwater splashes over the edge of the sink. I think, not for the first time, of how different we are, yet it’s her I look like the most. Both of us tall, slender, blond and blue-eyed.
“I should have done more,” Mom murmurs, pulling me back to the present. “Said more. I should have fought for my daughter, tooth and nail, looked for her until my last breath. But I stood here in this kitchen, doing dishes, pretending that everything was all right.”
I should have expected this; it’s the way of humanity, after all, to deny. To hope when there is none. I study the shine of a glass in my hand as I ask, “What do you think happened, then?”
Mom just shakes her head. Really, she has no idea what she believes.
People are so complex. They want to hear the truth, but they want you to lie to them. I choose silence rather than making another mistake with my mother. I dry each dish meticulously, concentrating on the plates and silverware and pans as if they’re the reason for my existence. I become aware that Mom has stopped washing and is watching my hands, her eyes wondering, worrying.
“You can ask me anything you want,” I tell her. She shudders, probably because I’ve guessed her thoughts. She doesn’t move away, though, or snap at me. I watch her toy with her wedding ring. It slips easily off her wet finger, and she puts it back on little by little.
“Who are you?” Mom asks finally, her voice a broken whisper. “What are you?”
My hand towel goes around and around on a plate. “I’m your daughter, no matter what you believe.” Around, around.
Following my example, Mom starts scrubbing again. “Just the way you’re so controlled … ” She purses her lips. “Even when you were little, you didn’t crack a smile.”
“I could try harder—”
“No.” Mom ducks her head and hair falls forward, hiding her haggard face. She grips the edges of the sink. Knuckles white. I can see her heart breaking all over again. Guilt is still there, answering her summons solemnly, her spindly fingers tight on Mom’s shoulder, and she’s joined by others again. Sorrow, Anger, Hope. As the seconds tick by the air begins to tremble with expectation. Tension and pressure builds in the room and I know something’s coming. Something that won’t be easy for her. Finally, her chin trembling, my mother plunges. “Do you know where my daughter is?”
I meet her sad, sad eyes. And in this moment I realize that she’ll always deny me, never accept me. I’ll never be her child. But I can’t release her. If I let her sink into these impossible despairs, there will be no place for me. So I tell her, in the same hard way Tim speaks, “I’m your daughter. And you owe it to me to believe that, no matter how much I’ve changed.”
Silence. The soap in the sink bubbles. After another minute she nods, pursing her lips. She turns away. And thus ends the first meaningful, sincere conversation I’ve ever had with my mother.
This time there’s no disorientation. I know, the moment I open my eyes and find myself in an unfamiliar room, that this is another dream. The walls are blue, the furniture all mismatching. There’s a narrow bed in one corner with messy sheets, all wrinkled and tossed. There’s a stereo on the dresser. But what makes this square place remarkable, individualistic, is the books. Dozens upon dozens of them are stacked up, covering every surface, every possible spot. Some are open, some are bookmarked, some look ancient, and others have yet to have their spines cracked for the first time. Titles and words fly at me: THE GREAT GATSBY. THE GRAPES OF WRATH. THE ASSASSINATION OF JOHN F. KENNEDY.
I’m standing in a corner, gazing at it all. Through the window to my left I see that it’s morning. The sun is just awakening and fingers of orange and pink stretch out over the world. There’s a distant roar, something mighty and older than time. My mind recognizes it after a moment. The ocean.
The realization hits me then: I’m in the house. The one that I see sometimes in my dreams. The one by the cliff side.
“ … almost time to eat,” a woman says from down the hall. And then the door opens and the boy enters. I remain where I am, expecting him to lift his gaze and see me. But he doesn’t.
I might as well be invisible. He just strides to the cluttered desk and rifles through some papers in a drawer. His mouth is puckered and his movements are graceful, thoughtless. He’s just showered; his hair is wet and he smells of sharp soap. He finds what he’s looking for—a notebook and a textbook along with it—
and he pulls them free of the pile, tucks them under his arm, and leaves again. Without hesitation, I follow.
We walk into a kitchen. The house is small; it only takes five steps. Everything is clean and orderly in contrast to the boy’s room. Though the furniture is worn and there’s only one very old TV as entertainment, someone has worked very hard to make this place a home. The rugs are colorful and there are pictures on the walls, framed images of a smiling family of three: the boy, the mysterious girl who always weeps in my dreams, and an older woman with crinkling eyes. Grief doesn’t exist. These pictures … these pictures are genuine. The Caldwell mark is nowhere to be seen—no shadows in their gazes, no tight smiles, no distance between shoulders.