A Seahorse in the Thames (8 page)

A
s we drive across the Coronado Bay Bridge on our way to Mom’s, Priscilla and I formulate a plan. Isabel, whom we had to wake at three o’clock, is singing to herself in the backseat. Clement is at her side. She does not appear to be interested in what we are talking about.

We decide that I will drop Priscilla and Isabel off at the city park. I will continue on to Mom’s a few blocks away and then share Priscilla’s news. I won’t tell Mom where Priscilla and Isabel are, nor will I bring Mom to them until I am sure she is ready to embrace them both. Or at least not strangle Priscilla.

“She’s going to hate you for this, you know,” Priscilla breathes as she helps Isabel out of the car when I stop the car at the entrance to the park.

“For a couple hours anyway,” I say.

Priscilla smiles and shuts the door. Isabel, seeing swings and a slide is already scampering off, holding Clement by his curly tail.

Within minutes I am at Mom’s. Her front door is open and I can hear the soundtrack of “Madame Butterfly” blaring inside. I rap on the screen door.

“Mom, it’s me. Alexa,” I yell.

She is at the door in an instant. “Where have you been? I have been waiting all afternoon.” She is looking past me, to my empty car. “Where is Priscilla? Did she miss her plane?”

“No, Mom. She didn’t. Can I come in?”

“Well then, where is she?’

“Let me in and I’ll tell you.”

Mom holds the door open for me and frowns as I walk past her. She follows me in and walks briskly over to her stereo. She grabs the remote and turns the music off, pressing the button like she is firing off a round.

“What is all this about?” she says impatiently.

“Have a seat, Mom, I need to tell you something before you see Priscilla.” I sit on the couch in the same place I sat on Friday, and the dogs run in from the kitchen to jump on my lap.

Mom’s eyes are wide with apprehension as she sits in the chair across from me.

“It’s nothing bad, okay?” I begin. “In fact, it’s really rather wonderful news, but it will surprise you. It will probably even make you a little angry.”

“For the love of God, Alexa,
what is it?”

Well, here goes.

“Mom, Priscilla didn’t come alone. She brought someone with her.”

“So?” Mom says, annoyed.

“She has a little girl. Mom, Priscilla has a daughter. Her name is Isabel.”

Mom’s expression is all that I thought it would be. She is surprised beyond belief. “Priscilla has had a baby?” she murmurs.

Wait till she hears what I have to say next.

“Actually, Mom, Isabel turned three in May.”

Mom explodes off her chair. Margot and Humphrey jump off my lap and both start barking.

“How could you not tell me something like this!”
she roars.

Humphrey and Margot chime in with a chorus of yaps.

“I didn’t know! Mom, she didn’t tell me either! I found out today. Just like you. Okay? She didn’t tell anyone!”

Mom begins to pace the living room. Margot and Humphrey run to the front door to continue their concerto, assuming, no doubt, that something amazing must be happening outside and that is why their mistress is yelling.

“I don’t believe this! I
do not
believe this. How could she do this? How could she do this to me?”

She is not really speaking to me—yelling at me, rather—she is appealing to Reason, asking for an explanation. I attempt to provide it.

“Mom, I don’t like what she did, either, but I think I understand why she did it.”

“Oh, you would take
her
side!” Mom turns to me in mid-stride.

I stand then, too. Margot and Humphrey turn their heads and bark in my direction.

“I’m not taking a side, Mom. I just know that she did what she did because she felt she had to. She did what she did because she had to find a way to get over what happened to us. To our family.”

“And this was her solution! It’s absolutely ridiculous, that’s what it is. Of all the selfish…”

But I stop her.

“You think your way is any better, Mom?” I interrupt and my voice is also raised.

Yap, yap, yap.

“What do you mean
my
way?!”

“I mean, you retire ten years early, you dump your entire inheritance into this tiny house on this little island, you visit Rebecca only every blue moon, you spend every waking moment absorbed with those dogs, you make no absolutely no attempt to ever go see Priscilla and you refuse to have a telephone in your house!
That
is your way!”

Yap, yap, yap.

Then there is silence. I’m appalled at what I have said. So is my mother. And I guess the dogs are, too, for they have ceased barking and are both looking at my mother, awaiting her response.

But she says nothing.

“Mom, I’m sorry.” I come to her. “I shouldn’t have said those things.”

She feels for the back of the chair behind her and sits down. I kneel next to her.

“Mom?”

“It’s never going to end,” she whispers.

“Mom,” I try to get her to look at me. “Mom?”

She finally turns her head and our eyes meet.

“I think this is actually the beginning of something wonderful, Mom. Isabel is a beautiful, sweet little girl. You’re going to love her.”

Mom blinks, takes in a breath of air and lets it out slowly.

“You want to meet her?” I say, smiling.

A few tears escape Mom’s eyes as she nods.

We head out to my car.

