Page 74 of Past Tents

“I know. I know it does. But I’m telling you that you can trust me. So come find me when you believe it.”

She began stepping down the bleachers, but not before I saw her eyes brim with tears that she wiped with her fingers. And then I just saw her back as she walked away.

CHAPTER

TWENTY-NINE

ALLY

Ithought I’d hear from Clay within a day. But as a day turned into three days, I started to lose hope.

At first, the voice inside my head told me that my mother was right—Clay was no different than any other man. Destined to leave.

I’d heard the same refrain—and played it again in my own head—for so many years, it was like a blasted anthem. Only now, I didn’t recognize the tune. For the first time, I didn’t believe my mother’s proclamation.

Her words seemed defeatist—a defense from someone who’d been burned and who’d given up instead of keeping the faith in her own pursuit of romance. I had no idea what had made my mother give up, what had made her cling to a ridiculous bear story and instill her so-called wisdom in me, but it didn’t matter now.

Clay had convinced me I was worthy of a happily ever after, long before he’d proven he was the very guy I wanted to give it to me. Long before he’d let his own fears clamp down on him. I still hadfaith that he’d come around, but when he did, I needed to have my shit sorted.

And I knew what I needed to do to make that happen—I needed to talk to my mom.

Tracking her down on the commune wasn’t easy because they had chores they did to keep the place going, and I knew from experience that my mother could be anywhere from the kitchen to the garden at any given hour. She spent long hours tending to vegetables and cooking meals—that was the way she contributed.

I’d never visited her in California but I had an image of what life must be like there—lots of free-spirited women working together to farm and cook. Women who sang folk songs or played mahjong in the evenings.

My mom answered her cell phone after three rings, her face filling the screen of the video chat. “Is this my sweet girl?”

Her cherubic face looked tanned and healthy, with a few more lines than I remembered but the same heart-shaped face as me. Her hair was a touch more gray, hanging in a long braid over her shoulder.

“Hi, Mom. Are you in the garden?” I could see something blurry and green behind her and a fragment of blue sky.

“Yes. I’ve been working here all morning.” She flipped the phone around to show me rows of red chilis hanging on tall plants and bushes bursting with tiny tomatoes. Turning the camera back, she smiled. “How are you doing? Everything okay?”

“Actually, not really. I wanted to talk to you about the whole self-sufficiency thing. I know you think men are only bound to leave and you want me to be independent and on my own...”

I waited for her to tell me I’d gotten it wrong, that I’d overcorrected. I wanted her to tell me I should still aim for all the fantasies I’d always had about meeting someone great—like Clay—and believing in a future with a man.

“Yes?” she prompted.

“You don’t really think all men are destined to leave, right? I know that was your experience, but it doesn’t have to be mine.”

She was silent and still for so long that I thought our connection had frozen. “Sweetie, I don’t know what you want to hear. I’m just trying to save you from the heartache I experienced. Isn’t that what a parent does?”

Her eyes looked so clear that I almost mistook their clarity for sound judgement. And I realized I vehemently disagreed. After meeting Clay’s parents, I disagreed even more. Parents were simply humans who brought their own baggage along and had an important choice when it came to raising children: they could push their ideas onto them, or they could give them the tools they needed to form their own.

I didn’t know why it took seeing my mother standing in a field in California for me to finally understand that she and I were not the same person. What was right for her didn’t need to be right for me.

I was not my mother. And I still believed in love.

“Ally? Everything okay? I should get back to the gardening before it gets too hot.” My mom shook me out of my reverie with a tone of impatience more than concern.

“Yes, Mom. Everything’s okay. I just wanted to tell you I met someone and I really, really care about him. And...I’m happy.”

I couldn’t tell if maybe she got some pollen in her eye because she started blinking and eventually shaded her eyes from the sun so I couldn’t see them. But she nodded. “Okay, well, if you’re happy, then I’m happy for you.”

And that was it. She didn’t add a warning or tsk-tsk me for failing to be a lone wolf. She was happy for me. Which made me happy for myself.

CHAPTER

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