Maggie had not always laid powerlessly in a bed. In her standing days her 5’7” frame had been a force to be reckoned with. Emma heard stories of when her mother led a sit-in protest over the treatment of lab animals at her school. She was always a whirlwind of auburn haired energy investing herself in causes to protect the underdog. Her major in college appropriately was in social work and that was going to be her life’s focus until she literally bumped into Jack one day on campus.
Her father must have seen in Maggie everything he wasn’t. He was the epitome of buttoned-down, and kept everything close to the chest buried beneath his smooth tidy exterior. Jack was tall, a fit slender with sandy blonde hair that continued to darken with age. Emma was sure he must have emotions, but they were always on a leash and impossible to see behind his smokey gray eyes. Maybe he was more reckless when he was a young man, but she highly doubted it. Jack was studying business at the time and always had a head for putting together a big deal. He was organized, efficient and could be ruthless if needed. Maggie was none of those things, she intrigued him and he had to possess her. Capturing her and convincing her to marry him was one of the best deals he ever put together. It may not have had the results he calculated on, but she definitely added balance and light to his life.
The attractive couple married in the spring after graduation and moved to the city to begin their promising careers. Jack rose to the top of the corporate ladder quickly, while Maggie wallowed in the inner-city’s poorest areas and did what she could to help which was never enough. After only a few years she found herself expecting a baby which had not been on Jack’s master life plan. Maggie, however, was delighted. She hoped to give this little life force all the things she could not for the children she worked with and convinced Jack to move to the “country”. The suburbs really, just a small piece of property tucked between where the city ended and the country began. It was a fixer-upper so they could afford it and that was where Emma was born.
Maggie could not leave her precious babe with a sitter who would not love her as much as she did so she went to part time work and took Emma with her whenever she could. Emma rarely had a memory her mother was not a fixture in. She taught her to love life and love learning and the world and people who lived in it. She was a magical mom for any young girl. In her memories she may have created a saint, but Emma thought they were pretty accurate. She always knew she was loved and grew up feeling safe which were the greatest gifts any child could be given.
Some of her best Mom-Maggie memories were of the times they spent immersed in great literature together. She could not remember a time that books had not been a central feature in their relationship. Her love for words on a page probably began in the womb. Maggie said she would read Emma classic poetry and could feel her move to the cadence. Emma was not sure about that, but she did remember sitting on her mother’s lap, until she outgrew it and moved to her side, sucking up every word until she had to supplicate for more. Even after she could read the words herself she still liked to hear her mothers throaty interpretation of each character. More than listening, it was living inside the stories. They would at times take turns, each reading a page aloud. When Emma graduated to chapter books her mom would select a title for them both to digest and afterward they would sit for hours and discuss the setting, storyline, protagonist and more, recreating what the author must have felt as she poured it onto the page. Her mother would always be with her when she read.
But Maggie was outdoorsy too. Mother and daughter would go for long walks and stop to notice every little creature or plant that crossed their path. Emma’s skills of observation were magnified as if her mom was a living breathing set of binoculars. Often they would pack a picnic and find a shady spot under a tree, next to a stream or playground to partake of their wicker basket wonders. There was aways an unusually-filled surprise sandwich where one never knew what would be found inside. From peanut-butter with bananas to pickles with cream cheese, they were always a treat. Once Emma even opened her mouth to consume fish eyes hanging out from between two slices of bread. Her mother said the fish were called sardines, but Emma felt like a barbarian eating them straight from the stream. Their lunches always included a piece of fruit and a new vegetable of the week that if she ate, a luscious sugar confectionary of some sort would be added to the menu. Those were precious memories as well. A child could not even make up this kind of mother.
Emma was never as close to her Father-Jack as she was to her mother, but he had been more a fixture in their home during her younger years. Jack grew up in a small town called Cross Keys in Rockingham County, Virginia near the Shenandoah Valley. His father, grandpa Robert, was a lobbyist in D.C. and attempted to keep the family out of the frays of city life, but in the process was never home much. Jack was the middle of three sons born to Robert and Elizabeth and the most driven from birth. It was innate. He played every sport offered and excelled at each one, enjoying both team and individual athletic events. Jack’s mother attended every competition, but it was his father he hoped to make proud with his achievements, which of course he did, but somehow never felt that approval. So Jack’s journey had been a continual effort to fill that hole and make someone proud of him. Emma understood none of this, just that her father was her often absent little girl hero. One thing that was always evident though was his adoration of her mother. Maggie was his queen and in his reserved way he made it evident in all he did. Maggie filled that gapping hole.
