Today my mother turns 64.   There is a party with loud nurses and children and neighbors with flowers.   Balloons and slices of ham.  A bottle of port.  

They poke her and tell her to smile.  Ask her if she is awake.  Feed her sliced ham.  I take her inside.  We are quiet.
 
The man who lives in the house I grew up in comes with his guitar.  He sings for her.  He sings songs everyone wants to sing in a way no-one can sing along.   Songs about mountains.  Songs about trains.  Will you still need me.  Will you still feed me.   She leans against me as he plays.  She keeps her eyes closed.  I hold a glass of port in my right hand, her hand in the other.

The man finishes his songs.  The people start to leave with their loud goodbyes and their loud affections.  I hold her and sing her a song as everyone turns away.  She wraps her legs around mine and curls into me when I sing.  It's by the the hardest thing.  Follow me.  I tell her I love her and leave.

The grass along the extension is purply-red.  There are beans in my mother's pot.  Yellow finches in the sunflowers.  This summer will end if we wait it out.

Don't think twice.  It's alright.

Sunday afternoon, back aching from coughing all night.  Shoulders sore, body tired.  If I had television I could watch football all day and nobody would think ill of me.  Instead I wander around the house trying to find something small to do. 

Make soup.  Knit limes.  It may be all  I can muster.

Monday morning coming down:  bills paid, laundry in, broth on.  Trying to catch up.  Calls that need to be made: doctor, dentist, electric, gas.  Food in the fridge needs to be cooked.  Vegetables to be dealt with.  Green tomatoes to gather.

Last night I dreamt I was going through my mother's possessions with my sister.  Sorting through boxes to find the things that mattered.  An ironstone cup.  A scrap of fabric from a child's dress.  This morning I woke up exhausted.

Today I have lists of things to do.  None of them seem to matter.  Everything I finish leaves me with a feeling of loss.

Sometimes it's Monday and you wake up with dread in your throat and you're thankful it's a school lunch your kids will eat and you can't find their folders and it's Monday and it's raining but you make the bus and after you feel like giving up so you call a friend and it's Monday.  She meets you for coffee and you haven't seen her since Friday and not last Friday and you talk and talk and it all feels better so you go home to Monday and make the calls you don't want to make like the vet 'cause your cat has cancer and the tumor is growing into her eye and the pediatrician because your kid has fluid in his left ear  and the insurance company because they made the check out wrong and now you are short nine hundred dollars and you call the editor of the local paper because they pissed you off and you leave a message because it is Monday morning.  And you go to the vet and the cat bleeds all over everything and you ask when is the right time and they don't tell you and you pay a hundred bucks and then you come home to drop off the cat and go to Marshall's to buy socks to bring to your Mom and when you get there she is crying she is always crying every Monday. And you feed her fatty pot roast and mashed potatoes until she won't open her mouth and you walk with her around and around and Fred the Eugene O'Neill scholar who taught your friends sits in the hall and he calls Olive a bothersome bitch and she is so you laugh and you sing to your mother your sing songs she sang to you and you sing Little Boxes.  Little boxes on the hillside and they're all made out of ticky-tacky and Fred sings along and he claps his hands and he bangs his tray for the first time and they're all made just the same.  You leave right at two to get the kids to bring him to the doctor and you talk to the school nurse about how stupid a stupid book was and the kids come down the hall in their raincoats and into the car and to the doctor's where they don't see fluid and your son fails a hearing test in his left ear but he gets a sticker and you go home and pick all the girly clothes from your daughter's dresser to be passed along because she isn't girly anymore and you start to make dinner and you burn it and your daughter spills her milk and the whole thing is a mess of messes until the kids go up to bed and you take a quick bath shave your legs don't wash your hair clean the sink and go upstairs.  You hang up the clothes on the foot of the bed pick a dress for tonight and shoes heels and a sweater make the kids' lunches and leave.  Monday night now bar filling friends and musicians and kids young enough you don't care what they think and beer tonight knitting out and a book to return and someone says they wish they had  a washboard and you have one in the car so you get it and he plays it with your keys the old washboard from a friend's garage and you buy drinks and stand up because it is Monday and you are tired and the kids get up to play The Weight and Fisherman's Blues and you decide not to sit down more beer and dancing with the girls and at the end they play songs for you dirty rock and roll and your friend plays the washboard and sings Bowie and you dance til you notice your feet hurt and you remember working ten hours tomorrow on the same feet and you slow. It is Tuesday now, Tuesday.  And Monday was alright.

She had another seizure.  Four in the morning.  She fell this time, hard,on her face.  By the time I find out she is at the nursing home again.  When they tell me she is asleep.

When I get there she is up.  Standing.  She won't open her eyes.  She grabs my arm, my breast, pulls at my jeans.   I say I'm here.  It's okay.  She grabs at the bandage above her eye.  Pulls at the stitches.  Her hand is bloody and her head is bloody and I pull her to me.  I hold her to my chest and tell her it's alright.  She turns and walks into the wall.  She can't open her eyes.  She is crying.

