The Wild Truth (28 page)

I worried that Robert and I were allowing Amber’s parenting efforts to be sporadic at best. It was almost as if Heather had come with a troubled big sister. I didn’t want to enable Amber; I wanted to encourage her to clean herself up and move in a positive direction. I found her job opportunities that she didn’t pursue. When she lost her lease, I found her a new place to live. I tried to help her with her budget and with saving for the future. I hoped she would become someone that Heather could look up to, and there were promising moments when I believed she would. But by the time Heather was in elementary school, Amber had taken a bad turn and was spending less and less time with Heather.

Eventually she signed over full custody to Robert and me. We all knew that this was best for Heather, and while a part of me was relieved by her decision, I feared it was a sign that Amber would disappear from Heather’s life completely. She promised that she wouldn’t, but soon her phone was disconnected and she had moved with no forwarding address.

A few months later, Heather and I were standing in the refrigerated section of the grocery store, discussing what we might want to cook for dinner.

Suddenly she reached one of her hands over to mine. “Mommy,” she said, her eyes enlarged to the size of the plates our dinner would soon be on.

“What’s wrong, honey?” I asked.

Heather’s stance became rigid, and without moving her head, she answered, “I think I see Mommy Amber over there.”

I turned my head in the direction of Heather’s frozen gaze, and there was Amber, smiling as she strolled through the aisles, her blond hair piled high on her head, tanned, wearing a white tank top under a man’s flannel shirt. She looked over to us but then away again and continued pushing her shopping cart at a slow pace.

I gently turned Heather’s head to mine. “Sweetie, listen to me. Do you want to go over and talk to her? It’s okay if you want to.”

“No,” she said quietly.

“Are you sure?” I asked again. “Please don’t think I’ll be upset if you want to talk to her. Trust me. I understand what you’re feeling right now.”

Heather looked into my eyes and said directly, “I know. I’m sure.” But I sensed that she just wanted Amber to be the one to make the first move.

We continued to retrieve all the items on our list. Several times we passed within a few feet of Amber as we traversed the same aisles between brightly colored cans, boxes, and jars. Each time we were within earshot of her, my voice grew louder, begging the opportunity for Amber to reach out to her daughter. “How about any of these soups, Heather?” “What kind of juices do you want for your lunches this week, Heather?” “Do you want me to make some spaghetti tonight, Heather?”

Heather knew what I was doing, and she didn’t try to stop me. It was obvious that Amber saw us and heard us. But each time, she simply looked in the other direction and continued passing by as if we were just a couple of strangers who had volume-control issues.

I imagined it was a torturous experience for Heather, but she showed no signs of weakness whatsoever. I was amazed at her strength and resolve at such a young age. Tears came into my own eyes for her, knowing what it’s like to grow up so fast, but I quickly wiped them away. Before we left the store, I felt I should offer to bridge the gap one last time.

“Heather?” I asked. “Do you want me to go talk to her?”

“No, thank you,” she answered and placed a box of macaroni and cheese into the cart. I struggled with an incredible impulse to walk over to Amber, knock her upside the head, shake her by the shoulders, and ask her what the hell was wrong with her. But I didn’t want to violate Heather’s faith in me. We finished our shopping and went home.

Birthdays and holidays passed by with no contact from Amber, though our address and phone numbers always remained the same. I marveled at how she could possibly make a conscious choice to eliminate herself from her daughter’s life. I remembered hearing Amber tell Heather she loved her every time she dropped her off at our house. How could someone allow a love like that to evaporate?

I hurt for Heather, and then I remembered that distance, in certain circumstances, was sometimes healthier.

I wanted to give Amber the credit for having perhaps realized this. But still, it seemed unfathomable to me that she was able to let go that way. Maybe there were different levels of love, even amongst moms. I told Heather that I loved her every single day, and I worked hard to make sure she never doubted just how much. To ever leave her, I would have had to be dragged away, dead, after having been skinned alive while kicking and screaming to get back to her.

We never saw Amber again.

ROBERT AND I WERE BOTH
working hard and running our businesses. He began to return home later and later into the evening. With Amber out of her life, Heather, I felt, needed more attention from me than I could give with the long hours I was putting in at the shop. I wanted to volunteer for all her school events and holiday parties, to be the room parent for her classroom, to chaperone her field trips. I also knew that I could not run my company the way I wanted to and be that involved in Heather’s life every day. I had been so driven to succeed in my industry, but now I found myself more interested in tackling the challenges of motherhood with the same determination.

Robert and I spoke about it at length. We agreed it was more important to have extra time together as a family and less important to have the stuff that the long hours at work bought for us. I would do consulting work and had plans for other ventures that would keep my schedule more flexible.

I talked to my employees before making the final decision to sell C.A.R. Services, because I wanted the blessing of those who’d helped me have such an option in the first place. My team was surprised that I could give up all that they’d seen me work so hard for. But they had also seen the changes in me that motherhood had brought, and they knew my priorities were different now. They granted me their understanding and support. Potential buyers lined up quickly, and I was able to structure a deal that protected my staff’s salaries and benefits as well as our customers’ warranties. I wanted to do right by all of those who had helped the company be so successful over the past twelve years. When the deal went through, I sold the company for ten times what I had bought Fish out for seven years earlier. It felt nothing less than monumental.

But even greater was being able to fully embrace the promise I had made to Heather to be a consistent force in her life. In the past I had dissolved my loyalties to two husbands and a business partner, altered course in my education and career choices, and seen important friendships come and go. But motherhood was an altogether different kind of commitment. A connection that circumstance never severs. A bond not unlike that of siblings.