Before the “accident” Jack used to take Emma to major sporting events occasionally and she loved when he called her his “sweetie pie”. Their best daddy-daughter times together had been their movie nights. Jack was a film aficionado. Friday nights were reserved for date night with her mother, but Saturdays when the sun went down they showed family friendly flicks in the basement on their movie projector screen. Jack would pop a large bowl of buttered popcorn with just the right amount of salt. Emma would get into her pjs in case she fell asleep during the show and they would grab extra napkins for buttery fingers. The room was filled with movie posters and he would write the name of the movie playing on a chalk board like a theater marque. Disney and Pixar were regulars in the cue, but Emma saw shows that many her age had never heard of and learned how to appreciate different kinds of movie going experiences. They even watched foreign films where she had to read the words on the bottom of the picture. “E.T. the Extra Terrestrial” scared her the first time she saw it, but was now one of her favorites. Movies could still take her away to another place and allow her to feel a closeness to her father even when he wasn’t in the room much anymore. She often wished she could remove the barrier between them and be his Sweetie Pie again.
When Emma was seven her mother gave birth to her brother Arty. Her father named him after King Arthur, one of his heroes. By the time he was eight months old it was obvious something was not right and he was diagnosed with Angelman Syndrome, named after the British pediatrician, Harry Angelman, who first discovered it. Angelman's was caused by her mom’s messed up 15th chromosome. Arty did not do the things most little boys should be doing. He was behind in everything and always would be. He would never age past about 3 mentally, walk with any coordination or play ball with his dad. But he had such a cherubic face and even though he couldn’t talk was always laughing. A.S. people are sometimes referred to as "angels", both because of the syndrome's name and because of their youthful, happy appearance. It was pretty rare, but they had drawn the winning lottery ticket with Arty. After her parents found out things became a little different at their house. Her mom was still mom, but she was not as carefree and dad was still dad, but the smoke over his eyes got denser and he was gone more traveling for work.
Emma adored Arty from day one and still did. He was the most beautiful baby she had ever seen with the brightest blue eyes, silky blonde curls and flawless pink skin marred only by one lip-shaped birthmark on the back of his right shoulder blade. It was as if he had been kissed before send off and heaven had dispatched their most glorious perfect angel incognito. He would always be her baby brother, literally. How would it be to never grow up or worry about all the things that come along with that. Maybe she should have been the one with Angelman’s. Then it would have been dad’s gene that caused it and things might have been different. Who knows. She didn’t think he blamed her mother, but he never looked at her or any of them the same. She didn’t know if he even looked at himself in the mirror.
Maggie did her social work even less, then not at all, and worked with Arty more. Emma was often her assistant when she wasn’t at school. They still went on walks and Maggie still told her stories, but their world had a new perspective. Emma knew hard things could happen. One day when Arty was almost six and she had barely been home from school, her full-of-life mother let out a small shriek of pain and just slumped over like her battery had run out. She was still breathing, but Emma could do nothing to rouse her so called 911. An ambulance arrived and whisked Maggie to the hospital. It turned out her mother’s imaginative mind was harboring a weak vessel that blasted open filling her brain with blood. She survived, but did not wake up from the aneurysm. After several weeks in the hospital they brought her home and a home health nurse came regularly to tend to her and Arty. Mother and son were both home all the time, her dad was gone all the time and she was trapped somewhere in the middle.
Emma was still sitting in the fabric floral chair at her mother’s bedside. Desperation hung thickly in the room. Without really thinking Emma bowed her head and offered a simple prayer to somewhere. She did not know really what she believed, but she hoped there was a Enlightened Essence of some kind who listened and helped when or how they were able. She wasn’t even sure where to begin, but at this point she doubted sending words into the vast void could do more damage.
“God, if there is a God and if you can hear me. This is Emma Lanrete. I know we are not close, but since you are able to understand everything and all, I was hoping you are a supporting sort of Presence that shows some compassion to even semi-believers. I am not asking for a sign or miracle or anything major, I will let you save those for your more faithful followers. I just need to not feel so alone and to know if it matters I am here. This house has been going through a pretty rough patch as you might already know. I feel like I can barely breath at times. Help me if you can. That’s it. Thanks. Emma.”
No comments:
Post a Comment