Don't Call Me Mother (27 page)

The next school day, Keith waits for me in his green Chevrolet. He kisses me and holds me, telling me that we will not let them break us up. Over the next few weeks, I develop the investigative skills of Nancy Drew. I call him at a pay phone and wait to see who answers. If it’s his mother, I hang up. When Keith answers, we arrange a clandestine meeting. I drive around the block and wait for him to come running down the street. We send each other notes through his brother and develop a code: 451—the ignition point of fire—means “I love you.”

Even during the winter, we brave a few moments together in the icy car. Ecstasy, the touch of his fingers on my face, the kindness in his dark eyes. Our stolen moments see me through Gram’s ranting every night. I worry that her foul moods are contagious. I worry that I will become like her. Each night before I go to sleep, I cry silently into my pillow, telling myself that everyone cries at night. This gives me a strange kind of comfort.

Gram screams at Mother on the telephone, refusing to give her money and blaming her for not being thrifty or for wasting her life on men or for being selfish. There is no hint of caring in her tirade, but after she puts down the receiver, she buries her head in her arms and cries, “Oh, my brown-eyed baby.”

After a few days of raving, crying, and drinking endless cups of coffee, Gram shuffles to the telephone and wires money to Mother. Afterwards she paces back and forth muttering, berating herself, Mother, Daddy, and finally me, for the way things are.

Aunt Helen has information about Gram’s secret past. Each week she picks me up to do the laundry at the laundromat. “Your grandmother sends your poor nitwit mother guilt money because she left her when she was a baby. You know that, don’t you?” Aunt Helen folds the towels into thirds.

“She gets so mad at Mother on the phone, she screams and cries for hours.”

“Well, honey, it goes a long way back. Besides, there’s a lot you don’t know about your Gram, God love her.”

I wait for Aunt Helen to go on while we each hold an end of a sheet to fold. “She used to come down to San Antone in the winter. That’s where we met the Duchess, bless her heart. She was married to Bert, her second husband, and we heard that he was about to divorce her just before he died. She’d met a married man down there, and once she tried to kill herself over him. Silly girl. I told her he’d never leave his wife to marry her, but she got her hopes up. It was around that time you were born. She threw down the telegram and said, ‘The little brat is born.’ I declare, what a way to act about a little baby girl. And I told her so, too.”

“Why didn’t she want me?” I keep a brave face, but my chest squeezes in pain.

“She didn’t want to be a grandmother, she didn’t want to be old, just like your dad-blasted mother. They should be happy a little girl came into the world. Of course your Gram did want you after all, but…”

Her voice trails off as we watch a freight train rumble by on the tracks. “And your mother, they’re two peas in a pod, too much alike. They always fought over money. After that they started arguing over your father, and now it’s about you. I think the Duchess is payin’ for leavin’ that little girl when she was young. This is what’s happened because of it. You can’t never get away with things if they’re wrong. You have to pay for them someday.”

Gram allows me to go on some field trips to the university—journalism trips, orchestra events. But even after she’s agreed that I can go, she threatens me with juvenile hall or with dying before I get back. I think maybe I should stay to keep her alive, but deep down I see through her tricks. She wants to possess my soul.

One afternoon in late April, Gram greets me wearing one of her good dresses, her hair combed and a smile on her face. She’s cleaned up the house and is wearing lipstick. I wonder what the heck is going on now. She orders me to sit down, and my stomach clenches. What kind of trouble am I in now?

“I’ve been thinking. It’s almost the end of the school year, and there are those dances you wanted to go to. Keith’s mother and I decided to let you two go, provided you come home when we tell you.”

I stare at her. What’s the trick? “Why did you change your mind?”

“Well, it’s spring, and summer will be here soon and…” Her voice trails off as she lights a cigarette.

What she means is: “Keith is leaving for the summer and you are going to college, so you can’t get in too much trouble. Besides, we mothers and the whole town are keeping an eye on you, so enjoy it while it lasts. You’ve got five weeks.”

The warm spring afternoon smells of honeysuckles and roses. Fathers up and down the block have begun to mow their lawns on Saturdays, and Uncle Maj’s roses blossom. Keith is my date for the senior prom—a dream come true. I wear a strapless dress with scalloped lace over powder blue satin. I inspect my face in the mirror, trying not to think about endings. Keith is slipping away, and Enid will soon be just a place to visit. My childhood is coming to an end. Jodie will be leaving soon, a fact we try not to talk about too much.

“You look very beautiful tonight,” Keith tells me when he comes to pick me up. As he drives us to the dance, pink and orange clouds streak the sky, creating a beautiful sunset. I love the smell of his car and watching his hands as he shifts gears. His black hair is swept back; he wears his best black pants and a white jacket. We hold hands as “Where Have All the Flowers Gone” plays on the radio. A warm breeze blows against my bare shoulders. The moment is splendid, but my happiness is bittersweet.