She starts to sit where she is.  I hold her, ease her to the floor.  Ease her back up again.  She hums and cries and cries and hums.  She can't see where she is and I tell her I love her.  I love her.  She is pinching my middle and grabbing me she puts her arm in my shirt and through my bra strap and she pulls into me.  I whisper to her.  Hold her.  Ease her down into her blue chair and cover her with a blanket.  Put her head back.  Walk her to sleep.

I watch her sleep.  The blood drying into her eyebrow.  The bruise on her forehead.  The faint stain on the pillow from the blood in her wet hair.  When she wakes she wants to walk right away.  I take one arm.  L. takes the other.  She is woozy and we hold her up.  She still can't open her eyes.  She still cries.  I tell her the lights are out.  I tell her we're okay.  They give her something for pain.  I try to give her vanilla ice cream.  They give her something to make her rest and she fights it she fights it she walks and pushes and cries and fights but she can't see and she can't talk and she is scared.  We walk around the hall.  I get her in her chair and I push her in circles around the unit.

When I leave she is asleep and I smell like my mother's blood.

Today she said my name.

She hasn't said my name in a long time.  I said my name and then she said my name.  It could have been any name.  It was my name.

 

Friday  morning, bound by the rain, waiting for the house to warm.  The last of the coffee, a bit of last night's dinner.  Too many nights out and it shows.

Wandering in a haze, trying to find a place to be.  Every thing I touch has a history of its own.  Each room filled, full of the past.   Me stuck in the middle.  In piles.  My children will be home soon.  I will find comfort in their needing me.

Cool this morning.  Still feeling the chill of last night's rain.  The wind whipping the flames of the fire downtown.  I feel turned around. 

Tuesday is a hard day.  Everywhere we go she runs away from me.  Even when we go to walk the on the beach she  runs away.  Up the hill, fast enough that it is hard to catch her.  When I do she says no and hits my hand away.  Runs again when I get her to the car. 


We drive into the village to pick Sam up.  He is with a friend.  My mother comes with me, out of the car.  When she sees the kids and the other mother she says no again and makes her way over the rocks to a corner of the yard.  She scutters around until she finds a way out.  When I try to get her into the car she swings at me and runs away, down toward the road.  I try to turn her around without touching her.  I back her up to the car.  She starts to run again and I grab her, hug her around her arms.  She swings at me.   Hits my forearms and anything else she can reach.  She yells at me, calls me Fat Face.  The other mother doesn't know what to do.  She gets Sam into the car as I hold my mother. 

We are near the car.  I hold her, move her over, until she is at the front seat.  When I tell her this is the way to get away she concedes and gets into the car.  I buckle her in, close the door.  Before I can get in the driver's seat she is out again.  This continues.  Five times I have to get her in the car.  The other mother holds the door shut until I get in.  I drive away.

I don't talk.  Sam doesn't talk.  My mother doesn't make a sound.  As we leave the village she tries to open the car door.  I say no, she stops.   She keeps trying as we drive home.   As we wait at the last set of lights she tries once more.  I have to lean over to stop her.

Now when I show up she says "No, not you."  She sees me and runs out the door.  If I talk she scrunches up her nose and says "Aren't you sweet?"  She calls me You or Fat Face.  I sit around the corner, trying not to talk, listening to make sure she is safe.  When she goes for the door I stop her.   I try not to let her see me.  Not to look at her.  She stares at me with the hate mothers reserve for their daughters.  I try not to talk.

It is raining.  She is upset when I get there.  A tooth has broken off.  When we ask if there is any pain she says no but every time her tongue finds the spot she cries out about her tooth.  Like someone has stolen it.  Her tooth.

I change the subject.  Get her coffee.  She finds two paintings and carries them around, yelling that they are hers.  She made them.  When she finds her tooth missing again she runs out of the room screaming about her tooth.  She cries in the mirror.  Runs to my little boy.  Bending down in front of him she yells "I am not a person.  I am not a person."

When she is calm enough I get her into the car.  We have three and a half hours to spend and I won't spend them that way, her yelling at my little boy. I ask if we should drive north or south.  Nobody answers.   I pick north.  Trying to find some old memory I say we are going to Building 19.  We drive far, too far, still not far enough.  It has been so long and I can't find it anymore.  My memory fails me and I drive through Georgetown without remembering which way to go.  I drive through Groveland.  I turn into West Newbury and into Newburyport.  Sam is tired and hungry.  My mother slips in and out of sleep.   Sam sleeps as we cross 95.

