Her Mother

Herewith, the latest selection from dusted-off published poetry and short fiction, circa 1970s vintage and beyond....

She stood beside her mother at the kitchen sink, wiping dinner dishes. Short as she was, she still stood taller than her mother. There was no resemblance in their facial features, still less in their bearing. The older woman moving efficiently, humming a monotone irritating to her daughter's ears. The younger woman wiping clumsily, as though unaccustomed to the chore.

Alexis's mind was busy, all kinds of openings tried on her inner ear and each rejected in turn. When she stood for a moment in her mother's way as the older woman reached for a dirty pot on the stove, there was no 'excuse me', just a brusque shove. Not meant to offend, although it did. It was just her mother's way.

"Ma, I'm moving out", she finally uttered. At first there was no indication that her mother had heard. Arms up to the elbows in the right-hand sink, scrubbing pots, then dipping them into the clear rinse water of the left-hand sink, her mother continued to clean up, her manner mechanical and thorough.

"What?" finally came the response. "What?"

I'm twenty one years old Ma, and I need to be independent." The words tumbled out, independent of her carefully rehearsed calm. "I'm moving, to an apartment of my own." Keep your voice firm. One quaver and she'll know you're testing the waters.

"What kind of crazy nonsense? What are you talking?" her mother asked, voice grating on Alexis's sensibilities, strengthening her determination to see it through. She had to anyway, she'd committed herself to half the rent. Ellen was counting on her, and she was damned anyway if she'd spend any more of her life in this house.

She had to face her mother's incredulous annoyance, writ large on her face, as she wiped her arms on the apron, heard the dishwater gurgling into the drain, her mother standing there, one eyebrow raised in her combative manner, ready for an argument, any argument. Her mother loved their constant battles, of that Alexis was certain. Some people needed tension in their lives, it seemed to render a peculiar kind of satisfaction to feel put-upon, martyred. She, on the other hand, was bloody well sick of it.

"I've rented an apartment, me and Ellen, partners, and we're moving into it in two weeks. Ellen has furniture, she's been living in another place, so I won't need anything really, right away." She forced herself to slow down, the words were running away with her, one piling into the other. Her mother's face still evinced no real comprehension. She might have been saying that the chicken hadn't been tender enough. Her mother had that defensive/offensive look on her face.

"Ellen?" Mrs. Margolies repeated. "Who, Ellen?"

"Ellen Schwartz."

"Schwartz? You mean Ellen from down the street? When did you see her? I thought she was in California, no?"

"No, she's been back in Toronto for a few years."

"That's nice, back in Toronto and she didn't even come to visit, I was such a good friend with her mother, and she was like a daughter, a second daughter by us. Nu", she shrugged philosophically, "what can you do? People are like that! You're helping her to move to a new apartment?"

Alexis inhaled, counted to ten, wondered if her mother was being deliberately obtuse to gain time, work out a strategy for an argument, or whether her mind had been busy somewhere else. Patience, there was no way of avoiding a scene, but at least she could clear something up before she plunged in again.

"She hadn't come by because she didn't think she would be welcome. I just happened to run into her on Yonge Street a few months back." Come now, Alexis, a few months back?

"What is this, not welcome? Tillie's daughter not welcome in my home? Where does she get the idea?" Oh where, Ma, where would she get such an idea...

"Mother, you always claim to have such a good memory for details. Well, I can remember eight years ago when you warned me not to have anything more to do with Ellen."

"Oh. that was just ... her father ... "

"Her father was an embezzler, but what did that have to do with Ellen? Did you know Tillie is dead?"

"What? No! Vay!"

"Yes, she committed suicide."

"I'm sorry to hear, why are you telling me like this, like it was my fault?"

"I'm sorry if that's what it sounds like, I don't mean it to. Not entirely your fault, Ma, but you helped. What Ellen told me is that her mother didn't know whom to go to, all her friends deserted her and she was so ashamed she felt they had to get away, but even so she just kept getting more and more depressed. It hasn't been easy for Ellen, she's had to practically raise herself. She lived with a second-cousin in the States for the first few years after her mother died. Her mother's second cousin, an unmarried school teacher."

"Nu, that's life", her mother said, turned and began to walk out of the kitchen.

"Ma!" Alexis called after her. "I'm moving in with Ellen."

"What am I hearing?" her mother said, turning around, moving back with a heavy tread into the kitchen, her face burdened with innocence. "What do you mean, you're moving away from here, from this house, from us, where you've always lived. We haven't done enough to make you happy? What are you talking? What foolishness!"

"I've been thinking about it for a long time, Ma. It wasn't a decision that came easily. I need independence, I want to have my own life, live the way it suits me to." Let her make an effort to understand this time, Alexis thought, begging someone, she hardly knew who.

"Here you're not independent? Don't you always do what you want whether or no Daddy and me thinks you should? When did you ever ask us for yes or no? Here it doesn't suit you?"