I thought about Chris and all he had taught me about self-awareness. He’d written in a letter to Ron Franz something I’d heard him say many times:

I thought about the courage it takes to do whatever is necessary to see your true path and follow it, no matter how far outside of your comfort zone it leads. I could see my true path more clearly than any other that had ever been before me.

THE WARMTH OF FRESHLY DUG DIRT
always makes me feel centered and connected with a larger world outside my own worries. I had been in Heather’s class that morning and then busy organizing renovations on two rental properties I had purchased. The work necessary at the rentals had caused me to fall behind on things at my own home. As the afternoon approached, I was working to beautify my own acre of the planet before picking Heather back up from school. Mom had always kept a beautiful yard at the Annandale house, and even though our relationship was constantly on edge, I accepted her offer to come over to help me in my garden.

I was at a crossroads with my parents. On the one hand, as Shawna had foretold, motherhood had made me more protective and even more guarded around Mom and Dad. On the other hand, now that I was a mom I
wanted
a mom even more. I knew Billie would never provide easy or unconditional love, but I wanted to maintain some connection with her. And there were times when I believed she wanted that, too. In between the peaks and valleys of our emotionally charged relationship, she would sometimes send me messages that sounded incredibly heartfelt. In one, she wrote:

Although I had heard such sentiments before, I remained hopeful. I felt that if I was able to manage our interactions on my own terms, with enough distance from emotional topics, I could protect myself while saving our relationship from complete collapse.

In the garden, I was careful not to lift anything too heavy, and Mom launched a couple of lighthearted slacker comments in my general direction. She did not know I was pregnant. Robert and I had decided to wait a few more weeks before informing the family, because our last pregnancy had ended in a devastating miscarriage. There was enough anxiety in the air without those extra concerns; talks of making a movie out of Jon’s book were turning into plans of substance. Jon and actor-filmmaker Sean Penn were due to arrive that weekend to discuss Sean’s vision for a film.

We had met Sean once before, ten years prior, and had declined his and everyone else’s offer to make a movie about Chris’s life. The main reason was that Mom had had a bad dream about the concept coming to fruition. In her dream, Mom explained, she was young and was holding little Chris in her arms while I toddled around them. For some reason Chris was so weak that he couldn’t even hold his head up. Mom kept having to put her hand under his chin—she was trying to look into his face and ask if he was okay, but he wouldn’t respond, and in her distraction, she’d lost me. She awoke in a panic, with her last memory of the nightmare being that she was desperately looking for me while Chris’s energy continued to diminish. She saw the dream as a sign from Chris to her that he did not want a movie made. I interpreted it as more of a warning.

Of the many pursuers over the years, Sean had been the most reverent and the most eager. Though he had respected Mom’s reasoning, saying, “Hey, if I didn’t believe in dreams, I wouldn’t make movies,” he also hadn’t given up hope completely. I was curious about his plan to convince us this time, and I wondered how much I would be willing to share with him if we decided to move forward with the project.

“Hand me that extra shovel and let’s get all these petunias planted, petunia girl,” Mom said while pulling on her gloves.

“I know. I bought too many. They were on sale and so pretty I just couldn’t help myself,” I replied, handing over the tool.

After we dug the holes, we got down on our knees, emptied the pots, and arranged the flowers in their new bed. Mom had recently returned from a trip to Michigan to visit her mother, and she was telling me about it.

Grandma was a bit of hoarder, the exact opposite of how Mom kept her own home. She could not accept that Grandma was perfectly happy living that way. Whenever she visited Grandma, she cleaned the entire house, organized everything, threw out piles of trash, shopped for fresh food, and performed a personal beauty makeover on Grandma. Mom was always disgruntled that Grandma didn’t respond with overwhelming gratitude. Although the reason why was clear to me, I kept quiet as she complained. Despite the good intent behind Mom’s hard work, I knew she embarrassed Grandma by wearing a mask on her face and rubber gloves up to her shoulders. While Grandma sat in the same room crocheting and watching TV, Mom made constant under-the-breath comments about how “disgusting” everything was. She took before and after pictures, which she’d then share with her friends and the rest of the family.

While Mom had been in Michigan, she’d also seen Uncle Travis, who was still a drunk and living in Grandma’s basement.

“You should see how repulsive that basement is,” Mom said. “You can’t even see the floor; there are piles of beer cans everywhere and ashes all over the place. Travis is going to burn the whole house down the way he passes out while smoking down there. He’s always drunk. I don’t even think he has a real job.”

“Sounds lovely . . . and typical,” I chimed in.

“And do you know what he did to me? I was upstairs talking to your grandma, and Travis and I were both sitting on the couch next to her crochet chair. When I got up to squeeze by him, he grabbed my ass! I mean he really held on to it for a couple seconds! Can you believe he would do that to his own sister?”

I looked at her in amazement, but she continued.

“I turned right around and said, ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’ and he just mumbled back, ‘What? Oh geez, Billie, y’know, c’mon, don’t get so bent outta shape.’ Can you believe that?”

I was still stunned, but not for the reason she thought. I repeated her words: “Can I believe that.”

“Yes?” she stopped primping the petunias. With a look of complete violation, she paused and waited for my sympathies.

She did not get any. I stood up and dropped my gloves to the ground.

“Can I believe that?” I railed back at her. “Can I believe that? After what he did to me, you actually want me to stand here and feel sorry for you because he grabbed your ass? Are you fucking kidding me? I was just a kid—and you and Dad did nothing!”