Shelter Me Home(14)

"Brenda!" he yelled so loud she jumped.

Mom poked her head around the towering man and blinked like a barn owl. "Farrah?"

At least someone in this town recognized her.

"Yeah Mom, it's me."

"What are you doing here, honey?"

Rocking uncomfortably, and sure the roast was freezing itself to her arms, she asked, "Can I come in? Or can we talk somewhere?"

"Oh! Come in. What's that you got there?"

"It's a bear roast." She handed it over awkwardly and tried to smile  against the thousand memories that assaulted her as she stepped through  the door of her childhood.

The old trailer was shocking on the inside. Clean, with gleaming  hardwoods and coasters on the table. It wasn't littered with liquor  bottles and old cigarettes like the home she remembered. The couches had  been replaced sometime during her seven year absence, and the kitchen  tiles had been upgraded from the dingy old peeling linoleum she had done  her homework on when there wasn't room on the table.

"This place looks real nice, Mom."

"Oh, thank you, honey. We like to keep it clean, and Bob is a handyman.  He done most of the work on this place, himself. Bob, go put this roast  in the freezer." Mom's green eyes were clearer than she remembered,  focused. She didn't even smell like boxed wine when she gave Farrah a  small hug and pat on the back. "You let your hair grow out and get dark.  Looks real pretty like that."

Okay, this was not at all what she'd expected. Maybe she'd walked into  the wrong house after all. "Are you and Bob married?" she asked. Geez,  she was the worst at small talk.

"Oh, no. We just go together. I have no interest in hitching myself to  another man after your father." Her smile fell. "Though, I'm sure he had  his reasons for being unkind."

Bob disappeared into the back room with a goodbye grunt and Farrah sat  carefully on the recliner to protect herself from getting too close to  her mom. She felt like a stranger in that tiny living room, and the  walls were coming for her, inch by inch.

Clearing her throat, she lifted her chin. "I have some questions for  you, and I wanted to ask them in person. A phone call just didn't seem  right after everything before."

"I'm sober now. Two years," Mom said with a smile that begged Farrah to be proud of her.

"That's good, Mom. Really good."

"You want to know about your father? Is that why you've come?"

"No. Actually, I've come to ask about the family who wanted to adopt me."

Mom pursed her lips. She looked so much older now with gray hair and lines and signs of age. "How did you hear about them?"

"From you. You used to tell me you wished you'd given me to those fancy dancy do-gooders who wanted to adopt me."

Mom shrunk back like she'd been slapped. "I said that?"

"Many times. I'm not mad, or here to get an apology for the things that  happened, though. I need you to answer questions so I can make important  decisions about my own life."

"Okay," she said in a frail voice. "Doctor Jansen and his wife stepped  up when I put out an advertisement about adopting you out. Your father  had just left me, and I was pregnant and alone and didn't have any  money, and I thought, what can I offer a baby? So I was going to just  have you, then give you to some well-off family who could provide better  for you than I could, and that would be that."

"But Doctor Jansen has a daughter. Maisy. She's almost my age."

"They adopted her a year after I backed out of our agreement. She knows it."                       
       
           



       

"Why couldn't you give me up?"

"Well," Mom said, struggling with the tremor in her voice. "I thought I  could, right up until I held you for the first time. I maybe shouldn't  have, but I was stupid enough to think I could handle it. I held you,  and I just couldn't stop holding you. And no matter what happened after  that, I started out with good intentions. I was going to make something  of myself and give you a good life. It just didn't work out that way."

This was so much harder than she'd expected it to be. Farrah had been  prepared for combative Mom who never did anything wrong. Even for drunk  Mom who laughed in the face of her somber hurt. This new Mom was a  different puzzle altogether. It physically hurt to feel bad for the  woman. After all of the names she'd called her, after all the neglect,  hunger, and public embarrassment-and now Mom seemed sorry about her  mistakes.