"Ma, you don't understand. Please try to. I'm old enough to be on my own. I feel stifled here."

"Stifled? Who's stifling? I'm doing you something? I love you and want the best for you? Daddy and me we always thought about your future and how it should be good for you, not like it was hard for us, and haven't we always helped you? This is thanks, this moving out? This is how you say to your parents, after all those years of giving and taking, us giving all the time and you taking like it belongs to you, and now when we can begin to do a little taking, you take away?"

"Ma, it's not like that at all. I'm grateful, you know I am. It's not as though I'm going somewhere far away or anything, the apartment's only a fifteen-minute drive from here. Look at it this way: if I were getting married, would it be any different?"

"Difference, sure it's different! If you got married - from my mouth to His ears - it would be a nochas! This is a running away, a saying we haven't done good by you, that you can't live here with us, we're not good enough or something!"

Her mother's voice gradually rose, her eyes began brimming. One hand leaning on the counter, she stood there looking frail and pathetic. Impossible to believe that this little woman had a vicious temper that cowed her husband, son and daughter. To a stranger's eyes she would appear as wronged as she felt herself to be.

All the uproar brought Alexis's father into the kitchen with his "what's wrong? What's wrong here?" Typical. He'd rather not be involved in any disagreement between mother and daughter. It was enough for him to have to contend with those between himself and his wife, but somehow he always came around at the tail end, asked what's wrong, looked accusingly at Alexis, and patted his wife on the shoulder. When his wife screamed at him, however, he was always silent, hunched over into himself, trying to decrease his bulk as though that would grant him protection from her unappeasable ire.

It never failed, his silence, his mute inability to counteract his wife's accusations, to drive her to renewed frenzies of impassioned denunciations. She invariably worked herself into a steam of uncontrolled emotion, garbled words of baseless accusations, went about grumbling for an hour later, finally forgetting everything until the next storm broke. Any matter, however seemingly insignificant could induce another storm without warning, even the most innocuous remark, and for that reason, Mr. Margolies habitually kept his own counsel.

"Moishe", his wife wailed at him, for once an ally. "She's going to leave us. Would you believe?"

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In the week that followed there was no ploy that her mother left untried. Playing on her sympathies, her guilt. First the accusations, then a day of baleful silence, broken only by her mother's heart-rending sighs. Finally, another confrontation. "What do you want from my life?"

"From your life nothing, Ma. I want to be responsible for my own life, make my own decisions."

"Again decisions! Don't I always ask you, don't I, if it's okay by you when I want you should do something? You're driving me to an early grave with this, you're pulling pieces from mine heart, you're killing me!"

"Oh Ma, it's not so simple. I just want to be responsible for myself, have some freedom!"

"Responsible? Don't I always say you're responsible, you do something wrong?"

"Like all the time", Alexis muttered.

"What, WHAT?" her mother strained to hear. "Speak up, don't mumble." And then a sly grin slid over her mother's face. "It's the boys, eh? You don't like I should inspect them all the time, they come, no?"

Alexis flushed. "That's not the only kind of freedom I'm talking about, Ma."

A huge shrug. "No, no, what can I do with you. I gave up mine life you should have everything. But everything yet isn't enough."

"I'm grateful, Ma! I know everything you've done, but it's time I lived my own life, and you live yours."

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Another week of tears, and this time her mother warned her that Alexis's children would be as mean and cruel to her as she was to her mother. Wait, she warned, it would come, that time when although she nurtured her children with love and gave them every opportunity to be special, they would one day turn on her, and break her heart, as she was doing to her mother.

"Mean and cruel? Oh Ma, I'm sorry if I'm causing you pain. But everyone, all the girls are leaving home. I'm a hold-over from another era, it's downright anachronistic!"

"Is that dirty talk?" her mother asked. Alexis laughed through her exasperation.

"You're laughing at me?" her mother huffed. "I'm trying to be reasonable, you're laughing at me? AZOI TEET MEN A MUMMA?"

Alexis couldn't restrain herself. She flung her arms about her mother, hugged and kissed her, couldn't recall the last time she had.

"Go away", her mother sniffed, pushing her off, trying to appear hurt, but so obviously pleased by the little demonstration of filial emotion. "Okay, all right, let it be like you want, you'll go. But promise me, Alex, supper every Friday night."

"Of course" her daughter exulted. "Every Friday night, Ma, I wouldn't miss it for anything!"

"Wednesday too, maybe?" her mother ventured.

"Ma, we'll see. first let me adjust. Let yourself become accustomed to it..."

"Oy", her mother fretted, "What'll I tell everyone, mine tochter is living by herself, who knows where, who with..."

"Ellen, remember, Ellen!" Alexis prodded. Then, despite her better judgement Alexis said it: "Ma, don't worry. If I've been able to keep my head intact for all these years living with you, I'll survive anything."

"Dopishe kind", her mother smiled through tears. "Why do you think I brought you up like I did?"

c. 1978 Rita Rosenfeld