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After the doctor’s appointment, they met Grandma Greta, Julia, Aunt Ella, Aunt Catherine, and Aunt Alana at a downtown café. They were coming from Julia’s final fitting for her wedding dress, which had made them all weep with joy. Julia showed Anna a final photograph, wherein Julia had her hands on her hips, and Aunt Ella and Aunt Alana were on either side, imitating Charlie’s Angels. Anna cackled and returned the phone. Out the window, a late-March sun warmed the frozen ground, and the coffee shop began to set up tables and chairs on the outside patio. It was nearly time to begin again.
When Anna returned to The Copperfield House that afternoon, she put Adam in his crib and checked her email. As she’d promised Smith she would, she’d been in contact with several editors, most of whom had written back. “Send me pitches!” one said. “I love your writing. We’d be happy to publish you again.”
As Anna typed a response, her email dinged with another message. Thinking it was an editor, she clicked back to her inbox.
FROM: Smith Watson
Anna jumped from her chair so quickly that it fell back behind her and rattled on the ground. She blinked several times, daring it to be a mirage. It had been over a week since he’d left. Already, he’d turned into her ghost, haunting her dreams.
Dear Anna,
I know you hate me. You’re not the only one. Ever since I left last week, I’ve marveled at the pain I can cause myself, which I do again and again. But I’ve also ached at the pain I know I’ve caused you. It’s been a long time since I opened myself up to something so real. And I’d forgotten that something like that ultimately paves the way to hardship and turmoil.
You deserve an explanation. Even if you never want to see me again, I’ll give you that.
For many months now, I’ve been plagued with nightmares of my mother. Some of them are memories of her yelling, fighting, and throwing things. But in others, she’s sobbing on the ground, asking me why I did what I did. Asking me why I didn’t love her enough.
The truth is, I’ve always loved my mother. The fact that she didn’t show her love when I was a child made me crave it even more. It was an endless cycle I thought I’d escaped when I fled for Brooklyn. But then, there I was, writing page after page about her, about what she’d done to me. When your mother said she wanted to publish the memoir and bring me to The Copperfield House to finish it, I thought that gave validity to my suffering. But in actuality, these events only emphasized my pain.
On that last evening before I left, I sat with Violet for ages. She told me about how devastated she’s been since her son’s death, and I told her how empty I’ve felt since I left my mother behind. I’ve never found a way to forgive her… but I’ve also never found a way to forgive myself.
Violet losing Dean like that forced me to reckon with the nature of time. My mother won’t be around forever. More than that, I won’t be around forever. We’re two individuals floating through space on a big rock called Earth. Any novels I publish won’t be “remembered” in the grand history of all things. I’m not James Joyce or Sylvia Plath. I’m generally no one—except for a very broken man who was once a boy.
In that way, I knew I couldn’t publish that memoir. It would destroy far more than it would build up. And I don’t want to make a mockery of my past. I don’t want to commodify it. So much of it is me, you know?
Talking to Violet forced me to remember, too, that I disappeared from my mother’s life. I never gave her the chance to realize what she’d done. I wasn’t even sure if she deserved it. But I figured, after ten years away, I had a right to know what she’d say.
And I’m so glad I came back to Pennsylvania to find out.
I’m writing to you from the hotel down the street from my mother’s house— the same house in which I was raised, where she burned me with the skillet and where she sobbed herself to sleep and I worried she wouldn’t wake up. All of that is true. But it’s also the hotel down the street from the house in which I played with my stuffed animals, taught myself to cook pasta, and received a bike for my sixth birthday. The good memories are tied up with the bad. And my memoir wasn’t allowing any space for the good ones. How is that fair?
My little brother is here at the hotel with me. He’s twelve now, which blows my mind, and he’s showing me his new video game, which was a present from Mom’s newest boyfriend.
Mom seemed okay. A little tired, maybe. But softer. Gentler. She told me losing me forced her to go to therapy, where she was prescribed medicine for bipolar disorder. Things have still been up and down for her since then, but she’s had more ups than downs. A blessing. I sobbed when she told me that. I’d always known something was wrong, something I couldn’t name.
And I knew then why I couldn’t write that memoir. I still love this woman. I always will.
I asked her about my half brother, Freddie. About whether she was up to raising him. And she burst into tears. She told me she’s so tired. That she’s on a constant quest for love that has nothing to do with her love for Freddie. I went into Freddie’s room after that and asked him about his upbringing, about whether Mom was nice to him or not. Freddie said she yelled. And in his eyes, I saw a reflection of my own childhood.
And downstairs, I offered to take Freddie home with me. Wherever “home” turns out to be. I hope I’m up to the task of showing him the kind of love he’s been missing. Maybe my mother just doesn’t have the capacity to show it, no matter what her medication is. What a curse that must be for her.
I’m so grateful for my capacity to feel. I feel so much about you, which I’ve already shared. I don’t blame you if you’ve lost those feelings. That’s the nature of time.
This has turned into a long-winded email. I wouldn’t blame you if you haven’t made it to the end.
Just know that I’m thinking of you. And that I’d love to meet again when you’re ready.
Yours,
Smith
Not long after Anna finished reading the letter, she lay back on her bed and stared at the crack in the ceiling, listening as the early spring winds surged across the house and made the foundation quiver. Her breasts were tender, and it was nearly time to feed Adam again. She groaned and curled up in a ball, thinking about the sacrifice of motherhood and love.
There was a knock.
“Hello?”
Anna sat up as Julia entered her room, white as a sheet.