I park near where I let Priscilla and Isabel off. As I get out I can see my sister off in the distance sitting on a bench with one leg resting over the top of the other. She has an arm draped over the back of the bench and her eyes are trained on a little slip of girl playing on a merry-go-round. Isabel. Clement is on my sister’s lap.

I come around to the passenger side and watch as my Mom slowly gets out of the car. She is watching Priscilla watching Isabel. When I close Mom’s door, Priscilla’s head turns toward us. My sister hesitates a moment and then she stands and begins to walk toward us, with Clement in one hand. As Mom begins to also walk toward her, I feel the sudden impulse to stay back. To let the reunion take place as a bystander. I see that Isabel has stopped spinning the merry-go-round and is also watching.

When the distance closes between Mom and Priscilla they share a few words with each other that I cannot hear, am not meant to hear. Their hushed conversation lasts several minutes. Then their arms slowly entwine and I watch as they embrace. That same moment, Isabel begins to run to her mother, and when she reaches Priscilla, my sister bends down to her daughter. She touches Isabel softly on her back and tells her something. I am sure it is something like, “Isabel, this is your grandmother.” Isabel looks up at my mother and I cannot see Mom’s face because her back is to me. But then I see my mother drop to her knees—something I cannot recall seeing in a very long time—and she sweeps the little girl into her arms.

I stand there transfixed. Someone walks past me and stares.

I guess I am also crying.

We leave Mom’s a little after nine. I can see that jet lag is finally catching up with Priscilla. Isabel, despite her long nap, is yawning and looking drowsy.

Mom doesn’t want us to go. She wants to know when we are coming over again.

I have an idea.

“Look, Mom,” I reach into my purse. I grab my cell phone and extend it to her. “Why don’t you take my cell phone for the next few days? Then you’ll have a way of calling us and we will have a way of calling you.”

Mom stares at the phone in my hand like I am holding out illegal narcotics.

“You don’t have to turn it on, Mom, until you want to use it, okay?”

She reaches it for it.

“Can you just let me call you?” she says in a voice that is laced with hesitation. “I mean, please don’t call me. Yet.”

I let it slip from my hand to hers. “Sure.”

“I’ll call you in the morning, then.”

“Sounds good.”

We say our goodbyes, Mom hugs little Isabel and we head for Mission Beach.

Later, as Priscilla is putting Isabel to bed—after having read
A Seahorse in the Thames
, of course—Priscilla notices the pile of old shoeboxes by my dresser.

“Cleaning out your closets?” Priscilla nods toward the pile.

“No. Actually they are from Rebecca’s room. I brought them home with me. I thought maybe I could find whatever it is I am supposed to find and get rid of. Or maybe I’ll figure out where she was headed. She tends to save everything.”

Priscilla hands Isabel the yellow blanket and helps her snuggle into the covers on my bed. She bends down and kisses Isabel. “’Night, love.”

“Good night, Mummy,” Isabel replies. “Good night, Aunt ’Lexa.”

“Good night, sweetie.” I say.

“Bring them out,” Priscilla says as she rises from the bed.

I look at the boxes. “Really?”

“Sure. Bring them out. Let’s look.”

“You’re not too tired?” I ask.

“I was earlier but I think I am getting my second wind. Make us some tea. Let’s look.”

“All right.”

We each grab two boxes and take them out to the living room.

Minutes later I am setting two mugs of herbal tea on the coffee table. Priscilla is looking at the pictures of the houses.

“Good Lord, there must be a hundred pictures in here.” She reaches for her cup.

“I know. I had no idea Rebecca was collecting those. It almost seems like she’s been wishing for a house of her own.”

“It sure does,” Priscilla says. “I can’t say as I blame her. That place where she lives is nice but it’s not a house. And of course it’s where she met Tim.”

I haven’t heard Tim’s name mentioned in a long time. Tim was a mentally disabled man who came to live at the Falkman Center five years after Rebecca moved in. Rebecca had taken a tremendous liking to him, and it wasn’t long before the believable happened. She began to call him her boyfriend. And his affection for her was just as evident, scary and—according to the Center staff—inappropriate. Mom had a fit, and though I was only seventeen, I was worried, as was Priscilla. Tim’s embarrassed and outraged parents moved him out as soon as they learned of their son’s overboard attraction to Rebecca. And they refused to let him stay in contact with her, which Mom thought was best. Rebecca had taken it hard, throwing temper tantrums one minute and then lying on her bed practically catatonic the next. Her therapist suggested letting her have a pet in her room to give her something upon which to lavish her love. She was provided with two female chinchillas that she promptly named Tim. Both of them. It took nearly a year, but eventually Rebecca waded out of her despondency. Four years later when the chinchillas died within a month of each other, Rebecca grieved for a while, but not as long as I feared she would. I had not thought about Tim in a long time.

“Alexa, you’ll be all right if you don’t find her right away, won’t you?” Priscilla continues, interrupting these thoughts and I am only too happy to whisk them away. “I mean, she’s not really your responsibility. She never has been. She’ll contact you when she’s ready. I’m sure of it.”