Excerpt: Gwendolyn

There were many things said about my mother. Some I would hear from hushed conversations by both children and adults who were oblivious to how far their voices carried. Other things were said directly to me by children eager to make the new girl cry. Generous people called her beautiful and free-spirited. And she was. Others called her a slut and a whore. That may have been true. Those same people labeled her as selfish and a horrible mother. That part I never accepted. Years later when I would have my own children, I questioned it myself for a little while, but other events would teach me that when it comes to being an all-loving, self-sacrificing mother, we all fall short.

This is what I do know of my mother. There was always food on the table, but I didn’t always know where it came from. She was always home when I was awake and not in school, but if I woke up at night, there was an elderly neighbor snoozing on the couch in front of the TV. My mother and I shared a bed in our one bedroom apartment in Dallas, and on the nights she was home, I felt like the luckiest kid in the world. Schoolmates who had their own bedrooms full of lame Barbie dolls and frilly, babyish pink comforters were lonely at bedtime, while my mom and I snuggled together in her bed, sharing a bowl of popcorn and watching the classics on late night T.V., like “I Love Lucy,” “I Married Joan” and “The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show.” We loved those shows so much that sometimes when we came across their pictures or memorabilia at garage sales, we would buy them and decorate our room together. I was never lonely when Mom was home. I think now that she kept us in that one-bedroom apartment to guard against her loneliness too. As we propped ourselves up on pillows and I leaned into her arms, I would look up into her face. She answered with a contented smile and a kiss on the forehead, but even I could see there was some effort behind it.

To me, my mother was the most beautiful woman in the world. She had what my grandpa called strawberry blond hair. It was long, wavy, and wild. It was always a little frizzy and wispy at the ends, no matter how many different conditioners, gels and hairsprays she used. She had just a smattering of freckles across her nose and cheeks, which were almost undetectable when she wore make up. She was tall and thin. Sometimes as we were lying in bed on a Saturday, I could see the protrusions of her hipbones sticking out from beneath her nightgown. There were times when eating seemed like an effort to her, but she always ate a few bites in front of me when we sat down for meals.

Most of the meals she cooked were from a box: mac and cheese, hamburger helper, shake and bake chicken. On Saturdays, she always made Pillsbury cinnamon rolls. On Sundays, she always made Jiffy mix pancakes, and I thought they were the best pancakes in the world. Later I had a friend who bragged that her mom baked everything from scratch. After staying with her family one weekend, I didn’t think those pancakes were anything to brag about. Her mom was a woman who took pride in making their home her full-time profession, as if this somehow gave her a moral authority over my own mom. It didn’t matter that this woman was on husband number three. Being a wife and mom was a full-time job to her, by-gosh, so that gave her the right to look at me with deep sympathy whenever my mother was mentioned.

I knew not to ask too many questions after a while, like why we were living in Dallas with no close friends or family, when my mom had grown up in a small town in Nebraska. I no longer asked why I didn’t have a dad. And I no longer asked where she went at night. Her answers changed whenever I asked, and sometimes she would just get angry.

Then one afternoon when I was eight years old, the world I had shared with my mother was different. I came home from school, threw my backpack in the corner by the door, and stopped abruptly as I looked up. A man was sitting at our dining table across from my mother.

They both looked up at me nervously. They were drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes. My eyes went immediately to the cigarette in my mother’s hand. The disgust I felt must have showed in my face, because she abruptly put it out. I had never seen her smoking before then. My eyes narrowed at her before focusing my glare on the man who was clearly a bad influence.

His hair was so dark it was nearly black, like mine. It was short, messy and spiky, a look I recognized from boys at my school who thought a palm full of hair gel could make them MTV stars.

“Gwendolyn, honey,” Mom paused to clear her throat. “This is my friend, Rick.”

He looked up at me with an embarrassed smile. I felt a nudge of satisfaction that my glare made his smile disappear, and he stared back down at the handle of his coffee mug.

“Gwen!” my mother snapped. Unlike most mothers who use their child’s full name when angry, my mother only shortened my name when she was angry. “Where are your manners? Say hello.”

“Hello,” I said curtly. He stood up and looked at me. Really looked at me. So many emotions seemed to flicker across his face. I was too young to know what all of them meant. In my memories, there was maybe something of hope, pride, sadness, and shame. But maybe that’s just my own adult projections of how I would react. Even as an eight year-old child, it only took that moment to recognize my own features in his face. The parts of me that did not come from my mother were all right there in front of me, and everything made sense.

“It’s nice to meet you Gwen,” he said, extending his hand. I stared at his hand until he took it back. He shrugged and put both hands in his pocket.

“My name is Gwendolyn,” I said and walked into the bedroom, closing the door behind me.

It was only a few minutes longer that I heard the murmur of their voices. They were so hushed, I couldn’t make out what they were saying. My mother’s voice sounded almost pleading for a moment, then accepting.

The door to the apartment opened and closed. I heard my mother’s footsteps approaching our bedroom, and I quickly grabbed a random book from the nightstand, and sat back against the bed pillows flipping it open. Nancy Drew. She was always trying to get me to read Nancy Drew. The bedroom door opened, but I didn’t look up as she quietly and gracefully snuggled up beside me.

I felt her stare on me as I pretended to read. I felt the lump rising in my throat. I struggled to keep my breathing even as my chest ached and I tried to blink back the tears that couldn’t be held back. I sniffed and ignored them as they fell. She reached toward my face and caught them with the back of her index finger.

“I’m sorry, baby,” she whispered and leaned her head on my shoulder. With that the floodgates opened, and I sobbed great choking gasps of breath as I buried my head in my mom’s arms. I never looked into her face. I knew I would see her own pain, and I didn’t think I could take it. A few times, I felt her own breath catch, as if there was something she wanted to say, but thought better of it.

At some point, exhausted, I finally fell asleep, and in the early hours of the morning, my mother would not wake up. I would never see her open her eyes again.