Farrah had forgiven her long ago, but not for Mom. She'd done it for  herself, so she could move on and have a chance at a better life without  an anchor of hurt, distrust, and anger at the unfairness of life noosed  around her neck.

"But Mom, didn't you ever think when things got too hard to take me back to Doctor Jansen and his wife?"

"No, honey. I loved you. Now, I might not have shown it much, I don't  know, I don't remember, but you were the best decision I ever made. The  only one that made a lick of sense in my life."

Farrah's insides felt like they were being shredded. It was hard not to  lash out. What Mom was saying was selfish, and she couldn't even see it.  And what if Farrah kept this baby and made the same mistakes? What if  she neglected the child, and then years later told it "Hey, it was all  worth me hurting you for eighteen years because I enjoyed the ride"?

Mom dropped her gaze to Farrah's hands clamped over her stomach. "Why are you asking about adoption?"

"Because I'm pregnant and trying to decide what would be best for the child."

"You're pregnant?" A tight smile and faraway look took over Mom's face. "I'm going to be a grandmother?"

"No, Mom. I don't know. Look, I'm not with the father anymore-"

"Who is he?"

Farrah opened and closed her mouth like a landed silver salmon. "Miles. Miles Anderson."

"Oooh, that sounds like a fine name to give a child. Anderson."

"Mom."

"I'm going to write that down so I remember."

"Mom! Stop. I said I'm not with him anymore. He's down in New York, and I've moved back here."

"Where are you staying? Do you need a place to live?"

"No, I've got a job and a place up at a homestead. Aanon Falk runs it now, and I rent a cabin on his property."

"Oh, I know Aanon. Upstanding young man. He'd be great to raise my grandbaby around."

Praying for patience, Farrah took a long, calming breath. "I'm not with  Aanon, nor will I be raising a baby with him. If I decide to keep this  child, and that is totally up to me, I'd be raising it on my own. No  man, just me."

"Well, I raised you and look how you turned out."

That argument was completely invalid. How Farrah turned out had nothing  to do with Mom's talent for raising children. It had everything to do  with Farrah's drive to survive her childhood and try to eke out some  semblance of normalcy in adulthood.

"Raising the baby with a man would be best, and you should try to work  things out with Miles Anderson if you can. For the baby's sake."

Okay, Mom had drifted into lala land. Reality had left the building and  waited just outside the door. She hadn't even asked why they'd split up.  He could be an ax murderer for all she knew, and here she was telling  Farrah to go back to that cheating, pathological liar. If she did decide  to keep the baby, she was taking an extensive course on proper advice  for offspring.

"I've got to get going-"

"Come see me again," Mom begged, a cold hand clutched around Farrah's elbow. "It's been so good to see you. Please."

Nothing in her wanted to repeat this little reunion    . She had hours of  stuff to sort through just from the short conversation they'd had. A  bitter childhood clung to this place and to escape it again, she needed  space. But Mom was pleading, and tears streamed down her face like she  thought she would never see her again.

"Okay. I'll come and visit again."

"Promise me."

"Promise. Bye Bob, it was nice to kind of meet you," she called out to no answer.                       
       
           



       

Mom stood on the porch and waved until Farrah couldn't see her in the  rearview mirror of the Chevy anymore. She didn't know how to feel, and  by the time she pulled up to the big house, she couldn't do more than  slump in the cushion of the driver's seat and grip the steering wheel.

She was happy, proud even that Mom had sobered up, but why couldn't she  have made the effort at any time during her childhood? Why had she  waited to become a decent person until she was long gone? Why had Mom  hidden that soft part of herself all those years? When Farrah was young,  she used to wish Mom would do something-anything normal. Read a bedtime  story or tuck her in. Help her with homework or even look at her report  card before she signed it. Cook meals for her, grow a garden with her.  Geez, tell her she loved her! Anything would've been better than  nothing. And now suddenly Mom's eyes were open and clear for the first  time she could remember, and she hadn't done it for her. She'd done it  for Bob, the beer-gutted bald man with atrocious manners and a penchant  for belching in front of house guests.