by Leslie Kain
Published in the April 2023 anthology ‘A Million Ways: Stories of Motherhood’
Claire peers through the steamed-up window over the kitchen sink. So early in the morning, she can’t tell whether those moody gray skies will bring a light shower or a downpour. An hour ago when she let out Oscar, her old Maine Coon cat, it felt almost cold enough for snow or sleet, even in May.
Now she turns back to lift a tea towel off two rising mounds of bread dough sitting on the butcher block island. Just a faint musty whiff of yeast, having rested five minutes after the second punch-down. She expertly rubs butter on the edge of her knife blade to make angled cuts in the tops of each loaf, brushes them with water, puts both into the preheated oven and sets the timer.
Eight-thirty. Marie’s flight gets in at 11:05. With that, Claire’s mood deflates under the pall of anticipated tension. Her oldest daughter always seems to have that effect on her. She looks at the clock again and hopes Tara doesn’t encounter too much traffic, so she can arrive in time to join the trip to Logan to pick up her sister.
Claire lifts her down jacket from its hook and puts it on without bothering to zip it, and steps out into the backyard. Damn, it’s cold. And raw. She zips up her jacket, all the way to her chin. I wonder what the girls will say when I tell them what I’ve decided?
The low temperature has managed to squelch the faint scent of waning dogwood blooms that only yesterday wafted a pleasant cloud throughout her carefully tended garden. Late daffodils nod their heads toward her as she walks down the flagstone path to breathe in the heady scent of blooms on her lilac tree. Her favorite spring flowers, tulips, have already been decapitated by the marauding hordes of deer that like to make a fast-food stop in her backyard, but her rhododendrons and azaleas are glowing in brilliant color.
This gray Sunday with threatening skies is Mother’s Day. Claire has friends who get excited about Mother’s Day—for their mothers and for their own motherhood—but it was never something that felt special for her. It was sweet when her children gave her one of the crafty things their teachers helped them make in school, but when they got older and simply gave her a card, it just felt obligatory. Empty.
She wonders what it might have been like to have a mother. Or even a mother figure who wasn’t like the wicked stepmother in Cinderella.
The sound of Tara’s car in the driveway quickly lifts Claire’s mood. She turns to go back into the kitchen just as Oscar approaches with a squirrel’s tail in his jaws. Just the tail, no squirrel. “Well, thank you, Oscar. What did the squirrel have to say about that?” Oscar drops his prize ceremoniously on the kitchen doorstep.
Claire’s daughter Tara comes into the kitchen, her red hair frizzed with untamed curls. She heaves her backpack, which probably weighs as much as she does, onto the breakfast table and moves in for the hug. “Happy Mother’s Day,” she says, in the routine way that mirrors Claire’s attitude toward the day. Tara’s thin body melds into her mother’s long, tight hug. “Love you, Mom.”
“And I love you, sweetie.” Claire squeezes, reluctant to release Tara from her arms. Her youngest daughter, although beautiful and brilliant with a good heart, is an intense, tightly wound woman who makes grand, thoroughly researched, logical plans that she’s sure will satisfy her life—in a different career, a different city, even a different country. As if a new location could perform transformative magic inside her. But she has never managed to find fulfillment and happiness. Or even understand what it means to be happy, which breaks her mother’s heart. Claire has always felt responsible for “fixing” stuff—broken things, other peoples’ problems. But despite years of trying in both overt and subtle ways, nothing seems to have helped her daughter find her way.
“That bread smells good. What’s in it?”
Claire smiles and takes in the fragrance. “Gluten-free with cardamom.”
“For Marie.” Tara nods, with a touch of derision in her voice. “She probably won’t eat it.” She reaches into her backpack, pulls out a flat unwrapped box and hands it to her mother.
Claire looks down at it, momentarily dumbfounded. Is this a Mother’s Day gift? She hadn’t received much more than a card from her kids on previous Mother’s Days.
“Open it!”
