Chapter 6

Maureen and her mother held each other, arms over shoulders, as they waved good bye to Cal. It had been a long day for both, but another event was still in store for the younger woman; an event she for which she was totally unprepared.

Cal had asked Maureen to marry him the night before at the Olive Garden. Maureen had said yes but no too; she’d played a silly trick on him about being a virgin; saying she couldn’t marry him until he lost his cherry. He’d given it up to her later that very evening. In fact he’d given it up, and given it up, and given it up.

Technically Maureen hadn’t been a virgin, but the experience she’d had with Cal was her first ‘true’ romantic encounter; it was far different from the two other times she’d been with boys. What happened with Cal was something she’d remember for the rest of her life; something she’d cherish for always.

They’d gone to the tavern the next night where she thought she’d tricked him again. He’d asked her to marry him, that was true, but only he and she and her mother knew it. At the tavern she manipulated him into publicly announcing their engagement, but then he ‘one upped’ her by telling everyone about the condition she’d placed on her acceptance. After that he asked for volunteers among the ladies to make him eligible for marriage. The girls all understood the joke and most volunteered to help him out. It was an embarrassing but heartwarming few minutes.

Later he took her home and dropped her off. Cal had to attend to his dog Maggie, and Maureen’s mom, Andrea, wanted to have a heart to heart with her daughter.

Over the years Maureen’s mom had suffered through her own tribulations helping her daughter struggle with her injuries. Andrea stood beside the now healthy young woman she had helped make whole, it hadn’t been easy.

Even after twenty years the awful sight of her precious baby lodged beneath that fearsome branch horrified her; it was a nightmare from which she was never quite able to escape. She remembered those first seconds of desperation; trying to dislodge the limb from her screaming child, then the terrifying wait after she called 911.

That had been twenty years ago, and now, even now, standing on the porch, her palms would get sweaty and her limbs would start to shake. Standing on the porch with her arm around her daughter the terror of those first moments were as stark and real as when they first occurred. It was an enervating remembrance; an omnipresent fear.

She remembered every single minute, every single day, the arrival of the paramedics, the fright in their eyes; their grim solicitude convinced her that her child’s chances were nonexistent. She remembered their frantic efforts to lift the branch, finding her husband’s chain saw, cutting the limb away, the baleful screams of her little girl every time the branch moved even just a fraction of an inch.

Riding in the ambulance that day was the longest trip of her life. How much pain killer could one give a four year old; not much. The high pitched agonizing screams, the sight of little bones extruding through tensed muscles, the pathetic pleas for help, and those green eyes crying out for her mommy’s help; those were terrors she relived every single day of her life.

Andrea had relived those moments, those hours of helplessness every waking moment of her life. Maureen was her little girl, her only little girl. The doctors had said she could have no more children; it didn’t matter, to lose one, to lose one in the manner that had been shaping up was unthinkable.

As Andrea watched Cal drive away thoughts of those first days and weeks crowded in. Of course, they had never, ever, been far from her consciousness. She remembered the long hours that turned into days at the hospital. There had been the homeward ambulance trip; that trip wherein she was sure the doctors and nurses believed they were sending her child, her baby, home to die.

For days after their return Andrea had been afraid to go to sleep, even to close her eyes. What if she dozed off and her baby left her in those fleeting moments? Even after twenty years she still habitually awakened just to check, just to see. During the first year of Maureen’s great adventure away at college she called day and night, to check in, fearful.

She recalled how finally it had been Maureen who had put her foot down. Maureen had insisted she stop constantly calling; explaining that she was able to fend for herself. She stopped the daily phone calls, but she still worried. She also knew Maureen had forgotten her accident; she would never understand how fearful her mother was; she’d never know the terror.

During those first days after the hospital Andrea’s trauma never abated, her fear never receded, but her lonely vigil was eased considerably when the hospital called with news they’d found a full time, affordable, nurse. That had been Cal’s mother, Ms. Burkheim. She thought her first name had been Lauren or was it Dorothy, she didn’t recall?

When Cal’s mom arrived it opened the opportunity to find work to help pay the costs. She never dreamed how much doctors and medicines cost. Almost overnight she and her husband had been buried under an unbelievable mountain of debt. They were lucky; a government loan, a local funding project and her husband’s veteran’s benefits, had enabled them to get a good refinance on their mortgage. Without it they would have been homeless very quickly.

Her husband had one job; he found another, a second job. She found a job at the local thrift store. It didn’t pay much, but it enabled her to be close by if a crisis emerged, and there were crises.

Cal’s mom brought her little boy with her. They stayed on day and night. She remembered Cal so well. He was a lonely little boy. He needed a place to hang his cap, and her daughter needed a companion.

