“Mom? It’s me. I was thinking of coming down to
Florida for a weekend—say in about three weeks?”
“Oh, that’s wonderful. Whenever you want. Everybody?
The kids, too?”
“Uh, no, actually. Just me.”
“Oh.” A surprised tone and a pause. “Sure.
We don’t get much chance to be together just the two of
us. Maybe we’ll go shopping. That’ll be fun.”
“Good. And Mom? Will I be able to borrow your car for
a little while when I’m down there?”
Another slight pause. “Of course.”
Uncharacteristically, she asked no further questions.
We made plans and I got off the phone feeling exhilarated and
guilty. Yes, my mother was in Florida and I would stay with
her, but so was Jim in Florida, and I was head over heels in
love, although I hadn’t used those words to myself yet.
It was all very new, and clandestine, and terribly improbable,
but I could no more stop myself than I could stop time from
moving forward.
Jim and I had had only a few times together before he left for
spring training with the Atlanta Braves. He was attempting a
comeback after an eight year absence from the Major Leagues.
I had absolutely no idea what any of that meant. But I had just
learned that “spring training” meant more than just
two weeks away and neither of us wanted to be apart that long.
Jim asked me if I could come down to see him in Florida and
that’s when I called Mom.
It was early spring, 1978, and I had just turned 40—although
my feelings and behavior right then seemed more appropriate
to adolescence than middle age. I felt completely alive, so
wildly and deliriously besotted that I was willing to get on
a plane by myself for the first time (fear of flying) and leave
my teenage kids at home with their very unpleasant stepfather
(guilt, guilt, guilt). Their father was close by, and I alerted
him to the fact that I’d be visiting my mother and away
from home. I knew the kids would be safe—but not happy.
Ordinarily, I would not have done this, and looking back, I
still don’t feel good about it, but that’s the state
I was in.
I made the reservation myself—another first—and
survived the plane trip, my excitement a nice antidote to my
usual panic. The trip itself felt like a new beginning, as if
I were now free to move about in the world the way I imagined
other people did all the time.
My father had died a little more than a year before, and Mom,
grieving, had been learning to cope with everything Dad had
taken care of when he was alive. I guess in some ways we were
in parallel situations.
Recently, Mom had begun to keep company with a widower who was
tolerant of her still frequent crying spells. Phil was a kind
man, and they went to movies, played golf together and had dinner
a couple of times a week.
“Phil will be coming with me to the airport to pick you
up. I thought that would be nicer than having you take a taxi,”
Mom said.
“Fine. I’d like to meet him,” I said.
It was already getting dark when I landed that Friday night.
I heard her before I spotted her, that voice that could penetrate
any competing background noise. There they were, coming toward
me. Mom was in her mid-sixties then, younger than I am now.
Still beautiful, with an assertive stride,
her dyed orangey-red hair á la Lucille Ball and her Easter
egg colored clothing took nothing away from her extraordinary
movie star cheekbones or her sensuality. We hugged, and I shook
hands with Phil, a nice quiet man.
In the car, my mother kept up a stream of animated conversation.
“Phil’s a dentist,” Mom offered, her friend’s
professional status a source of pride.
“How about I take you girls to dinner?” Phil The
Dentist said. “You must be hungry after your flight.”
Before I had a chance to reply, Mom broke in.
“Oh, no, not tonight, Phil, but thank you. Paula’s
very tired and I have some cold chicken at the house for us.
I’m sure she just wants to have a quick bite and go to
bed early.”
“Mmm,” I said, knowing I had no real say in what
was unfolding.
Mom kept up the chatter all the way to the door of her apartment.
Then she neatly maneuvered me and herself inside, with Phil
on the outside, the door closing as she chattered her thanks
and goodnights and promises to see him the next day. She fastened
the six locks on the door and turned to face me.
“Okay, now what’s really going on? You didn’t
come all the way down here just to see me.”
I sighed. I was an open book to my mother and always had been.
“Right. Let’s sit down and talk. And were you just
making that up about the cold chicken? I am hungry.” I
told her about Jim. I didn’t have to tell her about my
feelings—she could see those all over my face. It was
such a relief to talk to somebody about him. She interrupted
only once, but with a barrage of questions.
“What does he do?”
“He’s a baseball player.”
“A what?! How old is he?”
“Thirty-nine.”
“And he’s still playing baseball? He doesn’t
have a job? Is he married? Kids? And what do you know about
baseball? Are you sure you know what you’re doing?”
“Mom, I know how it sounds. It’s really complicated
and I have no idea what’s going to come of it. But I’ve
never been so happy.”
Suddenly she got quiet, and looked down at her hands. I knew
something important was coming, but I was totally unprepared
for what she said next.
“You know, I often think that if Dad and I hadn’t
fought you so hard about seeing Danny, you might have had a
chance at happiness with him. Instead you’ve been so unhappy—two
bad marriages, so much struggling...I think about that a lot.
Your father and I thought we were doing the right thing at the
time—there weren’t so many mixed marriages like
there are now. I’m really sorry.”
I was stunned, and momentarily speechless. Danny had been my
first love, a Catholic of Spanish descent—a handsome,
bright, ethical and ambitious young man, five years my senior.