Claire uses her thumbnail to cut the tape holding the top on the box, then lifts it off cautiously, as if expecting something to jump out at her.
“I found it in Dad’s stuff last year and had it framed.”
Claire’s ex-husband died a year ago—his third and final attempt. He had gone from being a multimillionaire to living in a small depressing apartment strewn with random clutter and dirty dishes.
Inside the box is a photo of their four children, sitting on the long white sofa in the living room of their Wellesley house. Claire remembers when the picture was taken. Tara was ten years old at the time, sitting next to Andrew, the oldest, who was twenty. He’d just come home and was awaiting trial for the crime that had sent him fleeing to Germany. Marie was eighteen in that picture; Beth was fourteen.
None of the four look comfortable or relaxed. All but Beth, who as usual glowers at the camera, have tight, pasted-on smiles below unsmiling eyes that tell different versions of worry, fear, sadness, or anger. Claire knows there are many other photos, put away in boxes, of her children at younger ages, showing carefree happiness in their faces and body language—however fleeting that may have been. But this photo provides stark evidence of why she should never have attempted motherhood.
Claire forces a smile and blinks moisture from her eyes. She clutches the photo to her heart but doesn’t look at her daughter. “Thank you, Bean.” She uses her affectionate name for Tara from when she was a baby. “That was so thoughtful of you.”
“There was a lot of crap in Dad’s place we had to clean out so the landlord wouldn’t charge us a lot of money. The whole process was torture. Marie is so disorganized, but she resisted all my efforts to organize the job. She had to stop and meditate on each thing of Dad’s she picked up. It took five times as long as it should have.”
“I offered to come help.”
“No, that wouldn’t have been good. For either of you.”
“Yes, Marie obviously didn’t want me there, right?”
“Well, yeah. So I got stuck with her. Oh joy.”
“I’m sure she took your dad’s death hard, and I bet she was grateful you could be with her.”
“Of course. So I could pay for everything. Cremation is just the start. Dying is more expensive than living!” She grins at the irony of her statement.
“You didn’t tell Marie I contributed, did you?”
“Of course not. That would’ve made things worse.” Tara screws up her face, as if thinking of something distasteful. “Why did she suddenly decide to come visit now, after a whole year of ghosting you after Dad died?”
“Beats me. She probably wants something,” Claire says with a shrug, and thinks of how Marie had frequently flown to visit her father, at her own expense, but not to visit Claire unless she bought the plane tickets. And how Marie had enabled her father’s helplessness by giving him money every month while she didn’t have a pot to pee in for herself. Yet she expected Claire to pay for everything. Buy her a car, a new computer, and so on.
“Y’know,” she says now, “I think somehow she blames me for what your dad did.”
“Mom, she and Dad are—were—a lot alike, so she just takes sides and needs someone to blame. Don’t beat yourself up about it.”
“Yeah, I guess you’re right.” Claire takes in a deep breath and pushes it back out. As if to move on, away from problems she can’t fix. “How long did it take you to get here?”
“About four hours. The roads weren’t too bad,” Tara says.
“Which means you left Bangor at 5:30? You must be hungry! I just took the bread out, so it’s too soon to cut it. But there’s plenty of other stuff here. Oatmeal, eggs, fruit, English muffins…”
“I can make some eggs and tea. Don’t worry, I’ll clean up after. Would you like some tea, too?”
“That would be wonderful, sweetie. We don’t need to leave to the airport for another hour.”
“We?”
“Well, yes. I’m assuming you’ll come with me to pick up your sister?”
Tara groans. “Have you checked to see if her flight’s on time?”
“It left DC on schedule, so presumably it’ll arrive here on time. But with this rain coming, landing could be delayed a bit.” Claire hesitates. “I’m so glad you’re here. Would you mind driving on the way back, after we pick her up?”
“No way, Mom!” Tara gives Claire an incredulous look, as if she had asked her daughter to walk through a wall of fire.
