Chapter Thirty-Five
In all my life, no one had used that word with me. Daddy had a sickness, that’s what they’d called it, but that was all they said of it. He’s having a bad day. A better one. It’s got him good right now. What did any of this mean? If this was lupus, if this was what had taken Daddy, what would it do to me?
Mama ushered me into the kitchen and sat me down at the table. Then she placed a piece of peach pie in front of me as steam still stretched and curled from it.
“I’m not very hungry,” I told her.
“Yes, you are. Look at you, all skin and bones. You’ll feel better with something warm in your belly. Now, eat up.”
As I took my first bite, Mama began to warm milk on the stove, sprinkling in some cinnamon. I had been so proud of myself and how I had replicated my mother’s recipe, but as the first bite woke my taste buds, I realized I hadn’t gotten the measurements right. The flavors were similar, but not balanced quite the same. Hers held a depth of richness that mine lacked. Or maybe it was that hers unlocked a sense of time and place that permeated beyond my taste buds.
So much was the same as when I had lived there. The grandfather clock that Nonna’s parents had given them as a wedding gift still stood in the front hall. Her cast-iron skillet sat on the back-right burner, and the fry pan with the copper cover (two-and-a-quarter books) hung above the range. I reached under the table and felt my initials that I had carved years ago. I wondered if
Mama had ever found them.
Something had been added to the mantel since I had last visited. Over the years, I’d given her framed photos that she displayed there: our wedding and theirs, an updated photo of Wesley every year, one of him shortly after birth when he looked like a pruned-up newborn version of my father. But there was one I didn’t recognize. I got up and walked over to get a closer look.
There, staring back at me, was a family portrait I hadn’t seen before, but I remembered it well. It was taken the last time I had seen Mama and Georgie, the day of Wesley’s birthday.
It was our first family portrait. Henry held Wesley, who had just turned four. My cheeks were full, my legs still spindly, poking out of my egg-shaped body. My dress acted like a tent, billowing outward but not able to hide the pregnant belly beneath it. I ran my hand across the only photo we would ever have that was proof that Esther had existed. In all the ones to come, she’d forever be invisible to everyone but me.
“Where’d you get this picture?” I asked.
Mama turned off the water and reached for a hand towel. “Henry.”
“But how—”
“He dropped it by one day when he came to tell us how you were.”
“But how did he get it?”
With the kitchen clean, Mama took a seat at the table. “I don’t know.
Something about some broken film and this was the only picture on it. He thought I might want a copy, so he brought it for me.”
I didn’t like to think of that morning on the floor of Esther’s bedroom as I clung to an empty blanket and Wesley tried to comfort me. But that was where the picture had come from, the roll that I thought would prove Esther had come home.
“He’s a good one,” Mama said. “Like your father.”
She may have been right, but I still didn’t know what he would do with me once he found me. And I didn’t want to think about it.
I brought the picture to the table and sat down, still looking at my pregnant self. What I wouldn’t have given to be able to go back to that moment before all this happened—before her birth, the delusions, the mental hospital, the therapy that shook me.
“If he’s so good, then why’d he send me there?” A shiver ran up my spine.
“Mama, if you knew—”
“Stop.” She said it to her cup of coffee, not looking me in the eye. “He’s doing what he can.” I watched her hold her mug, her fingers stroking the porcelain. When had my mother’s hands gotten so old, so bound by wrinkles, her knuckles knotted?
“Do you know what they did?” I asked.
“Henry told me some. Said they were doing what was best.”
I swear I could taste rubber again. I took a sip of milk, hoping it would drown out the flavor that haunted my taste buds. I swallowed hard and then pleaded, “Don’t make me go back there.”
The grandfather clock’s chime reverberated through the silence as I waited for my mother to reply. I had to know if she would let me stay or if she would send me back. After the final toll thrummed, Mama took a sip of her coffee, patted her lips with her napkin, and said, “If they aren’t capable enough to diagnose you, they aren’t worthy of going back to.” I wanted to leap across the table and kiss her. But then she continued, “I’ll call Henry—”
“Mama—”
“Stop.” She slammed her mug down so that coffee sloshed up the sides and a few drops landed on the table. “He’s your husband. And he loves you. I’ll call him. We’ll talk. For tonight, I’ll make up your bed and you’ll stay here.
The rest can wait till the sun comes up.”
