The Mothers (21 page)

Y
ears later, we realized the watch should have told us everything. Only two reasons a woman might have someone's husband's watch:

1. She's sleeping with him.
   
2. She repairs watches.
   

Nadia Turner didn't look like a watchmaker to us. But even though the truth hadn't dawned on us yet, we still pitied Aubrey. On Sunday mornings, when we gathered around her in the church lobby, we felt her sadness swell. Agnes peered into the life of a baby girl born to parents who distrust each other. A girl who distrusts the world too, for reasons she doesn't quite understand. She feels the coldness spreading between her parents and second-guesses everything: if her
parents can pretend they are in love, what else could they be lying about to her? What else could the world keep from her, hold away in its hand?

She may hear this story, someday, and wonder what it has to do with her. A girl hiding her scared in her prettiness, an unwanted baby, a dead mother. These are not her heartbreaks. Every heart is fractured differently and she knows the pattern of her cracks, she traces them like lines across her palm. She has a living mother and besides, she was always wanted. Prayed for, even. Now she's grown, or at least she thinks she is. But she hasn't yet learned the mathematics of grief. The weight of what has been lost is always heavier than what remains. She's heard her granddaddy preach about the good shepherd who leaves the ninety-nine behind in search of the one lost sheep.

But what about the flock he abandons? she wonders. Aren't they lost now too?

—

T
HAT FALL
, Nadia Turner mothered. In the gray mornings, while her father slept, she scraped his keys off the hallway table and pulled his truck out of the driveway. She rolled down the window, sticking an arm out into the damp air, and cruised through quiet streets, past coffee shops flipping “Closed” signs, women in bathrobes strapping backpacks on children at bus stops, surfers in wetsuits with boards racked on tops of trucks, until she reached a prim white house with blue trim. She began to feel like a valet, hopping out to help Mother Betty up the high truck stairs, especially once the other Mothers began to ask her for rides.

“Oh, I hope you don't mind,” Mother Betty said, “but I told Agnes you could carry her to the drugstore.”

No, no, she didn't mind. She learned the curves of the roads that led to the Mothers' homes. She'd never even thought of them having homes before—she wouldn't have been shocked to learn they stashed bedrolls in the choir closet and slept right on the pews. But Mother Agnes lived in a gray apartment building downtown, Mother Hattie in a rusty red house near the Back Gate. Mother Flora lived in an assisted-living home called Fairwinds, which was across the street from an elementary school and a child-care center. She was surrounded by death and children, children outside her window toddling to day care, children running around on playgrounds or biking home from school. Mother Flora was tall and willowy. She'd played basketball as a girl. Nadia learned other things, like Mother Clarice used to be a special-education teacher, and her friends called her Clara. Mother Hattie was the best cook. Mother Betty had been the prettiest.

Nadia wasn't quite sure how old the Mothers were but they must have been in their eighties or nineties by now. No surprise the DMV wanted them off the road. But she still felt sorry for them, especially Mother Betty, who for years had risen before everyone and arrived at Upper Room with her keys, so she made sure to pick her up early. She didn't feel guilty about sneaking out of the house anymore. Her father was getting stronger. In the afternoons, he walked in slow laps around the backyard, practicing his breathing exercises. She sometimes watched him through the glass while she read her bar exam books. She never wanted him to know she still worried about him, so when he took his medicine at night, she busied herself in his room, dusting the nightstand or putting his laundry away or idly straightening her
mother's perfume bottles. She used to love playing with her mother's perfume, particularly one black bottle. Her mother only spritzed it on her neck when she and her father were going out for the night. So when Nadia held the bottle to her nose, she longed for a night when it'd been exciting to watch her parents disappear through the door because she'd known they would always come back.

She mothered as a penance, like sliding fingers along rosary beads. Each mile, its own prayer. If she gave her time selflessly, maybe she could forget the wrong she'd done. If she worked for no reward, if she was kind to people who could offer her nothing in return, maybe then her sins would be washed away. One afternoon, on the way to the drugstore, she mentioned that she'd recently found her mother's prayer book. Found, she'd said, because that was the simpler way to tell the story, editing out Luke's role altogether. The Mothers began to chatter, the way they often did, jumping in and interrupting and finishing each other's sentences.