Now it’s Claire’s turn to groan. “Well then, I’ll expect you to divert her attention from my driving so she won’t attack me for trying to kill her, or something like that. I’ll make sure she sits in the backseat so she can’t view the road so well, and you can ask her things, get her talking about herself.”
“All right,” Tara draws out her concession into multiple reluctant syllables, accompanied by an audible sigh harmonized with each syllable, like a lugubrious aria.
“It’s downright abusive how she badgers me when I’m driving. It makes me a wreck. Or could make me have a wreck.” Claire sniggers at her unintended pun. “I’ve never had an accident, and I don’t drive any faster than the rest of traffic on the highway.”
“But you used to get speeding tickets when we were little, so she probably projects that onto your driving now, even though you cleaned up your act. But there’s also probably some unresolved issues she blames you for. Your driving is just a proxy for all that stuff.”
For being a bad mother, I’m sure. “Did I ever tell you that a state trooper pulled me over one time for driving too slowly when Marie was in the car and demanded that I slow down?”
“That’s rich.” Tara laughs.
Now Claire laughs too.
* * *
Whenever Claire picks up Tara or other people from arriving flights, they typically call as they’re deplaning, then come out to the curb to Claire’s car. But Marie always insists that Claire meet her at the arrival concourse inside the airport, which requires putting the car in the parking garage. Today, however, Claire drops off Tara at the arrivals curb as the sky begins to sprinkle, and drives to the car-waiting area while Tara waits in the airport for Marie to deplane.
By the time the two sisters come out to the curb in a heavier rain, Claire sees a terse jaw-set on Tara, with Marie in full lecture mode. The parenthetical creases between Marie’s eyebrows, which inexplicably were well defined in her late twenties, have become much deeper now that she’s fifty. Claire gets out of the car to greet Marie with a hug and chirps, “So wonderful to see you, Marie!” She motions Tara to the front seat and opens the car door to the backseat for Marie, who seems taken aback and briefly hesitates before getting in.
Tara shifts into her diversion role. “So why were you in DC?”
“I was on a panel at a literary conference. Mom, why are you going this way?”
Before Claire can respond, windshield wipers now on high, Tara diverts. “Oh, that’s great! What was the topic for the panel?”
“Translation methods for fiction versus nonfiction manuscripts. Mom, this way always has too many cars going too fast and tailgating.” She speaks with an accusing tone.
Windshield wipers flap, flop, flap, flop… Reminding Claire of Janis Joplin’s song about her and Bobby McGee. She glances in the rearview mirror at Marie and smiles at the resemblance to Janis. The same long, scraggly, dirty-blonde hair, hippie-ish dress decades after it was hip, and even the thin-lipped smile.
Tara deftly counters her sister’s assertion about the highway. “They’ve improved this road since you’ve been here, Marie. Do you translate both fiction and nonfiction? And poetry, too? What languages?”
“Portuguese and Russian. Mom, look out for that car!” Marie’s tone isn’t an urgent warning, as if a crash were imminent. It has an angry edge, in which the underlying message is that Claire is being reckless and irresponsible. Of course. Like always.
“You can actually cause accidents if you interfere with the natural flow of traffic by slowing down for no apparent reason,” Tara says. “Same as if your translation slows or shifts the pace of the original text. What’s the last manuscript you translated?”
Tara ultimately succeeds in shifting her sister’s focus away from Claire’s driving to talking about herself and projects she’s involved in. So they arrive back in Wellesley with Claire feeling tense, but not paralyzed in angry knots.
Before they get to the house, Marie says, “Do you have my gluten-free steel-cut oats at the house, Mom? And white tea and almond milk?”
“I thought oats were naturally gluten-free,” Tara objects.
“Most oats are processed in facilities that also process high-gluten grains like barley,” Marie explains, just short of full lecture mode. “Bob’s Red Mill has the only truly gluten-free oats. Mom, I asked you to make sure you have all that before. Now we have to go to Whole Foods. It’s still there, on the way to the house, isn’t it?”
