Seeking Mother
Bernadette Miller
That Saturday afternoon, I was shocked at seeing my red-haired mother lying in a Beth Israel Hospital bed, suffering from pneumonia. A large oxygen tube projected from her mouth, more tubes sprouted from her nostrils, and a needle violated her wrist. Overhead bags dripped liquid into her, while a bleeping machine tracked her vital signs. Wearing a thin hospital gown, she slept, her mouth slack around the oxygen tube.
To avoid possible disapproval, even now, I straightened my thrift-shop designer suit, fluffed my gray poodle-cut, and checked my makeup in the cabinet mirror.
Finally, I leaned over the bed railing. Lacking wrinkles, Mother still looked beautiful at seventy-one with her firm jaw and heart-shaped face. None of her friends, not even Gus, her rich third husband, knew her age, thanks to a partial face lift that had smoothed a sagging jaw and eye pouches. Although lacking a college education, she’d seemed so strong-willed and self-confident. Now, she looked frail and vulnerable, a slender bundle huddled under the blanket.
“Mother,” I whispered, and stroked her smooth arm against the blanket, swollen from antibiotics. Mother grimaced and jerked it sideways, her reaction stabbing me.
I remembered how she’d always hated being touched, shrugging off her visiting teenage daughter’s hug.
“Jenny, you’ll get my new dress dirty!”
Bent over the railing, I filled with the old resentments, and I relived our fights after my moving to New York from college.
In my tenement studio, she’d advised with her Brooklyn accent, “Get a decent job and try to snag a rich Jewish husband. “Don’t expect me to support you.”
Quivering, I stared at her across the linoleum table. “I’ve told you that non-pressured work allows me enough energy to paint during my free time! Why can’t you accept that? Besides, why should you worry about supporting me? You abandoned me to your parents in Maryland so you could pursue a second husband who didn’t want me either, just like my father. For God’s sake, you want to control my life, but during my childhood, you showed no interest in my health, my friends, school grades, or aspirations. You gave birth to me, but no nurturing!”
“Jenny, you can’t forgive me for not raising you, but you keep forgetting my seven-year bout with tuberculosis.”
“Always the same alibi!” I shouted, my heart pounding, my blue jeans and tee shirt soaked with perspiration. “But after your cure, you didn’t give a damn about anyone except yourself--you left me with your parents who continually reminded me of my obligations to them for sharing their home. What a fool I was to adore you, desperately hoping for letters and visits, and receiving mostly silence.” Catching my breath, I rebuked myself: Stop arguing with Mother! She’ll always be self-centered.
Still angry, I stared now at the woman lying with eyes closed. Yet, watching her labored breathing, the soft hands resting palms up, like a beggar, I sighed at her condition.
“Mother,” I repeated until the older woman’s dark eyes opened. “Has anyone else visited?”
She shook her head.
“Oh, I thought Leah or Flo would come. They probably caught the flu, like everyone else.” I felt a smug satisfaction that her best friends, rather than I, were becoming secondary; they’d revealed that Mother said she loved them, something she’d never told me.
But I forced myself to act the dutiful daughter by kissing her forehead and saying, “I love you,” hoping to encourage her recovery. She closed her eyes. Disappointed, as usual, I watched her sleep and tried to persuade myself to accept her as she was. Yet, I winced with embarrassment, recalling her ridiculous belly dancing career; an elderly woman paid to undulate at parties and nursing homes with skimpy beaded bra, a feathered skirt, and a tambourine, her navel exposed.
Again I relived that climactic fight in my sweltering studio, a ceiling fan whirring above my easel and seascape of waves cresting against a lighthouse.
After Mother insisted that I quit painting and seek a husband, I lost my temper and finally shouted, “Leave me alone! I never want to see you again!”
From a windowed clay pot she plucked a pink rose, her rouged face damp with tears, a hand trembling against the tigerskin pant suit. “This is all I’ll have left of you, when I only wanted what’s best for you.”
“No, only what’s best for you! Arguing I didn’t need college, so it wouldn’t cost you money. Can’t you see the harm you’re doing to me? Get out of my life! I’ve finished having you slice up my heart!”
She gazed at the wood floor stained with paints, her hand still clutching the flower. “I never wanted to make you unhappy,” she said, crying in the moisture-laden air. “Maybe someday you’ll see it from my viewpoint.”
I scowled at her lame excuses, and watched her turn and step daintily along the musty hallway, avoiding the broken bannister as her high heels echoed on the stairs.
I heaved a sigh of relief at freeing myself of her debilitating influence.
But she continued calling, criticizing my appearance and life style, shredding my ego. Finally, except for confiding in a favorite aunt, I rented a cheaper apartment, not telling other relatives who might reveal my whereabouts, despite Aunt Belle’s pleading.
