“Are you saying it’s something else?”
Rus seemed to enjoy my uncertainty. He elevated his chin and chuckled. Curled his lips into a quizzical expression and shrugged. “Who knows? Maybe it was a pet. A dog. Or maybe a cat. Or maybe it was a ghost. A ghost from the past.”
When I frowned, he laughed even harder. I stood there for a few seconds and waited for his laughter to subside. “Are you going to tell me what you mean by that?”
“I thought you were a mathematician. I thought you were ingenious. You can’t figure this out on your own?”
I pressed him to reveal what he thought he knew but he wouldn’t say anything more. I tried a soft tone, and then a harsher one. Nothing worked. I tried not to lead him with my suspicion about his deduction but when I failed with my general queries I gave it a try.
“You think DP is a place, not a person?” I said.
He smirked with the kind of intellectual arrogance befitting his deceased son. The way he arched his neck and wrinkled his nose left no doubt that he was certain he understood the meaning of DP.
“It’s a person and a place,” he said. “You can’t figure it out on your own, go ask your mother. Maybe she can help you.”
I marched toward the door and opened it to leave. Then I heard Rus’s voice behind me.
“When was the last time you went to see him? Have you even been there once during the last year?”
I didn’t answer. Instead I continued on my way out.
He hurled a few obscenities at my back. This was becoming a habit, I realized, people swearing at me as I left their homes. On the surface, a potential cause for concern, but wasn’t therapy supposed to be this way? Didn’t pain precede healing?
I slammed the door shut behind me. More therapy. A wave of relief washed over me as soon as it clicked shut. I’d survived and hadn’t killed him, either. I wasn’t sure if I’d made any progress but the latter two achievements were minor causes for celebration.
I drove eight miles to the bedroom community of Rocky Hill and checked into a Super 8 motel. It was cheap, well-lit, close to the highway, and had a good rating online.
The next morning I ate a short stack of pancakes at the Town Line Diner for breakfast. Then I made a trip across the Connecticut River to the suburb of Hebron to visit my deceased husband’s grave. Rus was right. His son had been my husband. He may have been a terrible one but I’d promised before God to honor him for the rest of my life, and this former altar girl took her vows seriously. Afterward, I drove back to Rocky Hill to visit the person who’d killed him.
I drove to see my mother.
CHAPTER 14
I don’t have many vivid memories from childhood. At least not many pleasant ones. That’s not to say I was beaten constantly or struggled to survive. No. My parents made sure there was food on the table and clothes in our closet. My brother and I never suffered for anything other than calm. We were nervous all the time. In fact, our nerves remained on alert for the first eighteen years of our lives until each of us left for college. We simply never knew when our father would explode.
I do recall, however, one particular moment of joy. It was a moment of unconditional release and surrender. Fear and anxiety left me. Perhaps the constant trauma magnified its emotional resonance. Maybe that was a common experience for most kids. But to me it was anything but normal.
I was probably five or six years old and I hadn’t learned to swim yet. My father ordered me to take my inflated swimming ring and follow him into deep water, where he would take it away from me and force me to swim back alone. I was so afraid I would drown, I looked at my mother and begged her to let me stay ashore with her. She scolded my father and told him to leave me alone. Then she picked me up at the ocean’s edge and held me close to her breast. I could still feel her salty kiss on my forehead and the moisture of her bathing suit as she told me I didn’t have to go, that she would take care of me. And as the waves crashed ashore and spilled water onto my legs, I hung onto her and believed that at least one person on Earth loved me and would protect me until the day that I died.
Now I stood at the door to her corner condominium unit in Rocky Hill, pulse racing, wondering if she would even let me in her house. The thought of her slamming the door in my face made my stomach turn, even more so than the thought of having to talk to her at all. There are few things worse in life than holding hate in one’s heart for a parent, except the knowledge that the feeling is mutual.
The curtain in the front window moved. I couldn’t see anything through the tinted glass. Then I heard the sound of the chain sliding open and the door swung open.
She was a shockingly fit woman with striking gray hair, so streamlined from head to toe that she wouldn’t have needed the proverbial broom to take flight. The skin on her face glistened and belied her age. She didn’t say anything. She simply stared at me with her cold, disapproving eyes. Someone needed to say something. I decided I was the visitor, so the obligation fell to me.
I nodded at the beaten and worn hiking boots standing at attention beside the door.
“What’s with Marko’s shoes?”
She frowned as though I were an idiot for having to ask. “When you’re a woman living alone you can’t take any chances. If a burglar sees those shoes, he’ll assume there’s a man inside and he’ll go away. Unless the burglar knows my son and daughter. Then he’ll waltz right in, rob me, and kill me because he’ll know that neither of them stuck around to take care of me.”
She stepped aside to let me in. My spirits soared. If I was entering her house, there was a chance for reconciliation. This was familial hate as I knew it. Beneath it lay a desperate desire for healing and the inner peace that had evaded me my entire life, which made the heartbreak all the more excruciating.
I followed her through the house. As we passed the dining room, I glanced at the corner étagère that contained my mother’s prize possession, a jewelry box inlaid with rubies and emeralds. Her grandfather had been a craftsman commissioned by Czar Alexander III to produce such treasures. It was the only masterpiece that had stayed in the family and made it to America.
We entered the kitchen. The sweet smell of black cherries wafted into my nostrils. A rolling pin and cookie cutter rested on a cutting board covered with flour. Steam billowed from a huge silver pot on her stove. I knew by the smell and the utensils that my mother was making Ukrainian dumplings called varenyky. This particular batch would be stuffed with black cherries and served with melted cane sugar and sour cream. One of my childhood favorites. Mercy.
A mother never forgets her child’s weakness. I spied her checking out my figure.
“You hungry?” she said.
Another mother might have meant it in a caring way. But I knew that cajoling me into leaving a pound heavier would provide her with a sick form of satisfaction. Some mothers try to help their daughters become as beautiful as possible, while others reach a point where they prefer to compete with them.
Another daughter might have cared, but she would have never tried my mother’s black cherry varenyky. This is one of the benefits of aging. One can humble oneself when necessary to get the best out of life.
“Yes,” I said. “I’d love a couple. So thoughtful of you to make these for me.” Of course she hadn’t made them for me. Even if she’d known I was visiting, she wouldn’t have cooked for me.
My mother chuckled. “You’re so lucky I’m your mother. How many girls have such a good sense of humor? Obviously you got it from me. Your father’s idea of a joke was staring at the balance in his savings account. Sit down and let me fatten you up. You’re too thin.”