Such an unhappy woman.
• • •
For a long time I try to find her in the boxes of her father’s books, or, if not there, then somewhere else . . . among the crates of fossils from Mongolia, lately opened, in the center of the room that serves, in the Birdcage, as dining room and parlor both; or else in the closets, the drawers, the cupboards, even in the great, cold, black, cast-iron belly of the neglected claw-foot stove. From which I emerge, covered in ash.
• • •
It is fruitless, of course. All fruitless. My mother is not there. She is a planet, moving away from me. I track her orbits; I trail behind. I am the fiery red tail of her comet. I come close sometimes; but very seldom do I touch. Less and less often, as I grow.
• • •
And so I try to win her by charm.
(What would come naturally to any other child isn’t natural to me; charm rests uneasily upon my broad, red brow. But I try.)
Four and twenty tailors went to kill a snail, the best man among them durst not touch her tail . . .
In response to which song my mother turns away with a sigh, retreats, wringing her hands, into some other part of the house.
• • •
It’s no use, no use, any of it. The singing, the trying to keep my feet in, keep my pleats straight. Beside the point, all of it. It is all avoidance, changing the subject.
• • •
Here I am, Jumping Joan, when nobody’s with me I’m always alone . . .
• • •
No matter. No matter. Her back is turned. Head inclined. White nape of neck exposed, hair swept up, bound tight. She isn’t listening. This isn’t the kind of music she likes. She likes music played on a spinet, on a darling little piano. Accompanied by one voice only. There’s only one she can hear; could hear—ever.
• • •
Oh, Leo—can’t you make it be quiet? I’ve got such a dreadful headache!
• • •
She seems so fragile sometimes. Brittle, even. The milky-white translucence of her skin. Every molecule gleaming. There is less of her on some days than others. Sometimes, I feel like I can see through her. Straight through.
• • •
My mother is going to leave us.
• • •
I know this without knowing. It’s already inside me, her departure, lodged like a bubble behind my sternum. There is a hollow place, a gap, a fissure. A missing piece. Tap hard with my finger against my chest and I can hear the echo. Nothing I can do is going to change it now. It can be neither swallowed, nor dislodged. I have always known it without knowing. Thus my cries as she moved away from me.
Inevitably away.
• • •
There are signs.
• • •
One day, I find her at the dining table, papers spread out before her. She leans over them, chin cupped in hand, with an appearance of intense concentration. Approaching from behind, I see, over her shoulder: the blue of an ocean unknown to me, yellow dots that must be islands, the curving, black lines of latitude and longitude, a distant hemisphere divided up into wedges like a piece of fruit; notes that I can’t read, written in an unfamiliar hand. My mother hears me; quickly, she shuffles the papers into a stack, the map disappearing among them. She rises. The chatelaine jingles at her waist. Keys, thimble, scissors, tumbling. Without looking at me, pretending not to notice, she turns to mount the stairs.