For eight years I refused to contact Mother, until Aunt Belle finally changed my mind. “Da’ling,” she’d said with her heavy Polish accent, “your mama has breast cancer. Please see her at Beth Israel. She’s changed. Eight years’ silence is a long-enough punishment. She needs you.”
Relenting, I first visited the hospital soon after the breast removal, hoping reconciliation would ease my bitterness. I repressed tears at Mother’s bedside as she sobbed with relief in my arms; she’d caused enough anguish.
After our reconciliation, she tried to compensate for her “youthful mistake,” as she called her abandonment, by bestowing gifts: clothes, jewelry, and handbags. My bureaus bulged. “That’s how I show I care,” Mother declared after offering to buy me a mink, which I refused. Struggling to pay bills with my meager secretarial wages, I hated depending on her materially, and I craved the maternal affection she withheld.
And now, despite our ten-year reconciliation, I once more visited Beth Israel with painful memories, and studied Mother who lay helpless from pneumonia.
“Mother,” I whispered, wondering if I should awaken her.
The dark eyes opened. She turned her head toward me and smiled with recognition.
Flustered at the unexpected reaction, I stammered, “I...I’ve brought pink roses.” I removed the flowers from a shopping bag, and got a vase from a nurse. In the room’s stillness, I set the vase on the window facing Mother, who gazed at the roses.
I wanted to express sorrow at her illness and that I hoped she’d feel better soon, but that seemed too formal, as if from a stranger. I groped for news that she would appreciate.
“I’ve met a nice fellow at work. We’ve been greeting each other at the elevator. He doesn’t wear a wedding band, and I think he’s interested.”
Unable to talk with the tube down her throat, she waited, her eyes gazing up at me.
“Dr. Gelberg said the antibiotics are clearing up your pneumonia. He thinks in several weeks you’ll be discharged.” She listened as if engrossed, but closed her eyes whenever I stopped talking, so I continued relating good news. “My seascape won an honorable mention in an art contest...” My voice trailed off. I’d long ago stopped discussing my paintings with Mother who’d dismissed it as a mere hobby, wounding me. Why couldn’t she understand that art expressed my deepest feelings? But despite her present interest that I’d longed for, I felt uneasy about not letting her rest. I glanced at the January snowflakes melting against the hospital windows, and turned toward the bed.
“Mother, you must be tired. Would you rather I left so you could sleep?”
To my surprise, she shook her head and continued gazing at me, while I groped for more news.
The following Saturday, I explained that Gus called nightly, anxious to hear about her condition. Remembering her complaints about all the cooking, cleaning, and slaving for her recently-crippled husband, I tried to reassure her. “Gus promised to hire a maid. You’ll be a lady of leisure.”
She smiled.
I chattered about the new fellow I’d met, her friends, my friends--anything to renew that smile. The next week, she’d been disconnected from the oxygen tube, but an occasional oxygen mask applied over her mouth and nose helped her to breathe. She opened her eyes at hearing my voice.
“Look, Mother, I brought the photograph of us taken at your birthday party last year. Remember? You said it was your favorite picture. I’ll put it on the windowsill.”
She gazed at the photograph propped beside my most recent flowers.
Seeing her cheerful concentration, I wished I hadn’ t complained that the picture had emphasized my scrawny neck. I recalled then her pride in introducing me to her friends. I’d avoided meeting them, assuming they were uneducated and crude; instead, I found them friendly and caring. How Mother glowed when Leah remarked that I was a classy lady. Why had I clung to sad memories and ignored the happy ones? Was I still punishing her by refusing to acknowledge any kindness since our reconciliation?
The urine bag hanging beside her bed began filling. Seeing her squirm against the pillow, I said, “Can I make you more comfortable?” She nodded. I pulled up the pillow and gently rested her head against it. Her dark eyes regarded me with warmth. I felt a flush in my stomach and wanted to do more for her. When the nurse entered to dispense medication, I exclaimed, “Before her illness, my mother was very active, a professional belly dancer! She and a male accompanist playing a keyboard were paid to perform.”
“Really?” the nurse said, impressed, and coaxed Mother to swallow the pills.
She swallowed with difficulty and lay back. She looked up at me, her lips curved in a smile.
After that, my boss allowed me to leave earlier, and I visited her three times weekly. The oxygen mask had finally been removed, although overhead bags continued supplying antibiotics and intravenous feeding.
I whispered, “Mother, I’m here, but it’s Tuesday, not Saturday.”
Opening her eyes, she smiled at seeing me, and said, voice hoarse, “You got off from work?”
“Yes.”
“I can’t talk much.” She pointed to her throat.
“I know, but I’m glad you’re breathing on your own.”
She nodded. “Is the new fellow you met Jewish?
