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Song for Her Mother
by
Ana couldn’t remember when her desire to sing for her mother began, but it grew in her, a yearning so muscular and seductive that it blocked out her desire for anything else. For years she wouldn’t sleep for all those women that came to care for her. She threw her food on the floor, clamped her mouth shut. She filled the house with the sounds of her crying. Ana didn’t even know where her mother was. She remembered wishing for death when she was only seven, not understanding why her mother had abruptly walked out of their lives, and not understanding about death. Jolene was her mother’s name, and the thrill of the word upon the tongue of the abandoned child always made little Ana think of a melody, a soft wisp of music curling around her, consoling her. Nights she lay in her bed listening for the front doorbell to chime, for footsteps across the foyer—footsteps, footsteps, her mother’s footsteps. Nights her chest heaved with tears that left her gasping and hiccupping so that when her physician father occasionally hugged her, she felt physical pain. Days she stared at the various clocks in the house—a solemn grandfather in the foyer and a round, brass windup that ticked and tocked in the kitchen until Ana pulled it off the counter and flung it against the wall where it bounced and slid to the floor, its life continuing... tick, tock, tick, tock. And on every day forward, until she entered high school, Ana spent time begging her father to find Jolene, bring her back. In a voice often bitter and angry, Ana’s father repeatedly claimed that Jolene was sick and did not want to be found, repeatedly claimed he could do nothing. So Ana hated the Big Doc. But she lived—first with her mother’s name upon her lips, and then with the gift of music and song in her mouth, a guitar her true companion. It became a sounding-board that accepted the sorrow of her feverish fingers, or gave back the thunder of her desires. The guitar was a gift from the Big Doc. Despite this her hate for him grew in her. It reached its peak when he insisted she live with him again. Yes, he had been getting those “dead in the middle of the night” phone calls. Yes, she was just seventeen and away at school, drunk, rowdy, picked up with others by the police, not back in the dorm on time, acting strangely, seen running down the main street of the college town alone, her feet bare, toes bleeding. Yes, she had been failing all her subjects. Yes. He told her she needed him. She needed his medical care. But she didn’t want him. She feared being back, the passion of her memories swirling inside her, the house beating at her with its own set of ghosts. She clung to her guitar, telling herself that was all she needed.
At night when the beauty of the silver moonlight woke her, the pulse of creation would beat within her and Ana would reach for her guitar. Her Aunt Martha had once remarked that singing one’s love meant more than just pronouncing it—singing fed the soul. Ana felt little for the woman, but these words she did not forget. She resolved to write songs that would make Jolene happy, songs that would provide both of them with an income, songs that would blow from car radios, blessing everyone on the street. Then Ana would own her own life. Jolene would hear Ana’s songs and forgive her daughter’s transgression, and come back. Ana had to find Jolene. She had to have her forgiveness. Sometimes it was hard to create a song when Ana’s mind was blocked with remnants of that day. She toiled with the memory, forcing it down, layering it with anger toward her father, yet sometimes bitterly asking, had it really happened that way? She told herself that she had been a stupid little kid and that was what kept Jolene away. Jolene had slapped her once. Yes, that was why she left and never came back. And only that. Ana could hope. She sifted through a melody with her fingers, responding to the voice that had followed her through the years. Ana, Ana I’m here. Tonight it didn’t frighten her; tonight it was gentle. Ana come to me. So soft, not angry, sweetly close.