Andrea reflected on the influence Cal had on her daughter. She, Andrea, remembered when she was a little girl her dad had brought a puppy home once. That little dog was the ugliest damn dog she’d ever seen, a little brown thing with grotesquely long gray whiskers, but she fell in love it with it right away. Tragically the puppy had a spinal deformity, and as it grew, it became increasingly unable to get about; any movement was a painful battle.

She remembered that tiny little dog sleeping all day; waiting for her father to get home. When her dad got home the dog came to life; like it’s only reason for hanging around was to get glimpse of her dad, a chance at some feeble play. In the end they had to put the dog down.

Andrea squeezed her now strong grown daughter’s shoulder. She thought about the way Maureen used to look at that little boy, Cal. She remembered thinking about how her daughter reminded her of that little dog; the only thing keeping her daughter going being the presence of that little boy. Andrea knew that young man who just pulled away had saved her daughter’s life.

Andrea looked at her daughter, her happy visage, her wonderful blissful innocent smile; to think the boy putting the color in her daughter’s cheeks tonight was that self-same boy who’d done the very same thing two decades before.

Andrea looked at Maureen and smiled, “Shall we go in?”

Maureen smiled back at her mom, “OK.”

As they crossed the threshold into the kitchen Maureen thought of her mother. She loved her mother; she’d do anything for her, but she hoped tonight they could skip the mother-daughter thing.

Maureen felt all dreamy about Cal. All she wanted to do was go to bed, and fantasize about her hero, the newly discovered center of her universe, her lover. Sure her mom was important, she’d always been there when she needed her, sometimes when she didn’t need her to be there too, but the time was coming when she was going to have to start to let go. She couldn’t pretend to try to protect her forever. Maureen was a grown woman. She needed her space.

The two women went inside; they crossed through the cluttered old kitchen to the living room. Maureen could see her daughter was tired and obviously preoccupied, certainly about the young man who’d just left, but she still needed to talk.

Andrea asked, “May I get you a drink or something?’

Maureen answered, “No I’m good.”

Mom kept up the one sided banter, “Come on in. Let’s sit on the sofa a while.”

As they both sat on the old sofa Maureen sort of assumed this was going to be another one of those big mother daughter talks, the occasional remembrances the customary admonitions. Her mom would probably warn her not to rush into anything, to make sure this was really the right boy, to caution her about early pregnancies, birth control, fidelity, or worse, abortions. They’d had these same talks a hundred times.

Maureen decided to sit and listen; confident her mother only had her best interests at heart. She’d be a good girl. She figured she had a good answer for all the stuff her mom might bring up. She’d let her mother ramble and amble on, let her talk till she ran out of steam, then they could both go to bed, her mom satisfied she’d gotten her points across, and she, Maureen, satisfied she’d been the dutiful daughter.

OK, maybe she was being a little condescending, but she loved her mother. If sitting through another long lecture made her mom happy, then it was the right thing to do.

Andrea sat down beside her daughter on the sofa. She sat in the center of the couch on her daughter’s left making sure Maureen would get the benefit of the better lighting from the end table. She glanced down at her daughter’s now strong, powerful, muscular legs. She remembered not so longer ago the brittle little bones, the emaciated little sinews. Her girl had grown up to be a strong, intelligent, sometimes willful, but always wonderful young woman. Yes, she’d beaten the odds. She was so proud of her. She loved her so very much.

Andrea took her daughter’s hand, “You really love him?”

Maureen thought, uh oh, we’re going into the let’s make sure you know what you’re doing mode, “I do mom.”

“You and he, you’ve both thought this thing through?”

A nasty thought skipped across Maureen’s brain. What if she said something like, no we’re just two assholes out on a lark. She didn’t though, she could put up with another well-meaning motherly interrogation, “Not exactly, we’re in love, we’re old enough, and I think we both know what we want.”

Andrea’s squeezed Maureen’s hand. It was a good strong woman’s hand now; once it hadn’t been that way. She looked at her daughter’s fingernails. She remembered polishing them for her when she was little.

She mentally slapped herself, she had to stay focused, “I’ve talked to your father. He knows the boy, and thinks he’s a wonderful choice, a good fit for you. Oh, and Jared, Cal’s grandfather, you know him, he’s already in love with you.”

Maureen looked up, surprised. She asked, “How does dad come to know Cal?”

Andrea gave her daughter’s hand another squeeze. She thought she really is an innocent, “I’ll come to that in a minute. But first there are some things I want to talk to you about, and I have some things to show you.”

Maureen thought her mom hadn’t given an opinion about Cal yet. She brought it up, “You haven’t said anything yet. How do you feel?”

Andrea burst out, she bubbled forth, “Oh I think he’s a wonderful choice. You and he are a perfect fit. But there are some things I want to tell you. Will you listen?”