The prom is at the country club, a place where neither of us is usually welcome since our parents aren’t members. A full moon hangs in the sky, painting the trees and shrubs, the pathways and tables, with silver. The dance floor glimmers with mirrored lights. Couples cling to each other as they glide across the dance floor, everyone dressed up like adults in fine evening dresses and tuxes. Keith and I dance to the tune of “Moon River,” close and warm, in ecstasy after the terrible, lonely winter when we had to sneak, or didn’t see each other at all. We do not talk about how brief this period of happiness will be. We are content to dance and later to kiss for hours in his car, where we watch the moon make an arc in the plains sky and I make silent wishes on stars.

Finally, it is graduation night. Jodie and I grab each others’ hands as we wait for the procession music. The wind blows her dark hair back from her face, and the setting sun brings out the burnished brown of her eyes. I get a lump in my throat—how can I go on without her? She cracks a joke, her light-heartedness making me laugh instead of cry. This is her particular talent when it comes to me and my tendency toward grief.

Jodie waves brightly at her mother. I feel keenly aware that my mother, Daddy, and Gram are all absent as I walk down the aisle. My representatives are Aunt Edith and Uncle Willard, Aunt Helen and Uncle Maj—the people who have always been there for me. I glance at Jodie, wondering what will become of us. Will we ever see each other again after this ceremony? I know that Gram will barely let me venture out of the house now, keeping control of the car keys and my time as much as she can. After we receive our diplomas, I think of the years ahead with an ache in my heart, uncertain of everything.

In the middle of June, Keith is ready to leave Enid for a summer internship, which means I won’t see him again before I go to college. Our time together is over. I think of all the time we spent together since we were young children, and feel immensely grateful that he is my first love. I want to think that we’ll go on, get married and all the rest, but I know it won’t ever happen.

He drives us to the wheat fields at dusk to say good-bye, but we don’t speak words of farewell. He remains cheerful and affectionate as he tells me matter-of-factly about his plans for the summer and the future and asks about my plans. These are the last moments of our saga, the final chapter of our lives together in Enid.

The sweet air is laced with the aroma of ripe grain and a faint smell of rain at the edge of the breeze. I look around at the landscape I love, the wheat stretching to the far horizon, an ocean of rippling, burnished gold. Keith and I stand together holding hands, awestruck by the beauty of the undulating stalks that rustle in their fullness. We wander into the middle of the field, entering the beauty. The sun has set and tendrils of pink are sketched on the sky. The old, familiar plains wind sweeps across the field, whispering its secrets. Gusts wrap my hair around my face and press my skirt against my body.

Keith and I cling to each other as the edge of the moon peeps over the eastern horizon. This moment sings of the past, the future, all that we are and ever will be. For a few minutes we are caught in a fold of time, suspended between worlds, embracing as the wind blows around us. It weaves us into this suspended moment, always in the landscape we love, always in love.

When we say good-bye that evening it is with gentleness, and for me at least, a terrible ache. Someone who has truly loved me is leaving. Keith and I will be close now only in my memory.

Who Am I?

During the first few weeks at college, “choose” becomes the most important word in my life. For the first time, I am able to choose what I wear, what I eat, and what I do with my time. Sometimes this means practicing less than I should, as I spend hours sitting on the beautiful campus, daydreaming or watching the bees and butterflies. I revel in the luxury of time to myself without Gram constantly asking me what I’m doing. I miss Keith, but understand that our separation and going in different directions was inevitable. Still, I feel sad and wonder if anyone else will ever love me.

I enroll in the required music classes, my mind stretched by the realization of how much I don’t know. I arrive at my 8:00 a.m. class on music history half asleep, but Monteverdi, Palestrina, and Gregorian chants take me to new dimensions as we traverse time and space.

In this new grown-up world, stage fright—my childhood nemesis—returns with ferocious intensity. I tremble during piano and cello exams, stern-faced professors staring at me. We are to perfect scales and arpeggios and a performance piece, and every mistake counts. One day my fears will chase me out of music altogether. For now—as I did when I was more frightened of Gram than performing—I suffer through the night sweats, terror, and dread. Music soon takes a back seat to other college attractions.

At the first school dance, I meet Brad, a pre-med major from Tulsa. His brown eyes leap with good humor and his deep voice murmurs of possibilities—as do his kisses. Good girls are not supposed to kiss on the first date, but these boys are not the polite boys I knew at home. They are assertive and aggressive. If you don’t respond, you’re out. I like Brad, his offbeat sense of humor, the strength of his arms around me. He is nice, but very sexual. I’m nervous about what will come next but feel happy to be chosen by him.