For One More Day (15 page)

My voice squeaked as I said that. "I'm sorry, Charley."

I felt dizzy, as if falling backward. Even telling you now, I have trouble getting the words out. My father, who had demanded my devotion, my loyalty to his team, our team, the men in our family. He had another son?

"Did he play baseball?" I whispered. My mother looked at me helplessly.

"Charley," she said, almost crying, "I really don't know."

THE WOMAN IN the bathrobe opened a small drawer. She took out some papers and flipped through them. Was she really who my mother said she was? She looked Italian. She seemed the right age. I tried to picture my father meeting her. I tried to picture them together. I didn't know a thing about this woman or this apartment, but I felt my old man all over the room.

"I drove home that night, Charley," my mother said, "and I sat on the curb. I waited. I didn't even want him pulling in to our driveway. He came back after midnight and I'll never forget the look on his face when the headlights hit me, because in that moment, I think he knew he'd been found out. "I got into the car and I made him roll up all the windows. I didn't want anyone hearing me. And then I exploded. I exploded in such a way that he couldn't use any of his lies. He finally admitted who she was, where they had met, what he'd been trying to do. My head was spinning. My stomach hurt so badly, I couldn't sit up straight. You expect a lot of things in a marriage, Charley, but who could see themselves replaced like that? "

She turned to the wall, her gaze falling on the painting of the vineyards.

"I'm not sure it really hit me until months later. Inside that car, I was just furious. And heartbroken. He swore he was sorry. He swore he didn't know about this other son, that when he found out, he felt obligated to do something. I don't know what was true and what wasn't. Even screaming, your father had an answer for everything.

"But none of it mattered. It was over. Don't you see? I could have forgiven him almost anything against me. But that was a betrayal of you and your sister, too. "

She turned to me.

"You have one family, Charley. For good or bad. You have one family.

You can't trade them in. You can't lie to them. You can't run two at once, substituting back and forth.

"Sticking with your family is what makes it a family." She sighed.

"So I had to make a decision. "

I tried to picture that awful moment. In a car, after midnight, with the windows rolled up–from the outside, two figures silently screaming. I tried to picture how our family slept in one house while another family slept in another, and both had my father's clothes hanging in the closet.

I tried to picture charming Posey of Pepperville Beach losing her old life that night, crying and screaming as it all collapsed in front of her.

And I realized that, on the list of Times My Mother Stood Up for Me, this would have to go at the top.

"Mom," I finally whispered, "what did you tell him?" "I told him to leave. And to never come back."

So now I knew what happened the night before the corn puffs.

THERE ARE MANY THINGS in my life that I wish I could take back.

Many moments I would recast. But the one I would change if I could change just one would not be for me but for my daughter, Maria, who came looking for her grandmother that Sunday afternoon and found her sprawled on the bedroom floor. She tried to wake her. She started screaming. She raced in and out of the room, torn between yelling for help and not leaving her alone. That never should have happened. She was only a kid.

I think from that point on, it was hard for me to face my daughter or my wife. I think that's why I drank so much. I think that's why I whimpered off into another life, because deep down I didn't feel that I deserved the old one anymore. I ran away. In that manner, I suppose, my father and I were sadly parallel. When, two weeks later, in the quiet of our bedroom, I confessed to Catherine where I had been, that there was no business trip, that I was playing baseball in a Pittsburgh stadium while my mother lay dying, she was more numb than anything else. She kept looking as if she wanted to say something that she never ended up saying.

In the end, her only comment was, "At this point, what does it matter?

"

MY MOTHER CROSSED the small bedroom and stood by the only window. She moved the curtains aside.

"It's dark out," she said.

Behind us, at the mirror, the Italian woman looked down, fingering her papers. "Mom? " I said. "Do you hate her? "

She shook her head. "Why should I hate her? She only wanted the same things I did. She didn't get them, either. Their marriage ended.

Your father moved on. Like I said, he had a knack for that. "

She grabbed her elbows, as if she were cold. The woman at the mirror put her face in her hands. She let out a small sob.

"Secrets, Charley," my mother whispered. "They'll tear you apart. "

We all three hung there silently for a minute, each in our own world.

Then my mother turned to me.

"You have to go now," she said.

"Go?" My voice choked. "Where? Why?"

"But Charley..." She took my hands. "I want to ask you something first. " Her eyes were wet with tears. "Why do you want to die?"

I shivered. For a second I couldn't breathe. "You knew... ?"

She gave a sad smile. "I'm your mother."

My body convulsed. I spit out a gush of air. "Mom I'm not who you think... I messed things up. I drank. I blew everything. I lost my family... "

"No, Charley–"

"Yes, yes, I did. " My voice was shaking. "I fell apart, Catherine's gone, Mom. I

drove her away.... Maria, I'm not even in her life ... she's married... I wasn't even

there... I'm an outsider now... I'm an outsider to everything I loved "

My chest was heaving. "And you... that last day I never should have left you... I could never tell you ... "

My head lowered in shame.

"... how sorry... how I'm so ... so ... "

That was all I got out. I fell to the floor, sobbing uncontrollably, emptying myself, wailing. The room shrunk to a heat behind my eyes.

I don't know how long I was like that. When I found my voice, it was barely a rasp.

"I wanted it to stop, Mom... this anger, this guilt. That's why... I wanted to die.. " I lifted my eyes, and, for the first time, admitted the truth.

"I gave up, " I whispered.

"Don't give up, " she whispered back.

I buried my head then. I am not ashamed to say it. I buried my head in my mother's arms and her hands cradled my neck. We held each other like that, just briefly. But I cannot put into words the comfort I drew from that moment. I can only say that, as I speak to you now, I still yearn for it.

