Love, Melody
I fold the letter up and fall into my mother’s lap. She takes the letter and reads it, smiling for whatever reason and chuckling after handing it back to me. I join in the laughter, because life has reached the point where that’s all I can do.
“What made you come back?” I ask, trying to avoid talking about Melody.
“Because I felt you needed someone in your corner.”
“Great timing,” I reply, immediately wishing I could take it back.
She moves my head and goes to the window, staring out in silence. “Why do you hate me so much?” she finally asks.
I was expecting a snarky remark like usual, but the question and the weariness of her tone catches me off guard. It hurts to know she feels this way, because I’ve never hated her. But, all the jabs I’ve thrown at her over the years clearly had an effect.
“I don’t hate you, mom…” I trail off, unsure if the time is right for this conversation—or if I’m in the emotional space to have it. But, the alternatives are talking about last night with Melody and my dream, so it wins by default.
“Then what is it?”
“I just—I just don’t know how to love you.”
She shakes her head. “Wow, you know the absolute worst things to say to a person.”
“Well, I learned at the foot of the master.”
She opens her mouth for a rebuttal, but her heart gets the better of her mind. “That’s fair.”
In our minds, we build these moments with relatives into epic confrontations. I always imagined confronting my mother over the phone, drunk of course, because that’s the only way to get through a conversation like that. But, over the last couple of days I’ve come to see her in a different light, and I’m still not sure if I’m buying it. That’s unfair to her because she’s really making an effort, even if her delivery isn’t perfect.
“Now, isn’t the time for this conversation,” I tell her.
“Actually it is,” she replies with a tone of authority reserved for parents. “I think we both know we should’ve talked a long time ago, and if we don’t have it now, we never will. So, I’m gonna give you the chance to say anything you’ve ever felt, and while I hope it’s not disrespectful, I understand it’s been building inside of you for years, and I’m prepared for it.”
Did she really just give me a license to curse her out? If Sara and the kids were still alive, I might’ve taken her up on it. But I can feel her sincerity, and the opportunity to build the relationship we should’ve had all along—the one I swore I never wanted but knew I did, the one that she apparently wanted as well. I wish Dr. Felt was here right now, because I don’t even know where to begin. It’s like walking into a messy bedroom, and there’s so much junk you don’t know where the cleanup should start. But you have to start somewhere, so you grab the first piece of trash and go from there.
“Alright, but where is this coming from?”
“You tell me, from what Lily and Melody told me, you’ve been pouring your emotions out all over the city this week. And you know, I’m always up for trying a new drink, especially when it’s the talk of the town,” she says. “Stop trying to change the subject, we’re having this conversation.”
“Fine,” I say. I’ve thought about this conversation for the last fifteen years, even had a game plan going in, but my mind goes blank. This is going to be a difficult conversation either way, so I start with the biggest gripe I have. “I never felt like you really loved me.”
Not the best start, I know, but I can tell by the look on her face this wasn’t unexpected. She nods at this, and joins me on the floor.
“Do you remember what life was like before Greg?” she asks. “How I worked all the time, and the nights we had to eat at the shelter?”
We never talked about those times, they were something like our own little Great Depression. Mom worked two jobs during that time, doing everything she could, but always coming up just short. Our grocery money was dependent on tips from her waitressing gig, and when they didn’t come in, we made the ten block trek to the shelter—where in exchange for listening to a sermon and helping with the cleanup, we got to eat.
“I buried those.”
“I don’t blame you, but dig them back up, because it’s important. What was the best day to visit the shelter? I know you remember that.”
“Monday,” I said. “The broth was always better on Monday.”
Mom smiles at this. “It really was.”
Monday was delivery day, so everything was fresh. Even Lori, the chef, had a pep in her step on Monday. You could taste her passion for culinary on Mondays. Her food was always great, but on Monday, she cooked like she was competing for a Michelin Star. Lori was my first real friend, even though it was just her taking pity on my situation. She made me feel like I mattered, giving me important jobs and constantly building my confidence through positive affirmation, telling me I would rise above everything so many times I actually believed her. Lori knew the sermons held no value for me, so she’d sneak me out the back to make store runs with her to pick up little odds and ends for the kitchen. My shoes had holes in them, a hazard for working in the kitchen. So she bought me a new pair to keep in her locker, and after every store run, she’d give me five dollars with the promise of more if I could save it until the next time I saw her. That was how I learned the value of a dollar.
“I remember you running around that kitchen,” Mom says. “You wore that little chef hat, as cute as you could be. But I was thankful for those moments, because you were able to get away from our situation and just be a kid.” She rubs my head, and I don’t pull away, both of us navigating new waters cautiously, but finding a new normal in the process.
“You know, I don’t remember thinking about it like that.”
“Why would you? You were a child. I can tell you this now, but I envied your relationship with Lori.”
“Really?” I’m intrigued by this. I wanna chime in, but I’m mesmerized by the woman in front of me, processing emotions without sarcasm. The years before she married Greg were bleak, but they were also when we were closest, because all we had was one another.
“Yeah. When you were at home with me, all we talked about was survival. What bills were past due, if we were gonna be evicted…”
She averts eye contact, staring into the distance as she talks, and I’m trying not to move, using one of Dr. Felt’s tricks. In the moments when I was reaching a breaking point, Dr. Felt was deliberate in her movements, knowing that if I broke concentration, I’d default to going into survival mode to finish out the session, making her job twice as hard next time.
“I put a lot of stuff on you that I shouldn’t have. My drinking didn’t help either. But when you got around Lori, you became a different kid, and I was thankful that she helped you forget why we were there to begin with. Sometimes I felt like you wanted her to be your mom, like you gave up on me.”
“I didn’t mean to make you feel that way.”
“I know you didn’t, Miles.” She moves closer to me. “But all I’d known was broken relationships, and though I wasn’t the best Mother, I knew I couldn’t tell you that. You were just a kid. When Greg came along with Lily, I tried to build the relationship with her that I wanted with you, because I thought that ship had sailed for us already.”