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actually seen each other in the year and a half since the wedding, by far the longest
we’d ever been apart. She had to say my name, and I had to connect the sound of her
voice to the frail, elderly woman coming toward me. Her hair had gone mostly gray, but
it wasn’t that. She seemed about half the size of the woman who a few short years
before had climbed behind the wheel of a car she only half knew how to drive and
pointed it toward Phoenix and the new life she was betting everything on. Had she been
like this at the wedding? Caught up in the event and my own happiness, had I failed to
notice? When had she become so tiny? Or was it me, simply that I was looking at her
with new eyes? After all, I was now married. At least symbolically my mother’s place in
my life had been diminished. But, no, it was more than that. The way she came toward
me had less to do with how I saw her than how she saw herself. In her own eyes she was
about half her former size. When I held out my arms, she stumbled, nearly falling into
my embrace. “Ricko-Mio,” she said. “Always there. Always my rock.”
SHE WAS IN terrible shape, shattered and barely functional. Determined to get back on her
feet as soon as possible, my mother immediately scoured the help-wanted ads but on
most days didn’t make a single call, unable to control her voice, barely able to hold on
to the phone because her hands shook so badly. On better days she’d set up interviews
around my teaching responsibilities, then cancel them as the time approached and she
became too nervous. I’d seen her in bad shape before, but this was new. It was as if her
world had gotten smaller, or the part of it she felt safe in had. For Barbara and me the
trailer was suddenly too small, its common areas, especially the kitchen, too cramped.
We were constantly in one another’s way. That was what my mother seemed to like best
about it. Back in Gloversville, after my grandfather’s death, she’d been living by herself
in our old at with the few pieces of furniture she’d bought and could no longer make
the payments on. Whole days had gone by, she told me, when she never heard the sound
of another human voice. The fact that we were so crowded in our trailer was having a
healing effect. She was no longer alone.
It also seemed to help that I was never gone for more than a few hours. Barbara had a
nine-to-ve job and left for work early, but my mother and I began each day over
coffee, mapping out what she’d try to get done in our absence, and in the evening we all
ate dinner together. I gave her my teaching schedule, so she knew when my classes got
out and roughly when to expect me back. I knew to call if something unexpected came
up at the university, because each afternoon she positioned herself at the window and
waited for the Gray Death (yes, still alive) to pull up beside the trailer. Normally I’d
have graded my papers and prepared for classes on campus, but things ran more
smoothly if I didn’t leave her alone too long. Gradually, her condition did improve. She
was able to cut back on the number of pills she was taking, and the tremor in her hands
became less pronounced. She set up more interviews and actually made it to a couple of
them.
The problem was that though my mother was doing better, my wife and I were doing
worse. She was nding reasons to stay later at work, and I couldn’t blame her. Each
night there were three of us at the dinner table, but mostly my mother talked to me as if