"I wasn't there when you died, Mom. " "You had something to do. "

"I lied. It was the worst lie I ever told It wasn't work. I went to play in a game... a stupid game I was so desperate to please–"

"Your father. "

She nodded gently.

And I realized she had known all along.

Across the room, the Italian woman pulled her bathrobe tighter. She clasped her hands as if in prayer. Such a strange trio we made, each of us, at some point, longing to be loved by the same man. I could still hear his words, forcing my decision: mama's boy or daddy's boy, Chick? What's it gonna be?

"I made the wrong choice," I whispered. My mother shook her head.

"A child should never have to choose."

THE ITALIAN WOMAN stood up now. She wiped her eyes and collected herself. She placed her fingers on the edge of the dressing table and pushed two items close together. My mother motioned me forward until I could see what she had been looking at.

One was a photo of a young man in a graduation, I can assume it was her son. The other was my baseball card.

She flicked her eyes up to the mirror and caught our reflections, the three of us, framed like a bizarre family portrait. For the first and only moment, I was certain she saw me.

"Perdonare, " the woman mumbled. And everything around us disappeared.

Chick Finishes His Story

HAVE YOU EVER ISOLATED your earliest childhood memory? Mine is when I was three years old. It was summer. A carnival in the park near our house. There were balloons and cotton candy stands. A bunch of guys who had just finished a tug-of-war were lined up at the water fountain.

I must have been thirsty, because my mother lifted me by my armpits and carried me to the front of that line. And I remember how she cut in front of those sweaty, shirtless men, how she squeezed one arm tight around my chest and used her free hand to turn the handle. She whispered in my ear, "Drink the water, Charley," and I bent forward, my feet dangling above the ground, and I slurped it up, and all those men just waited for us to finish. I can still feel her arm around me. I can still see the bubbling water. That is my earliest memory, mother and son, a world unto ourselves.

Now, at the end of this last day together, the same thing was happening. My body felt broken. I could barely make it move. But her arm went across my chest and I sensed her carrying me once more, air passing over my face. I saw only darkness, as if we were traveling behind the length of the curtain. Then the dark pulled away and there were stars. Thousands of them. She was laying me down in wet grass, returning my ruined soul to this world.

"Mom ... " My throat was raw. I had to swallow between words. "That woman ... ? What was she saying?"

She gently lowered my shoulders. "Forgive." "Forgive her? Dad?"

My head touched the earth. I felt moist blood trickling down my temples. "Yourself," she said.

My body was locking up. I couldn't move my arms or legs. I was slipping away. How much time did I have left?

"Yes," I rasped.

She looked confused.

"Yes, you were a good mother."

She touched her mouth to hide a grin, and she seemed to fill to bursting. "Live," she said.

"No, wait–"

"I love you, Charley."

She waved her fingertips. I was crying. "I'll lose you ... "

Her face seemed to float over mine.

"You can't lose your mother, Charley. I'm right here. " Then a huge flash of light obliterated he image. "CHARLES BENETTO. CAN YOU

HEAR ME?”

I felt a tingling in my limbs.

"WE'RE GOING TO MOVE YOU NOW. " I wanted to pull her back.

"ARE YOU WITH US, CHARLES? " "Me and my mother," I mumbled.

I felt a soft kiss on my forehead.

"My mother and I," she corrected. And she was gone.

I BLINKED HARD. I saw the sky. I saw the stars. Then the stars began to fell. They grew larger as they grew closer, round and white, like baseballs, and I instinctively opened my palms as if widening my glove to catch them all.

"WAIT. LOOK AT HI S HANDS ! " The voice softened. "CHARLES? "

Even softer.

"Charles... ? Hey, there you go, fella. Come back to us ... YO! GUYS! "

He waved his flashlight at two other police officers. He was young, just as I had thought.

Chick's Final Thoughts

NOW, AS I SAID when you first sat down, I don't expect you to go with me here. I haven't told this story before, but I had hoped to. I waited for this chance. And I'm glad it's come, now that it's done.

I have forgotten so many things in my life, yet I can remember every moment of that time with my mother, the people we saw, the things we discussed. It was so ordinary in so many ways, but as she said, you can find something truly important in an ordinary minute. You may think me crazy, that I imagined the whole thing. But I believe this in the deepest part of my soul: My mother, somewhere between this world and the next, gave me one more day, the day I'd wanted so badly, and she told me all that I've told you.

And if my mother said it, I believe it.

"What causes an echo? " she once quizzed me.

The persistence of sound after the source has stopped. "When can you hear an echo? "

When it's quiet and other sounds are absorbed. When it's quiet, I can hear my mother's echo still.

I feel ashamed now that I tried to take my life. It is such a precious thing. I had no one to talk me out of my despair, and that was a mistake. You need to keep people close. You need to give them access to your heart.

As for what's happened in the two years since, there are so many details: the hospital stay, the treatment I received, where I've been.

Let's just say, for now, that I was lucky on many levels. I'm alive. I didn't kill anyone. I have been sober every day since–although some days are harder than others.

I've thought a lot about that night. I believe my mother saved my life.

I also believe that parents, if they love you, will hold you up safely, above their swirling waters, and sometimes that means you'll never know what they endured, and you may treat them unkindly, in a way you otherwise wouldn't.

But there's a story behind everything. How a picture got on a wall.

How a scar got on your face. Sometimes the stories are simple, and sometimes they are hard and heartbreaking. But behind all your stories is always your mother's story, because hers is where yours begins.

So this was my mother's story. And mine.

I would like to make things right again with those I love.