When Claire pulls the car into the Whole Foods parking lot, Marie gets out and waits expectantly. “You’re coming in, aren’t you, Mom?”
“I can wait in the car.”
“Mom, I didn’t bring money for all that. I told you I need it for my digestive issues.”
Half an hour later, Claire has spent more than fifty dollars at ‘Whole Paycheck’ for even more food that Marie may or may not eat, and certainly only a little of it before she flies back to San Francisco in two days. On tickets Claire paid for. At fifty years old, her oldest daughter has still not learned how to manage money.
* * *
Claire notices Marie hasn’t yet wished her “Happy Mother’s Day,” but doesn’t mind at all, given her low opinion of the holiday. At least she said, “Thanks, Mom,” when they left Whole Foods with two full bags.
Her oldest daughter, who rejects the brown rice and buckwheat flours in Claire’s recipe for gluten-free bread as “dubious,” now pulls out several pots and pans to cook Bob’s Red Mill gluten-free oatmeal, apples, and white tea. With added raisins, nuts, and cinnamon from the pantry. Later, after her second cup of tea and eating half of what she cooked, she puts the remainder in the fridge and places the pots, caked with unscraped food, in the sink. The many utensils and cutting boards she’d used and the ingredients she pulled out of the pantry, remain on the marble counters, which are strewn with debris suggestive of a bomb going off in a food factory. The stove (with one burner still on) has enough gobs of food to feed a small family or an army of ants. Claire suspects even the floor has taken a hit.
“Marie, aren’t you going to clean up the mess you made?” Tara challenges, and turns off the burner.
“I put stuff in the sink and the leftovers in the fridge,” Marie says defensively with a full stop, effectively declaring the job sufficient and complete.
Tara rolls her eyes. She knows from experience that trying to reason with her sister is both futile and frustrating. Maddening, even. “You’re a total slob,” she mutters, and begins cleaning up the mess.
Claire stands up and starts scraping out the pots and pans. “If you can get the counter and stove, I’ll get everything into the dishwasher,” she tells Tara. “Check to see if there’s any gloop on the floor, too.”
“See, Marie. It takes a two-person crew to clean up after you,” Tara says as her sister turns to go upstairs.
“I need to go meditate and write in my journal. When’s dinner?”
“I don’t know,” Claire says. “Maybe my daughters could make dinner for their mother, or even take me out to eat,” she laughs, half joking, half serious.
Marie has mastered the skill of delivering insults and put-downs in a soothing honeyed voice, assuming the recipient won’t realize they’re being manipulated. “Oh Mom, that’s a sweet idea, but don’t you think we can spend more quality time together if we stay home? Maybe Tara can call out for delivery. I think sushi would be a great idea.”
Claire and Tara look at each other, shake their heads, and crack up as Marie disappears.
* * *
A merciless deluge outside batters the windows. Late afternoon skies are dark as night. Marie has emerged from her meditative retreat, but the creases between her eyebrows are still deep and tight.
White rectangular cardboard containers from a nearby Asian fusion restaurant crowd the kitchen table. Seaweed salad, green papaya salad, edamame, sushi rolls, tuna and salmon sashimi, pork dumplings, orange-flavored beef, and a bag of fortune cookies leave little room for three plates and chopsticks.
“Unless we’re expecting a whole gang of visitors, I think you two may have over-ordered,” Claire says, wide-eyed at the spread.
“Marie kept adding things to the order,” Tara says.
“We can have any leftovers tomorrow,” Marie says like it’s a spectacular idea as she opens every cabinet in the kitchen. “Mom, where do you keep your wineglasses?”
“Did you bring a bottle of wine?”
“I saw you have some cabernet sauvignon down in the wine cellar, which by the way, is looking pretty bare. That’ll be good with Asian, right?”
“I don’t want wine,” Tara interjects, clutching her ever-present travel bottle of water.