With her mother’s name was upon her tongue again, Ana began to sing:
But music couldn’t totally heal her, and in time Ana became more desperate. She called Claire, her father’s long-time secretary. “Please, you have to find my mother. Surely he knows where she is. Please help me find her.” And then as was her habit Ana begged. “Come stay with me for a while,” Claire offered. “You know I live far out from the hospital in a small farmhouse.” “Just talk to him. Will you talk to him, please? Find out anything you can?” “Yes, I’ll try. But listen to me. You are welcome here for a while, but you’ll be away from the city and all its excitement.” “I’ll be away from the Big Doc,” Ana said. And they both laughed. The first week of Ana’s stay, there were endless April storms. Ana and Claire sat at a table in the candle-lit kitchen ensnared by a pattern of clattering thunder and startling, jagged light. A bowl of soup one night, a stew the next; each eaten with few words. And then one greening evening the storm blew away and Ana blurted out a rush of unstoppable words. “The Christmas I was twelve, I went to a party at Aunt Martha’s house by myself. I was terrified, fifty people talking, smoking, drinking. So much noise. But the food was incredible. Fish and pastas I’d never seen. You’d think the Big Doc’s daughter ate in fancy restaurants. No, eating was a chore. But here I stuffed myself. And then it got quiet and people began to sing. One cousin played the violin. Everyone clapped and called out bravos. I had my guitar with me. It was my companion—a security blanket. I got caught up in this. I wanted to do it too. Finally I walked into the circle and said that I had a song. It was one I wrote myself. So I sang and played and they clapped and cheered. I felt the carpet tipping under me. I had to struggle to stay upright. I had never done that before, and the torment of making the decision left me exhausted.” Ana looked down at her plate, tried to calm herself. Claire was up and hugging her. Ana wanted to pretend she didn’t like it—but she did. “Ana, I’m so glad you told me.” Right then it was too much. Ana pushed away from the table and bolted out the kitchen door, ran down the sodden lawn away from Claire’s touch. The rain had stopped and Ana found a roadway that led to a dark thicket of pine trees. She needed to be in the dampness, the quiet—the shadows of the trees just filtering light. Relief filled her as she stepped onto soft beds of pine needles. She imagined if Claire or someone came after her, called out her name and she did not answer, that they would think—missing. Ana is missing. Like her mother, her mother’s child, just like Jolene. She wondered if there wasn’t a place where all missing people gathered. A place deep in a wood where the trees arched overhead to form a cathedral-like space, and underneath, a pocket of peace, a place shot through with golden light. The missing found each other there. And while they spoke and learned each other’s history, more kept coming. They held out their arms to new arrivals. They wept on each other's shoulders or picked up the children and held them and wept again. After a time they settled into a life of waiting in stillness and quiet, until the pattern of the trees and branches against the light above them became so intense and all-consuming that their memories of those they had lost melted away. Jolene would be there with them, caught in the middle of loss, swept away on a sea of luminescence, her face upturned, her face aglow, eyes wide open, memory erased, forgiveness for her only child in her heart. Ana broke off the newly formed twig of a fir tree. She felt the sticky pine pitch, smelled the openness of the sharp scent. Then a question, a change. Was her mother with her now? She could sense a presence, a softness, her skin prickling with the spirit of some movement and the words of Jolene’s song upon her lips. She could hear the music of that song moving with the breezes that danced the branches overhead, gently moved her hair across her face. Then a hunger rose in her as if all these years the earth had never fed her. Her mother had left her. The Jolene song thrummed in her head like a vicious ache. She had abandoned her mother. She couldn’t deny it any longer. That day Jolene just appeared. Ana opened the front door and found someone standing there, all eyes in the sunlight, sunken, ringed eyes. “Ana, my Ana.” More a question than a statement. “Who are you?” “I’m your mother. I’m Jolene.” Ana had backed away as the woman shuffled onto the foyer floor, her canvas shoes torn, revealing bulging, dirty toes. The woman wore a cotton skirt that hung longer in the front than the back, a skirt of tawdry turquoise, not a compliment to the muddy tan blouse flapping against the thin body. “What are you doing here?” Ana couldn’t take her eyes from the woman, yet at the same time she felt she was going blind. Nothing was connecting; this was not her mother. “Hey I’m not getting a very warm welcome, though it’s a scorcher out there. Could I break the ice a little here, get a hug, or a glass of cold water?” This was not her mother. No. And in fifteen minutes the only two friends she had in the world were coming over. Six years her mother had been gone. Six years against fifteen minutes. She turned abruptly and walked toward the kitchen. She could feel the woman following her with certainty, knowing the way. Ana