“Then get out there and apologize to your mother. You’ve really hurt her feelings. I know you’re sick but that doesn’t give you the excuse to be so rude. I know you’re better behaved than what I just saw.”
I pushed my lips together into a pout my mother called a swell-face, turned my back to Julie, and sat down hard on my bed. “She is so evil,” I sobbed. “She doesn’t understand me and she doesn’t want to even try. She’ll never let me be happy.”
“Be that as it may,” Julie responded, implacable, “you still can’t talk to your mother any old way. She’s your mother and deserves a measure of respect.”
Stubbornly, and still crying, I sat and looked at the white eyelet cotton of the comforter on my bed.
“This is not negotiable,” Julie said, as softly and as firmly as she had knocked on my door.
I stood, not looking at her, and walked out to the deck. Even before I hit the back door I could hear the raised voices of my mother and Jillian, tossing angry words back and forth like the birdie in badminton.
“…my daughter!” screamed my mother.
“…bad mother!” rejoined Jillian.
“…had no choice!” That was Mom.
“…always have a choice!” That was Jillian.
Without hearing all their words, I knew somehow they were arguing about who was going to keep me. I felt weird, like a toy being fought over by children on a playground. Their voices dropped for a second and I took the opportunity to walk into the conversation.
“I’m sorry, Mom,” I said without preamble.
“You should be. How dare you talk to me like that?” No easy apology where Cynthia was concerned, no sirree. I had to suffer for my arrogance.
“I don’t know what I was thinking,” I said, but the sarcasm flew over her head.
“No, I don’t think you were thinking at all. You don’t talk to me like that, ever. You understand?”
I nodded. I was starting to cry again. I turned around and went back into the house, leaving them to their argument. Whoever my next therapist was, they would have a field day with this episode, I thought.
“Look, you see how you have her so rude!” my mother accused Jillian as soon as the door was shut behind me.
“Me!” Jillian sputtered. “She never talk to me so a day in she life! I never see her get vexed once yet in the two months she here….”
* * *
—
Back in my room, Julie was waiting for me.
“I feel like…like I’m on an auction block and the two of them are bidding for me with love instead of money,” I said to her. “Who loves me more.”
Julie carefully weighed her words before replying. “I don’t think it’s like that, sweetie. Your mother…well, she has a lot of things to offer you. This isn’t about love, really. It’s not in question who could love you more.”
The cryptic words didn’t answer any of the unspoken questions I had buzzing around inside of me. What did she mean? Was she saying my mother really didn’t love me? That Jillian actually did love me more? Or was she saying that my mother loved me more but that love wasn’t all that was required to take care of me?
“I don’t understand, Julie. What do you mean?”
She sighed and looked troubled. “I think…I think your mom does love you.”
It was a relief to hear it. I did have my doubts.
“But she is not good at showing her love. It comes out as criticism. I guess you could blame her family for it, if you had to blame anybody at all.” She shrugged, shook her head. “I don’t know. I think it was something about how they were raised. When I met Jillian she was so cold and locked away…it was very hard to get her to admit her feelings about anything. I think your mom is bad at showing her emotions. Believe me, Jillian knew nothing about hugging and saying ‘I love you’ when we first met. Thank God, she learned. Give Cynthia time.”
“Time? She’s had me for fourteen years and she still doesn’t love me!”
Julie was firm as she corrected me. “Cynthia does love you. That much I do know. But you’re sick right now, and you need a lot more attention than Cynthia gives you. I don’t know if she even knows how to give anybody the kind of loving care you need. She understands duty and responsibility. Love is…hazy for her. She’s just…she’s just not wired that way.” She had used exactly the words I did when I considered my mom and my illness. I was wired differently than my mom, and that was one of the big obstacles between us. She would never understand me or accept me.
I told Julie my fears.
She nodded slowly. Her eyes were getting a bit shiny now too. “Yes, I see what you mean. It is hard for us, too, to deal with your illness. But we are willing to try. I don’t think Cynthia is. I really don’t. She had you when she wasn’t expecting to, and she was so young! From what Jillian tells me, your mom was never very maternal. Strangely enough, she took great care of her mother before she died. Babies are not the same as older folks, I suppose.”
“So why did she have me, then?” I scowled.
“You think it’s that easy to abort a baby?” Julie asked softly. “Back then it wasn’t easy to get an abortion in Trinidad. It still isn’t. And you know your mom is Catholic. Jillian said Cynthia never even considered terminating the pregnancy. Your grandmother would have had a cow.”
She wasn’t even an adult when she got pregnant. What choice would I have had, in her shoes?
I considered this. Thought about the rumors about a girl in my school who had disappeared for months and then returned the mother of a baby boy. The nasty things people said about her, even though many of them were also having sex and could have well been in her position. My mother had had me right after leaving secondary school. She had only been two years older than I was now. The thought of myself trying to take care of an infant on my own at such a young age was terrifying. I shuddered, the heaviness of the burden occurring to me for the very first time.
“I ruined her life,” I despaired.
“Oh, no, honey!” Julie hugged me quickly. “Not at all. You did make it more challenging. And maybe she didn’t deal with it so gracefully. She did the best she could.”
The enormity of what having me must have meant to my mother’s life, her opportunities, her choices weighed on me. It was something I’d definitely have to take to therapy.
“But I want you to promise me,” Julie said, “no matter what happens, that you’ll keep an open mind and an open heart. And if you have to go back home, you’ll try to give your mom a break.”