I ask my mother if she wants coffee.  She nods.  Two cups at a McDonald's window and I turn to drive back home.  Nearing downtown Newburyport she takes a sip and I don't know what happened.  She couldn't swallow it.  Didn't swallow it.  She explodes, her head hanging down than up again another explosion.  She has no idea what is happening.  I pull over, grab a blanket from the back and calm her as I try to brush the vomit off of her.  She is whimpering.  I tell her it is okay.  I always tell her it is okay.   We are a long way from home.  As I drive she looks straight forward like a blind woman. 

I get back into town.  Find a place for Sam.  I get her home and upstairs.  Try to get her into the tub but she won't.  She won't she won't she won't she won't.  I leave the room and try again.  I can't undress her.  She yells at me, tells me I am jealous.  Calls me her mother. I step out of the room and come back again as her daughter.  She is crying and for a moment understands that she needs to get clean.  Because she was sick.  She is not bad.  She agrees for the moment but before I can get her into the tub she is angry again.  I leave the room twice more before she gets in the tub.

Clean now I find some clothes for her, dress her and get her warm.  She seems to want to go to bed but won't climb in.  Something clicks and she is angry again.  She finds her bag and holds it like riot police hold shields.  Keeping it between her and me, using it to move me back.   We go from room to room.  At the top of the stairs she tells me to get out.  She says she will kill me.  I change the subject.  Get her looking for shoes.  Downstairs a few minutes later she is hissing at  me to get out.  I plead with her like I am sixteen again.  Like she is my mother.  It does no good.

One thing I never expected anyone to say to me:

I will say a rosary.  You go upstairs and get a diaper on you mom.

Hard arrival early crying running into the car and running away try to get food for her get food into her but she runs away again and my children are crying now crying as I hold her from running away.  Back to her house tv on she sits and sits then cries again runs upstairs holds on holds on to the banister screaming screaming about her four dead babies and my children follow up Abby is crying about the babies and my mother won't move can't move screaming holding on on the top stair and I hold her keep her safe tell my children it's okay it's okay and I ease her up off the stairs into the room at the top onto the chair and my children come to her they hold her hand she can breathe now breath again and the babies she talks about the babies and my children tell her it's okay.  I bring them back downstairs run back up to her standing in the room talking gibberish to the mirror until she says in plain English "We're nuts." 

This week she laughed and she cried and she pulled my hair.  When it was raining she rubbed her legs.  When she found strands of fake pearls she wanted me to turn them into money.  When I fed her she ate happily.

She hums now.  All day, humming.  Yesterday I could hear the song.  Down in the valley.  After she hummed for an hour I sang the words for her.  After I sang for an hour she sang some of the words.  Angels in heaven.  Know I love you.

I am trying to decide why I am so heartbroken.

The house is quiet, save for the dripping of the kitchen sink and the heat going on every so often. I am hungry and I may eat a cheese sandwich. I spent hours in the tub reading a book from my oldest friend. When it was done I washed my face and my arms and my chest.

Now I am here. The house is cold the way sitting feels cold. The way being still freezes over. There is something in this being cold and quiet and hungry in a still house. I am sitting here. I am trying to decide why I am so heartbroken.

Quiet day, first of the new year, kids and James out for a walk. Snow-melt dripping outside. Thankful for a chance at starting anew.

Today everything feels like a punishment.

Sitting at my kitchen table, big tears rolling down her cheeks, big tears rolling onto my arms and dripping onto the floor. I get the softest napkin we have to dry her face. Hold her head to my bosom and dry her tears.

He wants her to have a baby, she thinks. In the shed she has an antique hospital bed, an antique crib for babies. He wants her to have a baby and she can't do it. She counts her babies. One, two, three, four. She counts ten babies. It is too much. She flicks her hands. Sh-sh-sh-- her babies are all gone.

She is done with them.

Feeling human today. Cool air coming in the windows. Potato leek soup on the stove. Tomatoes cook and peeled and in the freezer, more in a salad with basil and garlic. Watermelon cut.

The week in a blur: mother fall emergency room call sit wait shoulder pain out blood sit. Drive Kingston kids home hospital home sleep hospital drive kids home hospital work. Out home sleep hospital wait hospital wait hold mother cry hold mother. Repeat. Wait. Listen. Cry again. Out into the sun for a moment. Sleep. Hospital. Bring her home. Try to make her happy again.

Late-summer harvest: holding my mother as she tries to take the clothes off my back so she can get out into the sun.

Found my mouse. Quiet noon, practicing fiddle, heard the commotion of not being alone. Went to the basement stairs, moving the things around the noise. I have never been a good woman but I shrieked like a girl when I saw him.

Too hot yesterday, too hot to move and my mother shows up in white capris and black socks pulled up to her knees. Lunch together. The old men at the next table talk about my grandfather and my little boy. Spilled water, Walnut Street, little boys all look alike. Drive home through the heat sit down sit still. Popsicles in the bath tub. Kids to the park. Bug bites skinned knee dirty feet. Didn't get a thing done til the cool air came and I fell asleep.