“Oh, but don’t you think it would be a good idea to toast Mom on Mother’s Day?”
Claire stifles a laugh. That’s the first time she’s mentioned Mother’s Day. To justify drinking my wine
The three women eat mostly in silence except for requests to pass this or that, and by the time they’re all full, they’ve managed to consume less than half the food. Claire and Marie have drunk half the bottle of wine, but there was no “toast.” Claire pulls out multiple plastic storage containers from the cabinet, which Tara fills with leftovers, and puts it all into the fridge. Only the fortune cookies are left on the table.
“Do you remember how we used to play games at this table when you were kids?”
Marie nods. “I remember how you suspected I was sneaking a peek in that one game when your back was turned fixing dinner. I forget the name of it—where one person puts a series of colored pegs behind a shield and the other person puts in their pegs, trying to match the pattern in a few attempts…” she recalls.
“Oh yes,” Claire remembers. “You got my pattern so quickly I had to test whether you were peeking, so I tried not putting out my pegs, just thinking and remembering the pattern. Then you got my pattern even faster! I finally realized you must be able to read my mind!”
“You see, Mom. I’m a mind reader. Or at least I can read your mind.”
“That’s weird, because your minds are so different,” Tara says, baffled.
“And I remember Friday nights when Dad was playing basketball with his ‘homeboys’ in Dorchester, how you and Andrew got going with your inside jokes and puns, and one of you would play off the other, back and forth, like the two of you were off in your own orbit and we were left back on earth.” Marie’s words sound reminiscent, but resentment clouds her face.
“Yes, he always had my number,” Claire says, mulling over the memory. “Probably not unusual for a first child.”
“Mom, tell it like it really was. Codependency.”
“I can’t disagree with that, Marie.” Claire looks directly at her daughter, nodding. “And maybe that codependence—that connection—was one reason it was so hard for me to deal with Andrew’s behavioral issues. Too close to the bone, as it were. They say the things you dislike most in other people are the same things you dislike in your own behavior or mindset. And because he was my first child, I wasn’t very good at dealing with his behavior.”
“Not that Dad was ever any help with that,” Tara interjects.
“Just shut up, Tara,” Marie snaps. “Dad was the one who went to see Andrew when he ran away to Germany, then saved him from going to jail and took him in to live with him.”
“Yeah, but where was Dad in the parenting picture when we were all kids, growing up?” Tara argues. “He only got involved after he and Mom were divorced, and then he just enabled Andrew―turned a blind eye to his drinking and drugs when he lived with Dad on the Cape, then indulged him without question when he wanted money, and the last request Andrew made for money paid for the shotgun he took to his head!” Tara spits it all out in an angry barrage like vomiting a poisonous substance and glares at her sister, who is momentarily speechless.
A hollow silence hangs in the air and decades of regret clatter against the walls, gripping the women in suspended animation.
Claire feels responsible for this clash going off the rails and thinks she must rein it back in. “This can’t be a blame game. In every family there are two parents, regardless of the degree to which each is involved.” She takes a deep breath. “I accept responsibility for not being a good mother to all of you. I was even a bad mother at times. I shudder when I think of the damage I did to all of you. It’s something I regret every day.” Claire looks from Marie to Tara and back again to Marie, painful remorse crumbling her face, darkening her eyes and reducing her posture to a feeble shadow.
Marie’s jaw is set hard and her eyes narrow like she’s about to pounce. Before she can, Tara interjects, “Mom, you finally became a great mother, but you had to evolve from the damaged kid you used to be. You’re a good person, and you did the best you knew how. The problem was that you didn’t know what a mother is supposed to be or do. You didn’t have a healthy example, with your mother checking out when you were little and then getting stuck with your hateful, abusive aunt. That’s all you knew about mothering, and you had to work through your own shit and learn how to be a mother.”
Claire nods. “I was clueless. Believe it or not, after I ran away from my aunt to spend my senior year with my father in San Diego, a priest recommended me to babysit a two-year-old boy. He was fussy when I put him to bed, so I smacked him once on his butt.”