For three and a half years, I clung to him through my parents’
unremitting campaign against his character. He was not allowed
to phone or call for me; his name was not to be mentioned in
our home; I was often grounded and kept in my room. By the time
I was twenty-one, I was an exhausted, nervous wreck; Danny had
had enough, and he left me. I was devastated, but I didn’t
blame him.
My mother’s apology, twenty years later, went right to
some hard, twisted knot deep within me that I hadn’t been
aware of until that moment. It began to dissolve instantly,
and it was easier to breathe. Tears came to my eyes.
“Thank you for that, Mom. Thank you.” We hugged.
“Well, I sure hope you know what you’re doing,”
she said, sighing, the intimate moment beginning to make her
uncomfortable. “Come, let’s have some chicken.”
You know those children’s toys—instant dinosaur
or something like that—where you immerse some small, innocuous
looking thing into some water and it suddenly grows into another
thing entirely? As I lay awake that night, too excited to sleep,
that’s how I felt. I was changing, expanding—so
fast it was disorienting. I trembled with emotion and desire.
I hardly recognized myself. And in the morning, I would take
my mother’s car—with no resistance from her—and
drive north on a strange highway, by myself, following written
directions to find this man who had overturned my life as I
knew it and would be waiting for me. It doesn’t get much
more exciting than that.
I didn’t get lost. I found him. He was waiting for me.
That day we put a name to what was happening.
“I’m falling,” Jim said. “For the first
time in my life, I’m really falling....”
I returned the car, and myself, to Mom’s house by late
afternoon, in time for dinner as we had arranged. Jim phoned,
and said he wanted to come down and see me later that evening,
even if only for an hour. Which meant Jim and Mom would meet.
This was a very big deal. I looked over at Mom. She looked skeptical,
but agreed. I started to give Jim directions, and Mom took the
phone.
“Let me do that,” she said. “He’ll never
find it.”
She gave him directions in minute detail, using her most clearly
enunciated speech as if she were speaking to a small child,
and gave the phone back to me.
“It’s tricky finding this place,” I said to
Jim. “All the buildings look the same.”
“There’s no question that I’ll find you, wherever
you are, if I have to go into every building,” he said.
Oh my. Wow.
I helped Mom clear the dinner dishes and we sat down to wait.
Every once in a while she’d sigh and say “Oh God.”
But she always said that. It was a filler for her, when she
didn’t know what else to say. I didn’t have much
to say either. We were both nervous, for different reasons.
Near the time he was supposed to arrive, Mom and I began to
peer anxiously through the kitchen blinds. Finally, an unfamiliar
car cruised slowly into view in front of the building. We were
on the ground floor, so it was easy to see Jim at the wheel.
“There he is!” I said excitedly.
“What on earth is he driving?” Mom said. “That’s
a car?”
It was a little blue Renault that had seen a lot of hard driving,
which obviously didn’t earn him any points as far as Mom
was concerned.
We opened the door and Jim walked towards us, smiling shyly.
A professional athlete, he was in top condition, and his athletic
grace had a physical impact from forty feet away. Mom’s
eyebrows went up and her mouth twitched. I could read her as
easily as she could read me. I knew she was thinking, well,
there’s no doubt what this is about.
Introductions were made. Conversation was stilted, but without
incident. Finally, my mother took her usual commanding lead.
“Are you planning to take my daughter out tonight?”
“I’d like to, yes, Mrs. Waksman.”
“Don’t call me Mrs. Waksman. Call me Charlotte.”
“Okay, Charlotte. I thought we’d take a little ride,
maybe have a cup of coffee somewhere....”
“Now listen young man,” Mom said, actually wagging
her finger in front of his face, “you have my daughter
back here by midnight. People around here talk, and they mind
everybody’s business. I don’t want my daughter being
talked about, you hear?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Jim said, trying not to laugh.
He thought she was joking, but I knew better. This was the Mom
I knew. Apology, shmology. She was back in form, playing the
strict parent to a forty year old daughter and her thirty-nine
year old suitor. And we listened. We were back by midnight.
Promptly.
For a first meeting, it went rather well, particularly when
you consider how it might have gone. There was that wonderful,
breathtaking apology, her empathic cooperation, his respectful
response. All in all, no complaints.
After our wedding ceremony four and a half years later, Mom
grabbed me around the neck in a fierce hug, driving the post
of my earring deep into my neck, and said loudly enough for
other guests to hear “Well, I hope this one lasts.”
And when she finally, fully understood how much in love with
Jim I really was, she began to fight him, jealously, for control
of my heart and mind. Some things don’t change. But now
I was free, and out of reach. She couldn’t oust him, or
even best him, so periodically there was a truce—during
which she’d brag about “my son-in-law the baseball
player.”
Mom was a tough old bird, fiercely possessive and controlling.
On the other hand, she could on occasion rethink things, admit
she was wrong, and even apologize. No small thing. I do think
she wanted me to be happy. And Jim and I did go on to live happily
ever after—not quite like a fairy tale, because life is
more complicated than that, but close. ¶
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