Page 114 of Happy After All

I try to accept the fact that he and I are on that happiness continuum. It’s not forever. Even so, I feel different. Something is shifting inside me. My ability to just accept, to just float, doesn’t seem to exist in quite the same way that it did.

I’ve decided to swim. I can feel myself on the edge of a waterfall. I have to make decisions. About everything. I have to decide how I’m going to deal with Chris. I have to decide what I want to do with Nathan.

First, though, we’re going to talk to my mother.

I make a squeaking noise that’s nearly a scream and cover my face with my hands.

“That’s the mood?” he asks.

“Until further notice,” I say.

He nods. “Fair.”

“I need some music.”

“How about some Britney Spears.”

We are propelled by pop music all the way to Bakersfield. By the time we get there, I feel nothing. It’s an out-of-body experience, driving past the same fields I remember from childhood. The same buildings.

It has changed, but not that much.

I’m different, though. I have changed so much since I was a kid here.

I felt insignificant and lonely most of the time.

It’s never been Bakersfield that’s the problem. Just the way I felt in it. I realize that strongly as we drive through town and make our way toward the street my mother still lives on.

I don’t know if she’ll be home. It might be an exercise in futility.

I could have texted her. I really didn’t want to.

I didn’t want her to rehearse. I didn’t want to have any contact beforehand. I just ...

We roll up to the front of the house. The grass is dead. It’s been so dry. There’s one palm tree in the front yard that’s still alive.

The house is in desperate need of a new coat of paint. There’s a car in the driveway with the hood popped. It’s up on cinder blocks. There’s another car that looks functional.

I take in the little details of disrepair. They speak of solitude.

If I lived near my mother, if we had a relationship, I would take care of some sort of landscape to make it look nicer. I would’ve helped her fix her car.

I would have helped arrange to have someone paint the house.

I realize that I came here to yell at her. I came here to tell her what a terrible mother she was.

Everything in her life already speaks to that. She’s been cut off. By everyone.

I feel that. Deeply in my soul.

The pain of it. In that moment, I feel sorry for her.

Because there is nothing wrong with me.

There is something desperately wrong with her, and she’s never been able to have a relationship with her daughter.

Yes, it gave me issues. I’m angry about it. I have every right to be. What I’m angry about is the lack of a mother who can give me the things most mothers can. I ache for a person who doesn’t exist, and no amount of confrontation is going to fix that.

I came here to say something to her that would satisfy me.

---