Marie’s mouth opens agape and her eyes widen in disbelief.
“When the parents came home,” Claire continues, “I proudly told them what I did to calm him down. I thought I did the right thing; it’s what I had learned growing up with my aunt. Many years later, the picture of their reaction came back to me—the looks on their faces and their stiffened posture. They didn’t say anything, but they never asked me to babysit again.”
Marie’s head swivels slowly back and forth, her eyes still in shock, but then her face softens a notch. “That’s unbelievable, Mom. But I guess I get it. And you weren’t all bad. You’re the one who instilled a love of reading and writing in me. I remember all those nights you read to me on my bed before I fell asleep. So there was something good.”
Claire smiles at that small concession and her anguish abates slightly.
Marie continues, “But your genetics made things worse. Think about it, Mom. Your mother, your brother, Beth, Andrew, and god knows who else in your family tree. You’re right that blame doesn’t fix anything. But your genetics can’t rub off onto a different family tree—Dad’s! You damaged him, taking all his money and leaving him penniless.”
Tara drops her head, shaking it. She knows the truth.
Claire begins with delicacy. All during her marriage to the kids’ father, and especially after the divorce, she carefully avoided maligning him to them. It was imperative to her to preserve respect for this good man who wasn’t perfect. But now Marie needs to know the truth. “I don’t know what your dad told you, Marie, or if you just drew some conclusions yourself. When two people have been married for twenty years, it is customary—and legal practice—to split all assets between them when they divorce. But your Dad begged me not to take his half because he—quote—needed it to influence the kids. I honored his request because I wanted him to step up as your father, and I didn’t really want the money. I only kept one-tenth of our joint assets, the house you kids and I lived in.”
The memory of Claire’s lawyer making her sign a waiver and the judge pushing back on her with incredulity floods her anew.
Marie looks skeptical, clearly reluctant to believe her mother. “But then why did he end up with no money, and you have money?”
Claire smiles ruefully. “A variety of reasons, dear.” She takes in a deep breath. “First of all, he decided to retire when he turned fifty, as my career was just taking off when I was forty-one. But he had no further income after he turned fifty. Secondly, all his assets were in real estate, which went through the typical ups and downs in value that real estate tends to do. So his wealth wasn’t diversified to buffer that fluctuation.”
Claire pauses to look at Marie, who seems overwhelmed, as if her mother were babbling in Sanskrit. Now she resumes, speaking softly, more slowly. “And making investments was never your dad’s thing, or even preserving assets. Like the house on the Cape that he bought at the peak of the market, then let deteriorate, so he had to sell it as a tear-down at a big loss. And after he retired, he engaged in costly hobbies like golfing and country clubbing that further depleted his assets.” She pauses with a baffled shrug. “But y’know, I really have no idea how he lost what was—on paper at the time of our divorce—a sizable fortune.”
Marie pulls back with a look of someone who was just informed of the existence of a whole new world.
“In the meantime,” Claire continues, “I continued to work. I still do, at seventy-five, and invest mostly wisely.” She looks to Tara. “With occasional wisdom from the financial genius.”
Marie is slack-jawed, completely gobsmacked. “Is this true?” she challenges her sister.
“Yes, Marie. I pinned Dad down on it a long time ago, but you never asked the questions. You just assumed Mom’s the bad guy because she did most of the parenting, so she must be responsible for everything.”
“And because of those assumptions and because I wasn’t a good mother, Marie, you have difficulty trusting me. But I understand, and I don’t blame you.”
“Well…” Marie begins defensively.
“And that’s why you freak out when Mom drives the same way as all the surrounding traffic. You don’t trust her to keep you safe.” Tara is wise. In every way but claiming her own happiness.
Marie’s eyes dart around like she needs to find the nearest exit. “I have to use the bathroom.”