“Oh, she used to love that thing. Always carryin' it under her arm.”

“Didn't her mama give it to her?”

“Mhm, that's what she told me. She was a minister, y'know?”

“Not a minister, just a preachin' woman.”

“Oh, what's the difference?”

“Minister needs a church.”

“Fine, a preachin' woman. You knew that, girl? Your grandmama used to baptize folks in the river.”

Nadia had always been curious about her grandmother but her mother did not like to talk about her much. “Oh, she was strict,” her mother would say when Nadia had asked, or “She sure loved Jesus.” Always broad, general statements, as if she were describing a
character from a TV show she no longer followed. From the few photographs of her in the photo album, her grandmother seemed like a stern woman, but beyond that, she was a mystery. When she told the Mothers this, they nodded sagely.

“Well, they weren't much close.”

“That's a nice way of puttin' it.”

That night, when Nadia asked her father what the Mothers had meant, he told her that when her mother was pregnant with her, her own mother had thrown her out of the house.

“She said that no child of hers would be living in sin under her household, so I sent your mom a Greyhound ticket and she came out here to live with me.” He sighed. “Your grandma wanted nothing to do with us and that was fine with me. But I never understood why she wouldn't meet you. Us, that's one thing. But a child? Your own grandchild? I don't know how anyone wouldn't want to know their grandchild.”

She asked her father if her grandmother was still alive, and he shrugged. “As far as I know,” he said. “Still down in Texas, I'm sure.” As if he'd seen the wheels turning in her head, he added, “I'd leave all that alone. She made her choices. Chasing after her won't do no good.” She found a brown Polaroid in a photo album of her mother posing with her brothers in front of their home. An address and date were scribbled across the back. She searched for more recent photos of the home online and tried to imagine her mother as a girl, dancing on the porch. Maybe her grandmother still lived there. She didn't seem like the type of woman who would move around. She wondered what her grandmother would say if she showed up on that porch someday. Would she blink away grateful tears, glad to finally
meet her granddaughter? Or would she shoo her off the steps like she had shooed her own daughter? Would she be angry that the source of their rift had materialized right in front of her?

“Did Mom ever think about . . .” She paused, outlining the gold buttons on her purse with her finger. “Not having me?”

“What do you mean?” her father said. He placed a white pill on his tongue and flung his head back.

“You know.” She swirled around the buttons so she wouldn't have to look at her father when she said the word. “Abortion.”

“Did someone tell you that?”

“No. No. I was just wondering.”

“No,” he said. “Never. She never would've done something like that. Did you think . . .” He paused, his eyes softening. “No, honey. We loved you. We always loved you.”

She should've felt glad, but she didn't. She wished her mother had at least thought about it. A fleeting thought when she'd left the doctor and envisioned her own mother's face. During a hushed phone call with the man she loved. When she'd called a clinic to make her appointment and hung up in tears, when she'd sat in the waiting room, holding her own hand. She could've been seconds away from doing it—it didn't matter. She hated the thought of her mother not wanting her but it would've been better to look at her mother's face in the mirror and know that they were alike.

—

T
HREE WEEKS AFTER
he'd seen Nadia last, Luke squatted over his back steps, striking a match against the railing. Dave's suggestion. Light a candle, he'd told Luke, the last time he called the helpline. Dave hadn't said what type of candle. A scented candle like the ones
in Luke's mother's bathroom, a tiny tea candle placed on restaurant tables, a thick red candle emblazoned with the Virgin Mary you found in the Mexican food aisle. A birthday candle, rainbow-striped and slender. Any type of candle would do, Dave had said, so Luke bought a pack of slender white candles. He sat on the back steps of the house, cupping his hands against the flame. It was supposed to bring closure, Dave had said. Peace. But as soon as he'd lit the candle, Luke only felt stressed. A light evening breeze rustled through the trees, and he hunched behind a shrub, trying to shelter the flame, suddenly responsible for guarding the fragile thing.

