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“Of course I do!” Melinda burst out. “I want him to defend me! Even if this guy’s Mr.Perfect. He’d never dream of standing up for me like that. He’d never protect me. He never has.”
“It’s okay to let people evolve, my love,” her mother said. “It’s okay to let Grant change from the mistakes of that first day. I know I’ve had to learn more than a little from your father about forgiveness.”
“What?” Melinda was confused. What did her father have to teach? Or forgive?
“After your sister died and I got so depressed, I took my anguish out on the three of you, something I know you’re painfully aware of. He weathered that just as you had to. I had to learn that sometimes acceptance and stillness look the same.”
“Mom...” Melinda had no idea how to query into what alternate universe they’d wandered, and she was more than a little afraid to break the spell by asking for specifics.
“I’m here, sweetheart,” her mother answered, and it was like she really was. Melinda felt her mother’s presence fill her living room, all acceptance and openness.
“Where were you?” Melinda’s voice was small, and she realized the question made no sense. She didn’t care. “Where did you go?”
“Oh, sweetheart.” Her mother sighed. Melinda was afraid her mother would keep her answer topical, but she needn’t have worried. Topical wasn’t Katrina Sen’s style.
“I don’t know. Well, yes I do, I was in grief. I was in horrible grief and I took it out on you, and your father, and your brother. You didn’t deserve it. I know you did your best to survive my pain. And then when my grief ended, I had lost my chance with you, and you were gone.”
Melinda placed her fingers on her chest where the words pierced her heart.
“You were gone physically,” her mother said, “and when I reached out to you, I felt like you were gone from me emotionally as well. And you had every right to be.”
Melinda put the phone down on the couch and stared at it. Maybe it wasn’t an alternate universe. Maybe it was the Bermuda Triangle, where all reason was lost, never to emerge again.
“But you tell me,” her mother continued as Melinda took up the phone. “How does that feel to hear? I trust your experience as much as I trust my own. More, in some cases. What was it like for you?”
Her mother was right. She had reached out to Melinda after Melinda had gone away to college, but Melinda had assumed—wrongly, it seemed—that her mother wanted to pick up criticizing her where she’d left off. How many times had her mother tried? Melinda didn’t want to count.
“Mom... Mom, it was so lonely.” The tears returned. “I needed you, and the only way I could have you just hurt.” Melinda could hear her mother’s sniffing now, too. “We saw you all the time, but it was like you weren’t there. And when you did talk to us, you just wanted to beat us down. Everything we did was wrong. I couldn’t keep up with trying to make you happy.” Melinda’s words came fast, almost as fast as her tears.
“I know, baby, I know.”
She’s not denying it, Melinda marveled. There’s no wall here. Where the hell is the wall? For the last fifteen years Melinda had either experienced or avoided a figurative wall of denial built wide and strong in front of her mother. And now Dr. Sen was owning it all.
“You do?”
“Yes,” her mother said simply. “I get it. I hear you and I’m so sorry. That is not what I wanted for you. It’s not who I wanted to be as a mother for you. And then to watch you shut down in the same way I had done, well, it absolutely broke my heart. That wasn’t what I wanted for you either.” Her mother drew a shaky breath.
It was time to take a risk. “I’d really love to see you guys. It’s been so long. Are you all booked for the holidays?”
“Do you want Daddy and me to come?” her mother asked. “Dad and I will come. Aarjav,” she called, and Melinda started. Her mother was with her father? “Aarjav, honey, Malina needs us.” Her mother must have covered the phone as the two talked because then Melinda could no longer make out the words.
“Malina?” Kat was back. “Your father’s students have turned in their final exams and he is free to travel. He has to grade their midterm accounting tests but he can grade while we travel. I don’t have patients until after the new year. Would you like us to come?”
Melinda couldn’t speak. What had just happened? Her mother was seeing patients again? Her mother was on speaking terms with her father? Speaking-in-person terms? She had thought she’d call her mother, tell her an abbreviated version of the truth, maybe get some sideways maternal support that would carry her through the holidays. Suddenly Mom and Dad were going to turn her Christmas into a Norman Rockwell painting. If Norman Rockwell painted Christmas in West Bengal.
She hadn’t answered her mother. Would she like them to come? Wasn’t that exactly what she wanted? For them to come and steep her in safety and love and to heal her fears.
“Yes!” Melinda said at last. “Yes, really? I would love that! It’ll be so expensive last-minute, I’m sorry.”
It was settled. They’d fly out this weekend, and stay into January to celebrate Swami Vivekananda Jayanti, a holiday in honor of the holy swami who had introduced meditation and Hinduism to the Western world.
“Dad and I follow your blog,” her mother was saying, “and we love it. We watch how your beautiful self comes through in it, and that gives us comfort. I hope it’s as fulfilling for you as it seems from this side of the computer screen.”
“You read my blog?” Melinda should buy a Lotto ticket.
“Oh, yes,” her mother said. “We love it. We take turns reading it to each other every week. It’s really fun. Sometimes we recognize recipes from when you were growing up, and sometimes it’s all new and we cook along with you.”
Holy cannoli! This is a love-in.Melinda clutched a throw pillow to her torso in lieu of a group hug.
