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I found myself glued to the spot where I stood. I knew that my mother was out there in the world somewhere, but to me, she was as abstract a figure as the queen. To me, it was as if she’d died long ago. But to Gran, she meant so much, and this is what had me worried.
Every year as Mother’s Day drew near, Gran would begin her thrice-daily peregrinations to our mailbox. She was hoping there’d be a card from my mother. In the early years, cards appeared, signed in shaky scrawl. Gran would be so happy.
“She’s still in there somewhere, my little girl,” she’d say.
But for years on end, Mother’s Day after Mother’s Day, no cards arrived and Gran would be glum for the rest of the month. I compensated by splurging on the biggest, cheeriest card I could find, adding a “Gran” before “Mother,” filling the inside with evenly spacedx’s ando’s, and red and pink hearts that I’d color in, careful not to stray outside the lines.
When Gran told me my mother was dead, it wasn’t my own pain that I felt. It was hers.
She cried and cried and cried, which was so unlike her that it unsettled me to my core.
I hurried to her side and placed a hand on her back.
“What you need is a good cup of tea,” I said. “There’s almost nothing that a good cup of tea can’t cure.”
I rushed to the kitchen and put the kettle on, my hands shaking. I could hear Gran sobbing on the sitting-room floor. Once the water hadboiled, I made two perfect cups and brought them to the living room on Gran’s silver tray.
“There we are,” I said. “Why don’t we have a wee sit on the sofa.”
But Gran wouldn’t move. The polishing cloth was balled up in one of her hands.
I stepped through the obstacle course of treasures and cleared myself a spot beside her on the floor. I put the tray down to one side, picked up both teacups, and positioned them in front of us. I put one hand on Gran’s shoulder again.
“Gran?” I said. “Will you sit up? Will you join me for tea?” My voice was trembling. I was terrified. I’d never seen Gran so weak and diminished, as fragile as a baby bird.
Gran eventually sat up. She dabbed at her eyes with the polishing cloth.
“Oh,” she said. “Tea.”
We sat like that, Gran and me, on the floor, drinking tea, surrounded by Swarovski crystal animals and silver spoons. My mother’s photo was beside us, the absent third person at our tea party.
When Gran spoke next, her voice had returned, composed and steady. “Dear girl,” she said. “I’m sorry I was so upset. But not to worry, I’m feeling much better now.” She took a small sip from her cup and smiled at me. It was not her usual smile. It traveled only halfway across her face.
A question occurred to me. “Did she ever ask about me? My mother?”
“Of course she did, dear. When she’d call out of the blue, it was often to ask about you. I’d update her, of course. For as long as she’d listen. Sometimes that wasn’t very long.”
“Because she was unwell?” I asked. This was the word Gran always used to explain why my mother had left in the first place.
“Yes, because she was terribly unwell. When she called me, it was usually from the streets. But when I stopped providing funds, she stopped calling.”
“And my father?” I asked. “What happened to him?”
“Like I’ve said before, he was not a good egg. I tried to help your mother see this. I even called old friends to help me coax her away from him, but that proved ineffective.”
Gran paused and took another sip of tea. “You must promise me, dear girl, to never get mixed up with drugs.” Her eyes filled with tears.
“I promise, Gran,” I said.
I didn’t know what else to say, so I reached out and hugged her. I could feel her holding on to me in a whole new way. It was the only time I ever felt that I was giving her a hug, rather than the other way around.
When we separated, I didn’t know what the correct etiquette was. I said, “What do you say, Gran? When all else fails, tidy up?”
She nodded. “My dear girl, you’re a treasure to me. That you are. Shall we tackle this mess together?”
And with that, Gran was back. Perhaps she was dissimulating, but as we arranged all of her trinkets, freshly cleaned and polished, and put them back in the curio cabinet, she chirped and chattered on as though it were an ordinary day.
We never spoke of my mother again after that.