took out a glass and filled it from the bottled water container. Jolene sat on one of the stools, smoothed the cloth of her skirt, and settled herself at the counter. Ana’s homework papers and books were scattered about. “Ana, all these books. You’re very smart, I know. Like him.” Ana swallowed, acid gripping her throat. Jolene’s body gave off an odor of sadness and loneliness. Ana backed away. “I’m okay,” Jolene said. “I just had to see you. I’m still waiting for that hug.” Ana didn’t move. Jolene drank water and then began to paw through Ana’s papers. “You shouldn’t have come here. Why did you come here?” At first Ana didn’t recognize her own voice. “I’m better now, and I had to see you. I love you, Ana. You’re beautiful, you’re my life.” “You left me.” “It’s okay.” “It’s not okay! Don’t come back like this and tell me it’s okay. You didn’t even say goodbye. You just left me—six years ago. Do you know how long that is when you’re a kid? Do you know how it feels to not have your mother?” “I was sick. In my head. Didn’t he tell you? I was afraid I would hurt you.” “You hit me once. But I needed you. I had no warning, no goodbye. I waited every day. Waited and waited. You didn’t fight for me, Mama.” At first there were no words from the woman. Then, “I’m sorry. It was all I could do.” The voice was flat, too controlled. Ana reacted, the words tumbled. “I hate you. I hate you.” “You’re just upset, Ana. I know you don’t hate me. Or I wouldn’t have come.” “It took me years to get over it. Years and years. I can’t, I can’t—I mean this kid I know, her dog died. And I mocked her tears. I mean a dumb dog. I lost my mother, my Mama!” “I’m sorry.” Jolene robotically folded her hands in her lap. “You aren’t sorry. You’re stupid and uncaring and probably drugged up, and I hate you.” “Don’t say that. I can be okay. We can have a friendship. I can come over in the afternoons.” The doorbell rang. A look of terror crossed over Jolene’s face. A quick change artist, in control one moment and then slipping into jelly the next. “Who is that?” “It’s him,” Ana said, “the Big Doc.” “It’s not him. He wouldn’t ring the doorbell.” It sounded again. Ana could picture her two friends on the threshold, friends so hard to find and keep, friends so fragile. “You can go out the back way.” Ana moved toward the stool, her body a barrier, a shield to the life behind her, the life on the other side of the front door. “You have to go.” “I took my meds, and then I got on the bus. It’s a long way on the bus.” “I don’t care. I didn’t ask you to come here. I don’t want you here. Do you get that?” Jolene slipped from the stool and moved toward Ana. “Just let me hold you, Ana, just once.” “Get away from me you crazy person. Don’t ever come here again and embarrass me. I don’t need you anymore. God, I would never need anyone like you in my life!” Ana can still see the devastation flooding her mother’s eyes and face, still hear the stool as it tipped and crashed to the floor. Jolene found her way, kept moving toward the back door that only the cleaning lady and the cook had ever used. Ana sensed from Jolene’s movements that she held out hope that Ana would stop her, grab her in a hug. Ana did not.
Claire’s search that rainy April revealed that Jolene was dying in the county hospital where she had received care, having nowhere else to go. She’d had a stroke. In her last moments a social worker called Ana’s father and he was with Jolene when she died. Ana was not. Claire drove her there a few hours later. The nurse had combed Jolene’s hair, folded her hands across her chest. Ana stood frozen in the doorway, looking around at the silent monitors, searching for her father who as always, wasn’t there. She saw what looked like a meal of glasses of water, coffee, and bread set out on the patient table with white linen napkins. She turned back for Claire, but she was gone too, and Ana was alone. Slowly, clutching her guitar, she stepped toward the stilled body and touched the woman’s cheek, staying close, drinking in the face she had not seen for years. She had found her mother again. It was just the two of them, reunited. Ana gasped for breath and then could not see her mother’s face, tears wiping away a focus, her heart leaping inside her chest as if to assail her with its life. She yearned for escape.
But she stayed. Finally taking up her guitar, she began to play.
And then the voice spoke to her one last time, Ana, my Ana. Play for me. And Ana
paused, her hands fluttering above the wood of the guitar, and then she played,
singing reverently, her fingers like white darts among the strings, her words a
final offering.
Ana walked away, hurried through hallways and down staircases until once again
she was out in the sunshine. She found a garden path and followed it into the
hospital grounds where magnolia trees lined it, their petals thick and fragrant,
petals now littering and spangling the greening lawn with white, spilling onto
the pebbly stone so that Ana crushed them with her walking. A gust of wind swept
through the branches, cascading more petals down on Ana, sifting them onto her
shoulders, catching them in the strands of her hair. Shreds of perfume from the
trees surrounded her and she bent to the ground and picked up petals, lifted
them to her mouth to taste the perfume. She thought of the bread someone had set
out on Jolene’s table—food for those who mourn, release from hunger. |