Dave was a counselor at the Family Life Center in downtown San Diego. Luke had found their flyer stuck in his windshield outside a bar a few weeks ago.
Looking for real options?
the yellow flyer asked, above a picture of a pregnant woman holding her head and a man next to her, staring off into the distance. It was the first pregnancy center flyer Luke had ever seen with a picture of a man on it. The others only held sad, alone women. On pregnancy center flyers, men were as absent in the midst of a surprise pregnancy as they were in real life. As absent as he'd been. He called the number, just to see what it was about. He told himself he'd hang up. But the on-duty counselor, Dave, started talking to him about the myth that only women suffer after abortions.

“Men suffer a unique type of loss,” Dave said. “Men struggle after losing their child to abortion because they've failed to perform the primary function of a father: protecting his family.”

Luke had never thought of it like that. He and Nadia hadn't been a family—they were just two scared kids. But what if they had been? What if for a brief moment, they had been family, stitched together by the life they'd created? What did that make them now? Now Luke
called the center every other evening. He hung up if anyone other than Dave answered. He'd told Dave about the boy at the baseball game, years ago. Dave didn't judge him. It was normal, he'd said, for post-abortive fathers to feel grief. Once you had created a life, you would always be a father, no matter what happened to the child.

Luke fished his phone out of his pocket and dialed, careful to keep the candle lit.

“This you, Luke?” Dave asked.

“Yeah.”

“How're you, buddy?”

“Fine.”

“Just ‘fine'?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay.” Dave cleared his throat. “Thought any more about coming into the center?”

“I can't,” Luke said.

“It'll help you, trust me, talking to someone face-to-face—it's a lot better than over the phone. Sometimes you just need to see someone, know what I mean?”

“Yeah.”

“I don't bite. Promise.” Dave laughed. “And I got some books I can give you, if you come down. This one—” His voice strained, like he was reaching for something. “Great one, called
A Father's Heart.
It's by this guy named—”

“I gotta go,” Luke said.

“Hold on, pal. Don't run off. I'll just hold these for you when you're ready, okay?”

“Okay.”

“So what's on your mind?”

“I bought the candles,” Luke said.

“Great!” Dave said. “Light a candle. And close your eyes. Picture your child playing on a field at the feet of Jesus.”

Luke closed his eyes, the candle's warmth flickering across his face. He tried to envision the scene Dave described, but he only saw Nadia, her smile, her hazel eyes—then he felt the burn. A glob of hot wax dripped onto his hand. He cringed, scraping the wax off against the step. Gravel and dirt clung to his skin. He should've put the candle inside something. Why hadn't he thought of that? Behind him, the back door swung open and his wife leaned against the doorway, frowning.

“What're you doing?” Aubrey said.

“Nothing.”

“What's with the candle, then? You're dripping wax all over the place.”

She toed the white blob on the steps. Luke leaned forward, blowing out the flame. He was only making a bigger mess.

—

“W
HEN YOU GONNA
settle down, girl?” Mother Betty asked Nadia one morning. “You always flittin' around, here and there. You think life is for wandering about, lookin' for what makes you happy? Those just white girl dreams and fantasies. You need to settle down, find a good man. Look at Aubrey Evans! When you gonna do the same?”

Luke no longer came by to visit her father, but she passed him in Upper Room sometimes. He always looked shy of speaking, but he
never even mumbled a hello, his eyes tracing the worn carpet. That sliver of space between them when they passed in a narrow hallway felt electric. She told herself she could not think about him. She needed to be good. She began to meet Aubrey on her lunch break, when they sat at a table by the window and shared coffee. She thought about confessing, but every time, the words clung to the roof of her mouth. What good would come of telling the truth? She had ended things with Luke. What good would come of Aubrey knowing all the ways they had betrayed her?