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I don’t want to be disrespectful or an ungrateful daughter, but dealing with my situation at home may turn me toward alcoholism. I love my mom. I hate that I’ve spent so little time with her. That I didn’t know her dementia has progressed this far. That I wasn’t here for my father.
Now it’s as if the universe has come to cash out and I’m paying for all the moments I wasn’t here.
“You want to move me to a loony house,” Mom accuses me. She sits in a wingback chair in the living room’s corner, a book folded in her lap. The book is upside down, which breaks my heart. She’s trying so hard to prove how she has everything under control.
A deep red lamp shade above Mom’s gray hair diffuses the light, forming shadows on her face. Bracketed by the wings of the tall backrest, wearing her pale pink bathrobe, she looks smaller. Insignificant. I wish we could talk about the past, catch up on time we lost, but instead, we’re bickering, or I’m trying to guide her through elementary tasks.
She spent years taking care of me when I was a little baby and later a girl. It shouldn’t be this difficult to return the favor. Yet I dread the responsibility. Maybe I’m just not a good person. Certainly there is a track record of decisions that would support that.
“It’s not a loony house. Mom, you can’t stay here alone, and my life is in California. I’m trying to find a home where you can be very independent, but also get all the help you may need. It’d be like an all-inclusive hotel, and you’ll be around people your age.”
“And who will pay for it?” She drops the book on the side table.
That’s the question.
“Mom, why did you have to refinance the house and then downsize?” I’ve been here for weeks and yet I haven’t found one good reason for the dire state of my parent’s finances.
In one of those rare moments when she’s really looking at me, she blinks a few times and then swats with her hand at nothing in particular as if she was trying to scare away a thought. She opens her mouth and then closes it again. A single, lonely tear rolls down her cheek.
“Your father was a proud man. He might have not been fair to you back then, but his beliefs were strong. They were too engraved in him to even admit he was wrong or forgive, let alone reach out. But he regretted how he spoke to you. How he’d driven you away from us. He never recovered from that guilt. So he coped in unhealthy ways.”
She turns her head to the side, resting her cheek against the fabric of the chair, closing her eyes for a moment, absorbing the pain she’d suffered because of my failures. Because of my decisions. Because of my inability to fight for myself.
“That’s the problem with forgiveness,” she says. “It doesn’t work unless we forgive ourselves. You can accept other people’s reasons and behavior, but unless you accept your own and truly forgive yourself, the trauma festers.”
Don’t I know that. I’ve spent my all life trying to forgive people who might have wronged me back then, but forgiving myself? It was just easier to learn how to live with the guilt.
We sit in silence for what seems like a lifetime. I have so many questions, but right now I don’t want to disturb the beautiful harmony formed between us. My mother hasn’t been this open with me or this close to me… well, ever.
“The burden your father carried drew him to the gambling tables. Or perhaps I’m making excuses for him. I didn’t want to bother you with that. And what have I achieved? Now you’re burdened with an even bigger load.”
So many things we can’t change anymore. So many chances at happiness that we threw away for all the right reasons. Reasons that were so wrong.
“I wish you could stay with me. Now that he’s gone, you could live here.” Her words are choked, lodged somewhere between her soul and my heart.
I wish the same. At least now, in this tender moment of clarity and intimacy between us, the idea of grasping at least the last memories we can create seems like the solution. But how would I deal with the debt?
“Thank you for telling me, Mom. I wish I’d known, but Dad made it clear he didn’t want to have anything to do with me. I’m sorry I didn’t reach out.”
“Water under the bridge.” She looks at me, her hands small in her lap. “It’s what happens now that matters. That you have control over. That boy… Massi… still loves you.”
And she’s lost it again. If there was anyone more upset about me leaving than my father, it was Massi. The interview yesterday left me raw and unsettled.
He opened up a side that had been hidden, carefully curated to never come to the surface, and the broken-hearted girl in me wants to believe he did it for me, not for Catira, publicity or the prospect of a Michelin star.
But that is just wishful thinking. Or rather foolish thinking in an impossible direction. I can’t contemplate anything related to Massi, but I like that we’re moving past the animosity. Past the history. Then, perhaps, I’ll be able to forgive myself. Because Mom is right—the guilt has been plaguing me for too long.
She stands up, heavily relying on the support of the chair, and shuffles slowly to the kitchen. “If you don’t want to stay for me, you need to stay for him. You’ve been hiding from the truth for too long. And that boy is a part of your truth.”
Tears build up behind my eyes and spill slowly in the aftermath of her words. I knew coming back would unearth deeply buried emotions, but the ride has been too taxing.
Too much. Too painful. Too real.
I wipe my cheeks and stand up, knowing that it can only get worse. Because I made choices seventeen years ago that are unforgivable.
ChapterThirteen
Gina