Maureen thought, uh oh, she has objections. She didn’t say that though. She gave her mom a warm, slightly patronizing, smile, “Of course mom, but I’ve made up my mind.”

Andrea reached over and picked a piece of lint off her daughter’s dress and flicked it on the floor, “I don’t want you to change your mind. I only want to help you better understand.”

Maureen leaned back slightly, “Understand? What’s not to understand?”

Andrea saw and sensed the growing impatience, “Has Cal said anything about your legs?”

Maureen looked down at her legs, the scars, the dozens of striated white lines that betrayed years of surgeries and therapy, “No, I don’t think he’s noticed. Does it matter?”

Andrea asked, “Have you thought about what you’re going to tell him?”

Maureen answered, “I don’t know. I’ll tell him I was hurt, and had work done. I don’t think he’ll care.”

Andrea first reassured, then corrected her daughter, “I know he won’t care regarding marriage. It won’t change his mind. In fact, it will more than likely reaffirm his commitment to you, but I do think it will matter. I think it will matter a great deal.”

Maureen suspected her mother knew something or thought something. Maybe she knew something from earlier, something she hadn’t let on about. Maybe she had an axe to grind. She didn’t see her mother as one of those clinging types, but she wasn’t sure. Suspicions were beginning to rise to the surface.

Maureen asked her mother, “Do you know something I don’t?”

Andrea answered her daughter’s question with another question, “You don’t remember much about your injuries do you?”

Maureen was tired and getting a little irritable, “You know that mom. You and dad never brought it up. You guys said it didn’t matter. You said it happened when I was so young it didn’t matter.”

Andrea looked her daughter in the eye, “It matter’s now.”

Maureen had to put a stop to the cat and mouse she thought her mom was playing. She held up a hand, “First tell me you’re not going to say something like dad is Cal’s father and we’re brother and sister.”

Andrea ran her right hand around the side of her daughter’s face. She took a piece of her hair and twirled it in her fingers. God she loved this girl, “Of course not. You’re father has always been loyal, faithful, and true. You get that foolish notion out of that beautiful brain. Cal knows who his biological father is, always has. That has nothing to do with I want to say.”

Maureen pushed her mom’s hand away. This was all very disquieting. Her mom knew as much, if not more, about Cal than she did. Where was she getting all her information? She was sure her mom hadn’t been snooping, that wasn’t her style.

She leaned her head back on the sofa. It had been an awfully long day; she was barely able to keep her eyes open. Weary, that was the word. She was weary. She hoped her mom would get to the point.

“OK,” she said, “so what have you got to tell me?”

Andrea spoke to the question, “It’s not so much what I have to say. I have some things to show you.”

Maureen’s mother reached behind to the sofa end table and pulled out a stack of pictures. She spoke to her daughter, “You remember these.” She handed Maureen a small stack of pictures from her college, high school and middle school years.

Maureen glanced through the stack, and handed them back, “Oh mom. Of course, I remember all this.”

Andrea handed her a second stack of pictures, “You remember these also I’ll bet.” There were five pictures from her last two years of elementary school, fourth and fifth grades. Maureen was standing in crutches in some, sitting in a wheelchair in a couple, and just sitting at the kitchen table in one.

These were pictures Maureen remembered, but more in an offhand way. They reflected a time when a lot of things were happening around her that had been blurry.

She told her mother, “I remember what’s in these pictures, sure, sort of.”

Andrea knew she had passed through the ‘safe’ pictures. The next sets were going to be different.

Her mom handed her some older pictures of the house. There weren’t any people in them. Some had been taken inside, some outside. The pivotal photo showed the old gazebo.

While Maureen whisked through the house pictures Andrea asked, “Do you remember any of these?”

Maureen looked at them. She saw the old sofa they were sitting on. It looked newer in the snapshot. The porch looked different, cleaner. There was a gazebo in the only outside picture. It was surrounded by a bunch of huge trees. She didn’t remember the gazebo or the trees at all.

Maureen told her mother, “Cal found the footers to this gazebo. Was it here when we moved in?”

Her mom answered, “Oh yeah, it was here.”

“What happened to it?”

“Your dad had it and all the trees torn down.”

Maureen figured it must have been old really old, “I guess it was so old you and dad decided to get rid of it.”

Andrea wasn’t very reassuring, “It was old, but that wasn’t why we had it torn down.”

Maureen didn’t know where her mother was taking this. It was boring, she was tired, she wanted to go to bed, and she was a little scared about the whole gazebo thing too, “OK, I give up. You had an old gazebo torn down. Why?”

Her mother answered in a very strange way, “I can’t explain why we tore it down. Maybe if you looked at another picture.”

