What a Woman

Mwah

My mother is sitting at my computer. The sight is unsettling for lots of reasons. I'm running around my room, trying to find matching boots to wear to some meaningless frat party where I have to put in a cameo, and my mother has just discovered that college dorms have really fast America Online. She sends an IM to our cousin Ellen Sue, and when Ellen Sue doesn't respond instantly, my mother grabs my phone, struggles with the long distance code, and calls her, asking her why she didn't respond. I try to hold back my laughter but fail. I go over to her and kiss her head. She scowls at me but ultimately she also laughs. I return to blow-drying my hair.

* * *

She likes to tell people about when I was born, especially about how we almost "flew" because around hour 12 of labor she really thought we were headed out the window. Then she likes to tell people how after 27 hours of labor and then a C-section all the doctors thought we weren't bonding because the nurse would roll the little crib up to her and she'd push it away. "I have carpal tunnel in both hands and my breasts are swelled up like cantaloupes and I just had my entire body gutted and you want me to hold a baby? Are you kidding?"

And then there was the fact that I was a girl. She told the doctor to keep looking because she was sure that there was a boy in there somewhere. In fact, she had told her best friend Linda that I was going to be a boy, and my name was going to be Evan Scott, and Linda had said, "Well, when was the last time Natalie didn't get what she wanted?" so Linda went to pottery class and made a blue plate that had "Evan Scott" on it. Linda told me that if I didn't believe her, I could scrape the pink paint off that plate and, lo and behold, I would find blue paint. She was really mortified when she had to go back to pottery class.

* * *

I'm at the frat party for six minutes when I realize I have no desire to be there. I knew that before I shaved my legs and did my hair, but now I am totally certain. I tell the few people that I care about at the party how I had taken my mother to see "Aida" earlier in the day and how I was ready to kill her because she's one of those people who loves Times Square, and I think Manhattan would be better without the entire 40's and 50's blocks, and she's also one of those people who's afraid to say "Jewish" or "suck" in the back of cabs and I see no problem using either extensively. I decide to go home, since I feel guilty about leaving her in my dorm room all alone on a Saturday night anyway.

* * *

My mother was always a bit off – not in a bad way, but just different. It was obvious to everyone around her that she had lived a bit of a different childhood.

The first day of kindergarten, my mother stood across the street from our house to take pictures of me waiting for the bus. I don't remember it, but the pictures always make me laugh. There's this huge expanse of street and house and trees, and this tiny little girl with perfect pigtails and a new lunch box wandering and wondering. The bus drove right by me. "Apparently," my mother says, having been informed by one of the professional mothers from Donovan Elementary School, "you basically have to be under the wheels for the bus to stop. I figured the bus driver would get off the bus, introduce herself, come in and get us, and then invite you onto the bus." I always picture something with butter cookies, maybe tea. My mother still shakes her head in disbelief.

My mother used to sit shiva for me when I went to camp. She would walk into my room and touch my bed and cry. This lasted for about a week, and then the next seven weeks she would drive my father up a wall, making him do things besides go to work and play golf, like go to Home Depot or shop for new alarm clocks.

* * *

I walk back into my dorm room and my mother is asleep in my bed. She's cuddling with my stuffed animal Mak the Yak and sleeping peacefully. I try not to make noise, but my lack of motor skills makes that impossible. "Hi sweetie girl," my mother says in a sleepy voice. "I'm going to get up to go to the john in a minute and then I'm going to go right back to bed." I tell her not to use the word ‘john' because it's disgusting and she just puts on her bathrobe and gives me a kiss and kind of waddles to the door in a sleepy stupor.

I told her not to let the door slam, so she closes the door so gently that the doorknob doesn't even turn. I change into my pajamas and check my email. Somehow in the past hour I've amassed a collection of forwarded emails from the account "Natalie613" and I shake my head in disbelief that my mother is ‘that person' meaning ‘that person who sends those stupid forwards on email.' I want to go to bed, but I just want another hug first.

* * *

My dad used to complain that once, when I needed a costume for camp the next day, my mother sewed up an entire rock star ensemble in a few hours, yet he had given her pants to put one button on, and in six years they hadn't been touched. My mother just said, "What pants?" like she says, "I'm not wearing shoes!" when my father tells her to get her shoes off the bed. She's always wearing shoes though. She just thinks he can't see them.

My father is still in love with my mother. I think it's really cute. After all these years, he still smiles when she walks in the room. I threw them a surprise party a few years ago. The invitation was a conversation between my father and someone. Someone asks my father, "So, how long have you and Natalie been married?" and he replies, "Three glorious years!" and the other person says, "Three? But you've got a daughter in college!" and my father says, "Well, we've been married for 26 years, but only three have been glorious!" It's just a joke though. They've even been on a cruise together.

* * *

I pretend that I'm getting undressed and putting on pajamas but really I'm just waiting for my mother to fall asleep so I can look at her. She looks relaxed, which is strange because we're related, and we don't do relaxed.

Sometimes I cry when I look at my mother now. It's not because I don't love her or anything like that, because I do love her more than I understand. But she's getting old, and I don't like having to be the adult daughter, because it's kind of scary to worry about her and giggle when she forgets things and watch her jet black hair melt into wisps of grey. I guess what really scares me is that one day, she won't be there at all. I remember when her mother, my grandmother, died. I remember telling her at the cemetery, "Mommy, you're doing so well, Grammy would be so proud of you. Look, today's the worst day of your life. Nothing could be worse than this. And you're so strong. I love you so much." But what happens if she ever dies? My father promised me he'd never die, and I believe him completely. My mother won't make me that promise. I asked her at lunch earlier if, when I have kids, they can call her Grammy, just like I called her Mommy. Obviously we both cry at that, since we cry at everything like that, even at stupid commercials sometimes. I walk over to my bed. "Goodnight my beautiful Mommy," I say to her, bending down to give her a kiss. "Goodnight my dollyface," she says back, sleepily.

[Posted 6/25/03]