When Marie is out of earshot, Claire asks, “Was I too blunt?”
“No, Mom. I’ve been saying for a long time that you should tell her the whole story.”
“I’m not sure what good it will do for her, though. I don’t need the validation or exoneration for myself, but I do hope Marie can be free of the resentment and anger that’s eating away at her from the inside out.”
“She’s the only one who can do that, Mom.”
Marie emerges from the hallway. She isn’t smiling, but there’s a determination in her step. “What do you say we play a game like we used to? Which will it be, gin rummy or dominoes?”
Tara calls out, “Rummy!”
Claire sings, “Dominoes!”
Marie says, “I guess I have to be the tiebreaker. Let’s see… which one makes Mom least competitive?”
“Neither.” Tara laughs.
They settle on rummy. Tara gets out the cards and Marie deals. All three seem to be having light fun, clearly enjoying the escape from tension, which has now been stuffed under a carpet or sofa in some other room.
Until Marie asks, “Mom, remember the car you bought me?”
“Sure. How’s that been running?”
“It isn’t. I had an accident last month. But it totally wasn’t my fault!”
“I hope you or someone else didn’t get hurt.”
“Well… uh… someone in the other car did get hurt…”
“Oh, I’m sorry. Are they all right now?”
Marie lays down her cards. “They died a week later.”
Claire and Tara gasp in unison. “Oh no!”
Marie looks at her up-turned cards on the table. She didn’t have a good hand, anyway.
Claire quickly recovers and asks, “What happens now, Marie?”
“The police say it was my fault, and they’re charging me with vehicular manslaughter. My court date is next week.”
“Do you have a lawyer?”
“That’s the thing, Mom. I don’t have money for a lawyer.”
“Did you have money for the conference you just went to, and the hotel you stayed in?”
“Mom, don’t start on me. You have to give me money for a lawyer! The court-appointed one is stupid and unreasonable.”
“What does your insurance company say?”
“That’s another thing. I didn’t renew my liability insurance.”
“I thought we had the discussion about being a responsible adult?”
“Well, that’s beside the point now, Mom. And my car is totaled, so I also need a new car. I’m renting one now to get back and forth to the classes I’m teaching, but that’s expensive. You can buy me a used car; that would be acceptable.”
Tara throws her cards at Marie and stands up. “What’s not acceptable is you being irresponsible just like Dad! And you freak out at Mom’s driving?” She grabs her backpack and storms out of the kitchen, stomping up the stairs to her old bedroom and slamming the door so hard the walls vibrate.
Marie falls silent. She looks down. Her red face trembles. Tears wet her cheeks. She looks up and gazes off into empty space. She does not make eye contact with her mother. “You have to help me, Mom. Please.”
“Y’know, Marie, you enabled your father—a grown man, former multimillionaire—for years after Tara found services and means for him to be able to support himself without taking money from you. I have been enabling you for years, out of guilt at having been a bad mother.”
Claire pauses, looking at her silent daughter with love, sadness, and pity tearing at her heart. She struggles now with her typical urge to help, to fix, knowing it actually hasn’t ever fixed much at all. She finally grits her teeth and takes in a determined breath. “I think it’s time for all that to stop.”
“But Mom!” Marie sobs. “Please!”
Tara has returned to the kitchen. She stands in the doorway, clenching her fists, staring at Claire, as if waiting to see whether her mother will give in.
Claire sighs. “I’ll go halfway for you at this point. I know a good lawyer in San Francisco. I’m sure she will take your case for the trial. She sort of owes me a favor, anyway. But you will have to figure out how to get another car―if you still have your license and can get insurance, which isn’t certain at this point.”
“What if I lose the case and they convict me, put me in jail, and make me pay a huge fine?”
“I said ‘at this point.’ That’s the next step, which you’ll have to work out if and when it comes to that.”
“But Mom.” Marie resumes sobbing. “You have to help me!”
“I don’t have to do anything, Marie. Accept my offer, take the first step, and deal with what comes next.”
