Peace had been shattered when Martha had burst back into the room (on the fourth attempt because she seemed not to have a natural affinity to key cards), bubbling with stories and excitement. She’d seen this, been there, tasted this, met this person, did Kathleen know that...
She’d talked nonstop, while devouring the remains of Kathleen’s afternoon tea. Kathleen had found her breathless enthusiasm surprisingly invigorating. How could one feel flat and old around Martha, who seemed to exude not only youth but a certain naive innocence? It was as if she was seeing the world for the first time.
Listening to her, Kathleen wasn’t sure that she’d ever felt quite the same level of enthusiasm for tall glass skyscrapers that Martha seemed to feel, but she gave what she hoped were suitably encouraging responses. Yes, it was an unbelievable amount of glass. No, it probably didn’t mean that everyone in the city liked looking at their own reflection. Yes, it really was true that the lake froze in winter—Kathleen had witnessed it. Yes, it most certainly was called the Windy City for a reason.
Martha’s enthusiasm had continued unabated throughout their predinner cocktails and then through their meal. She ordered the lobster risotto for a second time because, as she informed Kathleen in a serious tone, she was never likely to get a chance to eat it again and anyway you could never have too much of a good thing.
Was that true?
Kathleen, who had turned down a third cocktail under the suspicion that she may indeed have had too much of a good thing, wasn’t so sure.
Like a long-life battery, Martha had eventually run out of energy and taken her flagging self to bed where no doubt she had slept the enviably deep sleep of the young.
Kathleen, to whom sleep never came easily, had turned and wriggled, plumped the unfamiliar pillow and eventually dozed, floating on a dream of past memories.
Today was the first day of her longed-for road trip and she felt as if she was dragging every one of her eighty years along with her. Maybe it had been a mistake to indulge in cocktails. On the other hand it had been a memorable experience and she’d always believed in living in the present. When she’d been filming The Summer Seekers she and the crew had started each trip with a celebration.
She felt a pang of nostalgia for those days.
Traveling for the show had meant stepping into an alternate reality. There had been a sense of life suspended, their enjoyment intensified because they all knew it wasn’t going to last. Eventually they’d had to emerge from the bubble and return to real life and the collision between their carefully constructed temporary world and the real world had been jarring. It had always taken Kathleen a while to adjust. Liza would demand time and attention from the moment she stepped through the door, while part of her had still been inhabiting the other half of her life. She’d felt disconnected and disorientated as she’d made the change from one life to another, and frequently she’d missed a step.
She was uncomfortably aware that she hadn’t been the best mother. She’d married late in life, and pregnancy had come as a surprise. Her first reaction when the midwife had put Liza into her arms had been one of terror. A baby was more than a baby. It was responsibility, a lifetime of worry and a love so huge it threatened to burst out of you at inconvenient moments.
And there was no going back. It didn’t matter that she didn’t feel qualified, or that she knew she lacked the essential skills. Reliability, constancy and the ability to be present—that wasn’t who she was. If things had gone differently for her earlier in her twenties when she was still romantic and idealistic then maybe she would have slid more comfortably into the role, but life had shaped her differently. She’d navigated life alone successfully for almost four decades, so marriage had seemed like a big step which was why Brian had gone down on one knee three times before she’d said yes.
And then Liza arrived.
She’d felt as if her life, who she really was, had been permanently hijacked.
Confident and in control in her working life, in the role of parent she’d felt like an imposter. She wasn’t good at sharing herself emotionally. Brian had understood that. He’d understood all of it and given her the space she needed. But with her daughter she’d kept a large part of herself locked away.
Was that why Liza allowed her life to be consumed by the demands of her family? Was she compensating for Kathleen’s deficiencies?
The thought added further discomfort to her already-throbbing head.
She couldn’t forget that moment at the airport. Liza had hugged her so tightly she’d thought her ribs might crack. I love you.
Kathleen had patted her, unable to shake the feeling that she was failing her daughter again.
What was Liza doing now? She almost wished she hadn’t stayed with them before her trip because now her daughter was constantly on her mind. Liza was the one who put in the hard work maintaining a relationship with Kathleen too. Any deficiencies were not her fault.
Kathleen reached into her bag for her sunglasses. It was a scorching day, the sun blazing through the glass into the cool car.
Those cocktails were making her maudlin.
Presumably Martha was suffering a similar attack of regret because yesterday’s chatter and enthusiasm had been replaced by tense silence.
Her gaze was fixed intently on the road in front as if it were an enemy to be defeated. Her lips moved slightly, as she conducted a silent conversation with herself.
Kathleen realized the girl hadn’t said a word aloud since they’d climbed into the car.
Martha had checked Kathleen’s seat belt three times and would have checked it a fourth had Kathleen not pointed out calmly that they were going for a drive, not space travel, and that the heavy crush of traffic seemed to preclude any racing tendencies that might be built into their rather flashy vehicle.
“Are you all right, dear?” Kathleen had welcomed Martha’s endless, bubbly chatter. It made her feel young again and gave her something to focus on other than her aching bones and unsettling thoughts. And it wasn’t as if their verbal exchanges were deep or probing. Apart from that one innocent query about whether Kathleen had visited California, there were no uncomfortable questions to deflect. It was Kathleen’s idea of perfect conversation. But from the moment Martha had helped Kathleen into the car, she’d stopped chattering and now her eyes—slightly wild, Kathleen thought—were fixed on the road as if she was braced for catastrophe.
“I’m concentrating. It’s—busy.”
It was a city, so of course it was busy. But Kathleen didn’t believe in stating the obvious, so she stayed silent and drank in the experience. Cars thronged bumper to bumper, crawling forward to a soundtrack of shouts and blaring horns. Drivers made sudden turns without giving any prior indication of their intentions. On top of that, navigating the route had proved challenging—a fact Kathleen considered to add an extra frisson of excitement, but which had caused Martha to breathe deeply several times and had no doubt added to her stress and punctured ebullience.