The Linnet's Wings | Page 44

WINTER ' FOURTEEN “Did you leave Dad?” I said. My mother gave me this sharp look. She wasn’t frowning or smiling, but had this strange look in between. “No,” she said. “Who the hell told you that? Nicky? That bastard has no idea when to stop. That’s just wrong. No doubt, I’m a negligent mother, too.” “He didn’t say that. I just wondered,” I said. “Oh, believe me, he did,” Sylvia said, tapping her water glass. “He just loves to make drama. The truth’s not good enough for him, that’s his problem.” “I just wanted to know,” I said “I’m sorry he said all that,” she said. “That Kraut bastard. You shouldn’t have gone there, though. What a waste.” “I’m fine,” I said, even though she hadn’t asked about me, perhaps because it wasn’t the first thing on her mind that afternoon. I expected her to talk about the fight. But she didn’t. It seems we were still waiting even then for something. “So this is what you wanted to grill me about?” Sylvia said, pulling out a small portable mirror. She stared at it for a full minute and scowled. She brushed back a loose strand of hair, trying over and over to pat it down. She was angry, not with me, I thought, but with life, with my father and Nicky, with people I didn’t know. I felt sorry for her. “That’s all I wanted to know,” I said. “Nothing else, really.” “Your life is a frightening lot,” she said. “Sometimes you just want to run, you’re so alone, and it seems like everyone speaks a different language. I think that’s what it was with your father.” “I’ve always been a mother or sister, or daughter,” she added. I didn’t say anything. I knew there was nothing I could do to change the way she lived, the way she looked at it from that point on. At me. So, I stayed silent. In a while, we had lunch, and she told me that she was going to New York, to try to feel complete in some way or another. “The domestic life isn’t my biggest strength,” she said, trying to laugh, but I knew she was serious. Teaching was no way to live, she said. She needed a change of scene. She was sending me to stay with her friend Mrs. Porter, who taught music up at the high school, until she could “think again.” These were just bare facts. She didn’t want or expect me to try to talk her out of it, or to reassure her. I do wish that I’d tried to keep her from leaving, though. To leave can result in the worst consequences, but to stay leaves open that possibility, however slim, of picking up the fragments. When we walked out onto the street, it was snowing again and the streetlamps had come on. It was one-thirty and cars ambled through the fog like ghostly science-fiction creatures. A woman in a Plymouth shook her head at us, as though we were somehow up to no good. It didn’t matter. We were alone in this mess. My mother was going to the railroad station, to catch a train to Chicago that afternoon, and she’d go to New York the next day, she said. She kissed me, and hugged me very tight, and I could smell traces of cigarette smoke on my cheeks, mixed with perfume and lipstick. She stood for a full minute or two, an arm around my shoulder, just staring at me, as though she wanted to tell me some inner thought she’d The Linnet's Wings