“I only know his first name--Pete.” To lift her spirits, I explained that he wasn’t poor like previous boyfriends, but owned a consulting firm. “He’s continually borrowing little things: The Wall Street Journal, index cards, a tape measure. My friends think they’re excuses to get to know me.”
“Find out his last name,” she urged, then sighed. “Well, after forty, maybe it doesn’t matter if he’s not Jewish.”
“It really doesn’t,” I said, and we smiled.
Arriving for my next visit, I was relieved to see her sitting up. I spoon fed her the pureed lunch, gloppy unappetizing piles. I kept coaxing, until she ate about half and stopped, wrinkling her nose in disgust all the while.
She lay back against the pillow. “The doctor said that later I can have peanut butter, strawberry jam, and bread. Would you mind bringing it?”
“Of course I wouldn’t mind.” I stared, surprised that she feared imposing on me.
She looked away. “I don’t expect you to forgive me for not raising you.”
“Mother, don’t worry about that now, just get well! July Fourth we’ll have fun again at a singles weekend in the Catskills, like our other good times over the past few years. Remember The Hudson Valley Resort, how we laughed because the fellows thought you were still in your fifties and I was in my twenties? Remember Jack who wanted to take you for a walk until he learned you were married?”
“Yeah, maybe I should’ve gone with him. Gus won’t come near me in a hospital. Despite all that money from his first wife’s inheritance, he’s a headache to deal with.” She shrugged. “My stingy husband tells me on the phone he can’t see me because car service costs a hundred dollars.”
“You know Gus was never stingy, but now he’s terrified of traveling alone in a wheelchair. I’m sure he loves you in his own way.”
She smiled faintly. “Maybe.” She shifted in bed and turned back to me with an earnest, “Should I order wedding invitations for you and the new fellow--Pete? A husband’s important! You don’t want to be old and poor. Jenny, I’ve tried and tried to tell you--” She stopped abruptly, as if to avoid nagging, and lay back against the pillow. “Will you visit tomorrow?”
I hesitated. I’d looked forward to meeting other artists at The Beaux Arts Ball.
Her eyes looked pleading.
“I’ll come.”
During the next visit, a steam mask was applied over her mouth and nose to help relieve her lung congestion. She hated the suctioning, the vacuum tube forced down her throat to suck up phlegm. She said it made her gag and she couldn’t stand it anymore. I begged her to continue.
“Please, Jenny, don’t ask this of me,” Mother said, her dark eyes gazing up at me.
“Think how much better you’ll feel without all that terrible phlegm!”
She sighed and turned her head. “I’ll think about it.”
Later, entering the bathroom, I heard her blurt out to a nurse, “She’s a wonderful daughter. I don’t deserve her.”
I felt a pang at Mother’s burden of guilt, sharpened by caustic reminders, and I wished I could ease her pain. Why hadn’t I appreciated our fun times since reconciling: the movies, interesting restaurants, laugh-filled Catskills weekends? In the mirror, I admired the tiny curls framing my face. Because Mother had begged me to cut my unbecoming gray hair, I’d shed twenty years.
Suddenly I welcomed other memories no longer excluded: being cuddled on her lap when I was very young. I could still feel that fuzzy red pullover she’d knitted for me, and I regretted having scorned her bourgois tastes: the rhinestone sweat shirts and gold tote bags. Having different values shouldn’t brand Mother as inferior. No wonder she’d stopped hugging me!
On Valentines Day, I brought a heart-shaped box of chocolates, and a card showing a child picking flowers. Rushing to her bedside, I said, “Look what I brought my Valentine.”
She gazed at me, the head tilted against the pillow with wonder. “Why are you so good to me? Is it because of the gifts?”
I paused, fighting tears. “It’s everything you’ve done for me since our reconciliation.”
She nodded, her eyes shiny, as if glad I finally appreciated her efforts to compensate for her early neglect. She fondled the picture. “My little girl,” she whispered, and looked up at me. “You must have laid out a fortune for this!”
“Isn’t my Valentine worth it?”
She touched my arm. “It’s nice having a daughter like you.”
“It’s nice having you around, too.”
Returning her smile, I filled with warmth, and suddenly I realized that she probably loved me very much, but in a bumbling, human way--not like the perfectly rational, fictitious mothers of movies and television. Her gifts hadn’t been bought ramdomly to ease her guilt, but responded to my specific needs: the patent leather, waterproof boots for rainy evenings, the opaque slip to wear under my beautiful lace dress, the silver stretchband watch that wouldn’t fall off my wrist. And for the past ten years, her faithful Saturday morning calls to Manhattan, the jokes to lift my spirits when I sounded depressed. I prayed she’d call again, and I felt grateful for our changed relationship. Perhaps my newfound affection had prompted affection in return.
For a long time, I held her soft hand, grateful I’d found my mother, at last.