Andrea handed her another old snapshot. This one was small, grainy, and wrinkled. There was a little girl in the center. She was much smaller than any of the pictures of Maureen that her mother had shown her before, so Maureen figured it wasn’t of her. The girl was sitting on a chair in the gazebo that had been in the other picture. The girl was sitting off to the right on the side a little. The whole thing was faint, blurred up too; too blurry to tell anything. This seemed like such a waste of time.

Maureen couldn’t take her eyes off the girl’s face. It could have been her! No it wasn’t her, but whoever it was, she sure looked sad, like real sad. She looked sickly. She looked like she’d either been crying or wanted to cry. Maureen felt sorry for her. She couldn’t tell much more. The little girl had dark, maybe black hair. The picture was in black and white so she couldn’t get any clues about complexion, and the thing was so small eye color would have been impossible to tell. It wasn’t her anyway. She never looked like that.

Maureen kept staring at the face in the picture. She was tired. She wanted to go to bed. Sitting on the sofa with her mother looking at old pictures of some sick little girl wasn’t what she wanted to do. That wasn’t her in the picture. That couldn’t be her.

Maureen didn’t want to do this anymore. She looked at her mother. Andrea had her special warm loving expression on; the expression she always evinced when something real sad or real bad was about to be brought up.

She really didn’t want to do this anymore. She was afraid to ask her next question, but blurted out anyway, “Who is this girl? This isn’t me.” There she’d said. It wasn’t her. She’d said it with a finality that would have convinced the most hard boiled judge.

Maureen’s mother answered her, “No... , that’s you dear.”

Maureen put the picture down on the sofa, “No. No. That’s not me.”

Andrea wanted to tell her it wasn’t, but it was, “No honey, that’s a picture of you.”

Maureen lashed out, “You never showed me this before! Why now?”

Maureen didn’t like the picture. She didn’t like the flow of the conversation. She wasn’t very sure if she liked her mother very much right then either, “Why did you wait till now to show me this?”

Andrea didn’t answer her daughter. She handed her another photograph.

Maureen accepted it. This picture was in color! It was the same little girl. She was sitting in a wheelchair, Maureen’s old wheelchair, only the little girl was so small the chair dwarfed her. The little girl’s pallid complexion, her wan look, the frailty of her countenance betrayed everything, a million fears, ten million unspoken emotions, and pain. Maureen could see the pain in her face!

Maureen knew now it was her! She was shocked and angry! Angry with her mother for showing her all this after so many years, upset that she couldn’t remember any of it, and scared, scared because she didn’t know where this was going, and she didn’t want to know where it was going! She didn’t want it to go anywhere!

The younger woman shifted her seat further back on the sofa. Her muscles ached, her eyes scratchy with fatigue. They were diffident eyes, filled with un-uttered complaints, angry comments, as yet unscripted angry words too harsh to articulate to a loving mother, and yet there was a nascent desire to keep going, to follow her mother’s lead. She felt like she was in some old mystery novel where the captive girl had left a series of clues along the trail; follow the clues and find what you’re searching for.

Maureen asked, “Why are you showing me all this?”

Andrea could see the anger in her daughter’s face; she heard it in her voice; the plaintiff’s cry of stop, desist, but also the plea for more, something still unsaid, some kind of closure. Maybe this was a mistake?

She handed her daughter another picture.

The next snapshot Maureen saw was of that same little girl sitting in the old gazebo, a blanket of some sort wrapped around her legs. The girl had on some kind of hat, a crown, maybe a tiara. She had something in her hand, a wand perhaps, or a child’s scepter. She knew who the girl was.

There was more! There was somebody else in the picture, not an adult. She saw a little boy! The boy was small; he had sandy colored hair. In his hand there looked like what might be a stick or a sword. In his other hand there was something else; something odd, really too big for the boy. The thing was shaped like some medieval shield. The boy was holding a sword and a shield.

She couldn’t see the boy’s face. He seemed to be bending or twisting down and around; standing at the bottom of the gazebo steps. He might have been saying something, maybe talking to the little girl, talking to her. The boy was certainly small; he couldn’t have been much, if any, older than the girl.

Yes she could see they were talking. She wondered what they might have been saying.

Tears welling up in big green eyes, Maureen put the picture down. She looked accusingly at her mother. OK, she knew she was the girl, so what about the boy? She didn’t dare ask. She was afraid she already knew.

Andrea felt sick at what she was doing, but she knew now this was the right thing. There was only one more picture. She handed it out to her.

Maureen was at first disinclined to accept what she saw as her mother’s last offering. She didn’t want to know. She took it.

This was ghastly! There were five people; her father and mother she recognized immediately. The little girl in the wheel at the center of the group was wearing a little tiara and holding up a scepter. God she looked so weak, so pitiable.