“You’re just so unfair!” Marie bawls.
Claire chokes back a laugh at such an outrageous charge. Tara shakes her head in disgust and comes to stand behind Claire, wrapping her arms around her in silence.
“Besides,” Claire begins, “you may as well know—I guess this is as good a time as any to tell you both—I’m selling this house and moving. To Mexico.”
Tara pops up, her face alight with excitement. “Mom, that’s so great! Are you finally retiring?”
Marie screams, “You can’t! I need you to be here!”
Claire fails to suppress a laugh. “Oh, so now you need me? Why is it that you only need me when you want something from me?”
* * *
Residual smells of Asian food linger in the house like a curdled memory. Outside, the rain has stopped, but the world continues to drip. A heavy blanket of grim silence surrounds the women as they sit at the kitchen table, fiddling with their hands, not looking at each other. Claire rises, walks to the counter, pulls the cork from the half-empty bottle of wine and pours herself a glass. “Marie, would you like another glass of wine?”
“Yes, please,” she murmurs.
Tara opens the bag of fortune cookies and looks inside. “Because we ordered so much food, they must have thought we were feeding the entire neighborhood. There’s a ton of fortune cookies in here.”
“That just means we can pick and choose our fortune, I guess,” Claire snickers.
“As long as we don’t have to eat every cookie we take a fortune from,” Marie says.
“I’ve always kind of liked the taste of fortune cookies,” Tara says. “Except if they’re stale, like the ones they have at the Dollar Store.”
“Try one,” Claire says. “The last time my friend ordered from that restaurant, the fortunes ranged from inscrutably abstract to philosophically profound. So it’s a crapshoot!”
Tara reaches into the bag, pulls one out, breaks it open and extracts the strip of paper.
“What’s it say?” Marie urges.
“A fresh start is not a new place. It is a new mindset,” Tara reads. “Mom, did you write these?”
“No.” Claire chuckles. “But you can choose a different future if you don’t like that one.”
Tara grabs another cookie. “This one says, ‘The challenge is not to be perfect. It’s to be whole.’” Tara closes her eyes in a pensive wince that creases her brow and full lips. “Okay,” she finally shrugs. “I’ll buy that, even if Mom did write it.” She bites into the cookie.
Claire smiles and turns to her other daughter. “Are you going to try your fortune, Marie?”
“Sure, I definitely need to know if jail is in my future. Pass the bag, Tara.” Marie digs in and grabs a cookie. “It says ‘Buckle up. It’s going to be a lot of work, but embrace it.’ Well, obviously that’s what I’m going to have to do now.” Marie crumbles the cookie onto the table and looks sideways at Claire. “Mom must have written these.”
Claire laughs. “I honestly didn’t! Pick another one. It’s your future!”
“Okay, just one more.” Marie pulls out another cookie, cracks it open, and reads with dramatic flair. “‘There is an inverse relationship between expectations and gratitude. The more expectations you have, the less gratitude you will have.’” Now Marie wordlessly casts a sheepish apologetic eye toward her mother, stuffs the entire cookie into her mouth, and chews.
“Now it’s your turn, Mom,” Tara says softly, love embracing her words.
Claire sighs and takes a cookie. “I don’t have as much future as you do, so I should only get one try.” She opens it and reads, “‘The influence of a mother in the lives of her children is beyond calculation.’ Oh jeez, for good and bad. And some Asian smartass is obviously eavesdropping on our conversation.”
“Mom, what we do with our mother’s influence is our choice,” Tara says.
“And who says you don’t have much future?” Marie says. “You’re off to a new adventure in Mexico, so go ahead and take another cookie.”
Claire rolls her eyes and reaches into the bag. Almost as if she senses the import of this ceremony, she opens the cookie slowly, carefully pulls out the paper and reads, “‘Grace means that all your mistakes now serve a purpose instead of serving shame.’”
Tears fall onto the cookie as Claire bites into it.