Oh Mom!

"Mother! You're drifting again."

"What?'

Celeste was right, she did drift off sometimes. At other times she just pretended she didn't hear. She did that when she didn't want to talk to them. She wanted to talk about what they used to, things like who was doing what, how you felt about people you knew and what was the world coming to? She hated conversations with words like hostility, conflict and negative reinforcement. This was the new vocabulary. She had even taken a night course in psychology to see if she could grow to like it. She couldn't. But she'd got an A, learned a lot of new words and also ways to be nasty about other people while making yourself sound oh-so-wonderful. You had to say, "The vibes were so hostile at Mary's I wanted out of there," instead of, "I was a dead bore all evening." It was obvious that studying psychology wasn't good for you. Psyche students have unhappy faces because if you try to remember things you are supposed to forget, you get some nasty surprises.

Celeste and her other daughters turned the new talk against her and when they did, Agatha found herself getting so upset that she wanted to cry and sometimes did so later, when she was alone. They would dig up all the things they used to laugh about and turn them around so she sounded like a bad mother. It was hard to sit there and listen to your children who once liked to say how they loved you, asked your opinion, even thanked you for it, now telling you it hadn't been such fun growing up after all. That was what Celeste had done today. Agatha had sat outside the house in her car before coming in. She sniffed like a fool into her handkerchief. If you know you're going to end up crying why do you have to cry before as well?

"Where are you going?" Celeste's clear voice came through these thoughts "You're leaving? Oh, Mom! I won't let you this time. You're going to have to stay and talk things out with me. You've got to stop this denial!"

"I'm tired I'm just going home to take a nap"

"You're not tired! You never take a nap. You just don't ever want to talk about anything important particularly our childhood and yours!"
"I'm getting old I don't remember what happened back then except that it was fun. I do remember that - like picnics"
"Oh, Mom! Your parents sent you to boarding school when you were six and then to stay with your granny for Christmas. Think about that, don't you see how dysfunctional they were?"

"I liked being at Granny's at Christmas. Uncle Jeremy used to tell us stories before we went to sleep and there were seven dogs, lots of Muscovy ducks and we fed the fish in the pond"

"Oh, Mom! Then let's talk about why I irritate you and why you irritate me"

"You only irritate me when I irritate you"

"Good! Let's talk about that"

"I'm tired, Cel. Really I am." She struggled into her coat before Celeste could grab it from her.

"You're not tired. You just don't ever want to talk about what happened to you."

"Nothing happened to me."

Agatha took off her glasses now to look at Celeste. Through the familiar blur she was again amazed that she could have produced a child that gorgeous. Celeste had always looked like an actress, maybe even a movie star. Not a Demi Moore but the old kind like Katherine Hepburn. Her warm coloring and that silky shining hair were so pretty, particularly now, through the furriness of the disintegrating vision of Agatha's old age. She liked looking at her children without her glasses because then she didn't have to worry about dark shadows under their eyes, zits on their skin, or if their clothes were ironed. Of course, Celeste was always too thin. This thinness was unnatural. Agatha's own sisters, her mother, her mother's sisters, her grandmother and even the portrait of great grandmother were evidence that in her family, women should not be as thin as Celeste; except Gert, who had kidney stones all her life and Aunt Tillie, who ate like a bird and died of high blood pressure.

She went over to open the door for Fluff-fluff, Celeste's large dog who was whining outside.

"Don't let him in, Mom, he's a mess."

Fluff-fluff's face appeared at the window where he made a damp patch on the pane with his nose. She smiled at him and he wagged his tail wildly. She wriggled her fingers and he stood on his hind legs.

"Come on, Mom!" said Celeste, still barring her way to the front door, "Just sit down on the couch. I'll make some more tea. Every time you tell me about your childhood, it tears me up. I'm not knocking Granny and Grandpa - they must have been abused, too. Oh, Mom! Mental abuse is worse in some ways than physical. You couldn't help the way you were treated."

"I have to go," said Agatha holding tightly to her coat. And then she said, "My analyst says I don't have to talk about this with you." As the lie popped out of her mouth it was hard to know which of them was the more startled. What made her say such a stupid thing? She wished Celeste hadn't heard it and she inched to the door holding her breath.

"Analyst?"

The way her daughter said analyst made Agatha let her breath out cautiously. Was it possible that Celeste believed her? A flutter of power stirred within - a feeling she hadn't had for a long time. Of course once you start lying your mind flies around inventing story after story to cover up for the first. She heard herself say, "I'm seeing a therapist once a week - you said I should. It's very expensive, $125 an hour."

Oh Blessed Moment! There stood Celeste before her, and she imagined Jen and Chrissie there too. It was like when she used to make brownies. She'd take them out of the oven and arrange them in rows on the Staffordshire plate. The girls would stand in a row, matching cupid-bow lips shaped into identical little Os, chins hanging a little, eyes never leaving the plate in her hand. A brownie carried a lot of happiness for its small size. That was when they lived on Oakpark Road. She started adding and subtracting years: Celeste was five then, Jen four and Chrissie three.

"Mom!" Celeste was saying, "Try to concentrate! You just said you are seeing an therapist; why didn't you tell me this?"

"It's a lot of money! When you told me I needed counseling because of boarding school and Christmas at Gran's, I thought I should try it. Why not? Of course, $125 is too much money for an hour's chat but dresses cost that much nowadays."

"I'm proud of you, Mom. What did he say? Doesn't he want to see us, too?"

He! Now if I had said that, Agatha thought, Celeste would have said, "You're such a sexist, Mom, a doctor isn't necessarily a man."

Aloud she said, "It's a Dr. Irene Goldsmith."

She was so into her performance she even raised her eyebrows as cynical people do, then put them back feeling like an acting fool. "Dr. Goldstein, no it's Goldsmith said, If you get all upset when you see your girls these days Mrs. Morrison, why do you keep seeing them? She called you stressors. Get rid of the stressors and you'll get no of the stress. Come and see me same time next week. I paid $125 to hear that, so I'd better do as she says. It was really nice to have tea and I'm here when you want me. She told me to say that too. Just call if you need me." Agatha rushed out of the door crashing into Fluff-fluff who took the chance to get in.

As she made for the car, she could hear Celeste yelling at the dog. She sat a moment to get her calm before starting the engine. She wished she'd put on her glasses to see Celeste's face, trying to imagine it made her laugh. The $125 was good! A lot of money is a convincing detail. She rested her head on the steering wheel laughing and laughing. There was a time when Celeste would have known there was no way this Mom could spend $125 an hour - except - well, of course, she would have spent it on one of them. It took twenty minutes to get home. A wonderful twenty minutes because she couldn't stop smiling. The sun had come out although there were still puddles everywhere, she felt like a silly girl again. So much so, that when someone honked at her for being slow at the lights, she blew him a kiss.

"You're a stupid old woman," she told herself gaily and started to sing: "From Chattanooga Tennessee. Yes yes yes, you're a stupid old woman, from Chattanooga Tennessee." Where exactly was Tennessee, anyway? I'll look it up tomorrow. She lifted her voice and started to sing again, "I'm a stupid old woman, a stupid old woman, a stupid old woman, from God Knows Where."

She was still smiling when she pulled into her driveway but when she put her key in the lock, the fun began leaking away. The familiar ache around her heart returned, as did the stinging of the tears she hated.

Fortunately, as she opened the door, the telephone started to ring.
