Mom was looking really pert and pretty in jeans and a crisp white shirt. I guess having no child to look after suited her to the bone. It was all right by me, since being away from her suited me just fine too.
Her hug was stiff. Our initial conversation was just how I had pictured it would be:
“How are you?”
“Fine. You?”
“Fine.”
“How is everything at home?”
“Fine.”
It took all of thirty seconds, probably, to run out of things to say to her. Yes, I was taking my medication. No, I wasn’t feeling ill. Yes, the doctor said I was improving. I loved it here. No, I didn’t miss home. At all, I lied.
I guess she was a bit perturbed that I would come right out and admit that I was happier in Canada than at home, but she didn’t say anything. I supposed I was in for it later on, though. To my surprise I felt some anxiety when I saw her, but nothing like the rushing-to-my-doom overwhelming despair that would normally have accompanied such a meeting just a couple of months ago. In fact, I could honestly say that I really felt…fine. I hoped it would last.
She had just the one suitcase, which Julie quickly grabbed and hauled off to the car. We took Mom to lunch at a steakhouse and she and Jillian made conversation about everything at home. Mom kept staring at Julie, and I wanted to kick her for making Julie seem like some kind of freak, but Julie handled it like a pro, neither ignoring Mom nor pointedly staring back. I felt a bit bad at first, but as the evening progressed I got more and more infuriated.
It had been about two months since I had seen my mother. Time had changed us both.
She and Jillian were laughing over some old schoolteacher they had had when I interrupted without preamble.
“I don’t want to go back.”
Julie immediately tried to play it off. “Hey, muffin, we can talk about that later….”
Mom wasn’t having that, though. She engaged immediately.
“It’s time for you to get back to your real life. You have to go back to school. Your place is at home.”
“My real life is in a place where nobody wants me around, nobody understands me, and nobody really cares if I live or die?” I asked, the light of challenge sparking in my dark eyes.
My mother was outraged. “What nonsense! What self-indulgent nonsense! You go on as though you had no friends.”
“I have no friends!” I shouted.
“Don’t be ridiculous. What about that girl Anika? Akua? The one you went to primary school with.”
My jaw dropped. She couldn’t remember my only friend’s name! “You don’t care about me at all.”
“Of course I care about you! I might not always understand you, granted, but I always do my best by you, child. How dare you come with this attitude, these accusations!”
Jillian tried to calm the turbulent waters. “Cynthia, you know she’s just exaggerating. Of course we all know you care about her and whether she lives or dies. She’s not being literal. I think she means that she doesn’t feel accepted for who she is.”
My mother’s mouth was a thin, unsmiling line. “Who she is, is my daughter. Her place is at home, with me. Whether I understand or accept her or not.”
The waiter came with the bill and Jillian tersely handed him a credit card before turning back to her little sister. “I really think it’s bigger than that, Cynthia. You have to understand that she’s ill. Without love and acceptance she’ll be worse off—”
Mom snorted. “Ill?” Clearly, despite all the doctor had told her after my pill-popping incident, she wasn’t convinced I was actually sick. As far as she was concerned, depression was some kind of self-induced and entirely frivolous condition. In other words, I was probably making all this up. Or rather, I was making all this up to spite her.
Nothing was further from the truth. But I knew I couldn’t convince Mom over steak and salad. I shut my mouth.
* * *
—
The ride back to the house was tense. Over the stiff silence, Jillian and Julie pointed out landmarks to Mom’s stony face, and I steupsed under my breath a couple of times before Jillian told me to cut it out. Sucking your teeth to an adult was a no-no here, too, it seemed. Finally we were home. We pulled into our street just as a bus roared off in a cloud of hot air. It’s the Eighteen, I thought automatically. That’s my bus!
Mom got out of the car with a flounce, and walked around and stood by the trunk, tapping her foot impatiently. She was in a hurry to finish the discussion. So was I. Jillian wasn’t, though. She eased the suitcase out of the trunk and up the steps to the front door, inviting Mom to come in. Julie and Jillian gave her a quick tour, ending at my bedroom. Although Jillian left Cynthia’s suitcase in my room, my mom would sleep on the foldout living room couch during her visit—her choice. She could have slept with me in the guest room. Mom glanced around at the small room, painted a pale pink, with its white eyelet cotton curtains and comforter and white furniture. It was a girl’s room; it occurred to me for the first time that Jillian and Julie had probably decorated it for me just before I got to Edmonton. I could see, from the tightness around her mouth, that the thought had occurred to my mother at the same time it did me.
I saw her eyes flicking over the neat room and knew she was mentally comparing it to my room at home, which was even smaller and was never this organized. I kept this room tidy because, even though Jillian was family, I wasn’t really home home and didn’t want her to feel put-upon by my presence any more than was necessary. Somehow I wanted to make the best possible impression, in spite of everything. I had to rely on myself. My mother, who knew me from before I was born, would have understood all that without me saying anything, and I saw something flicker in her eyes as she took in the room, the neatly stacked books on the night table, the absence of clothes strewn on the crisply made bed. Even the floor was clean, with no shoes thrown haphazardly around as they would have been back home. She looked at me, that same expression in her eyes, looked back at the room, and walked out without a word. She could have chosen to be proud of me for finally learning to pick up after myself. Instead, it seemed, she chose to be offended that my behaviors had changed here.
It was hours before bedtime and we had yet to talk about the purpose of her visit: to take me back.
She led the way to the deck while Julie went into the kitchen to get everyone some cold drinks. It was afternoon, warm and muggy by Canadian standards, which after two months had suddenly, it seemed, become my standards. I didn’t know how I would cope if I went back home to the furnace-like heat and ponderously humid air. My hair, cut so short when I had come, had grown out a bit into a wiry Afro, sort of like Jillian’s, but thicker. I took a hank of the tight strands and started twirling it between my fingers and thumb, making little curls that stuck out from my head at right angles. I could tell from Mom’s disdainful look that she didn’t appreciate the aesthetic, but it wasn’t meant to be a fashion statement, just something to do with my hands.