NASCENCE

Thanksgiving has never been my favorite.  It ranks right up there with Halloween.  Absolutely no disrespect to those for whom either holiday holds special meaning, but for me, Thanksgiving was really nothing more than an annual reminder of just how royally messed up my family is and how much I relished the fact that I no longer lived in my mother’s house.

Maybe that explains the Christmas decorations…

As the calendar crept closer to the day, I went through the usual headaches and digestive issues that accompanied the weeks leading up to the most horrible time of the year.  I also went through my usual routine of imagining that I was creative enough to come up with a solid, believable reason that would necessitate me ‘sadly’ being unable to attend.  Yeah, that trick never worked.

I hadn’t spoken to my mother since the day I picked up the second box of Granny’s notebooks.  A fact I had conveniently swept from my conscious mind until the day before Thanksgiving when I got a phone call.

“I haven’t heard from you all month but I assume you’ll be here tomorrow.”

What, like a ‘hello’ would have killed you?

“Planning on it.”

“You can do mashed potatoes, then.  We’re expecting everyone.”

Lovely, I can’t wait.

“Mashed potatoes.  Got it.”

“I told everyone to be here by 11.  I’ll expect you by noon.”

“Why — okay, whatever.  I’ll get there when I get there.”

“Nothing new under the sun.”

“Sure.  I’ll see you tomorrow.”

She hung up without another word.  If I hadn’t actually met my Granny, I’d seriously wonder about who raised that woman.

I was dutifully cooking a potful of potatoes when I realized I’d forgotten to put out my Christmas potholders.  That sent me on a trip to the closet in search of them.  Which then reminded me of Granny’s notebooks.  I gave a sideways glance to the box of journals as I replaced the empty Christmas decorations boxes after remembering that I’d meant to buy new Christmas potholders this year.

“Yeah, yeah,” I said out loud to the box.  “Today is not the day.”

I went back to the draining and mashing of potatoes, but I couldn’t escape a slight feeling of guilt.

I’ll get back to it.  Someday.  Maybe.

I had a dream about Granny that night.  I couldn’t remember any of the details except for some vague sense of body horror, but I knew she had been in the starring role.  My mind was flailing about trying desperately to recall something, anything of the dream because for some reason, I had a strong feeling that it was really important.

I was still fixated on the dream when I arrived at my mother’s house.  At first I was a little annoyed with my brain for being so obsessive.  Then I realized that in a weird way, focusing on the dream was acting as a sort of buffer against the standard onslaught of relative…stuff.

It might have seen me through the entire ordeal had it not been for my cousin, Ashley.

“Here’s your pie, Toots.”

I made a desperate plea to my face, begging it not to betray me and display the involuntary internal cringe that always occurred when Ashley used her favorite nickname for me.  I had no proof but I was 99.99999% sure it was her way of never letting me forget my heinously awkward childhood, immortalized by the Tootsie Roll Incident.

“Thanks.”

I knew it had very little possibility of success but I hoped my single word response would discourage any further interaction.

Nope.  She perched her perfect self on the chair opposite me.

“I thought you were all about the no sugar thing.  Couldn’t stick with it, huh?”

Please, God, help me be civil.

“I make exceptions sometimes.  Particularly on holidays.  It’s easier than explaining for the umpteenth time that I don’t eat sugar.”

And having relatives treat me like I’m some sort of sub-species of fungus for not wanting to pollute my body.

“Ah.”

I was always surprised at how much snark Ashley could load into one tiny word.

“So.  Gran’s journals.”

Oh, here we go.

“Any spicy morsels to share?”

I bit down hard on my fork.

“Not really,” I mumbled around the fork.

“Oh come on.  A secret affair, a long-lost love child somewhere in the family.  I mean, the woman was in her 90s when she died.  There’s gotta be something.  Spill!”

It was then that I made a tactical error.

“Actually, now that I think about it, there was something about a cousin showing up after doing one of those mail-in DNA things.”

“Reaaaallllllly???”  Ashley’s eyes were huge with an unwholesome curiosity.

“No.”

See, I thought that if I reeled her in and then cut the line, she would do what any normal fish would do and swim away.  What I forgot to take into account was that Ashley was a barracuda.

“Ha ha.  Good one.  I think you missed your calling.  Maybe that’s why Gran made sure you got her journals, so you could turn her life into a comedy routine.”

Blergh.  I totally should’ve seen tha— wait, what?

“Come again?”

“You clearly have a stunning comedic wit.”

“Not that.  What did you say about Granny and her journals?”

“What, Aunt Jess didn’t tell you?  I thought that’s why you had them in the first place.  I mean, why else would you slog through the boring old ramblings of a goody-goody like Gran?”

I was playing dodgeball with all the emotions and feelings my brain was throwing at me in that moment.  Was it true?  Or was this another Ashley attack?

“I think — maybe I should — you know, I’ll just get out of your hair right now.”

I stood up and prepared to make as graceful an exit as I could when I heard a slight snicker.  I paused, debated, then sighed as I turned around.

“You know that’s the last thing Gran said to Aunt Jess, right?”

I stared blankly.

“They’d had another crazy blowout, over religion or something, and Gran told Aunt Jess that she’d get out of her hair.  Aunt Jess hung up on her and, well, next day the old girl kicked it.”

“How would you even know that?”

“Your mom told me all about it.”

I noticed that she said ‘your mom’ instead of ‘Aunt Jess’.  Probably Ashleyese for ‘I have such a better relationship with your mother than you and I know so much more about her than you do.’

“Well, they never had the best relationship.”

“Duh.”

“You know, Ashley, I — ”

My first thought was to try and dish out some witty retort (which most likely would have come out more like a childish variation of ‘Oh Yeah?’), but then a flash of memory hit and I remembered Granny’s pain and anguish in the last few journal entries I’d read.

I was more than a little shocked when instead of going for the retort I said, “You know, if you think Granny was just a boring old woman, then you’re wrong.  Very wrong.  And I wish I’d spent more time getting to know her when she was alive.”

It wasn’t really like me to stand up to Ashley like that, and it was even less like me to walk away without giving her the opportunity to respond in any way.  But I did both.  Then I threw my half-eaten pie away (I could beat myself up about that later), made the rounds to say goodbye, and left before anyone else.  Not even the sear-the-flesh-off-my-bones glare from my mother could sway me.  I had to get out of that house and away from those people.

Back in my apartment, my brain went careening from one thought to another.

Was Ashley telling the truth?  Did Granny really say she wanted me to have her journals?  If so, why did my mother not give them to me after Granny died?  Was she seriously that petty?  And why did she decide to give me the second box?  She could have just thrown it away and I would’ve been none the wiser.  It’s pretty clear she wasn’t all that inclined to honor Granny’s wish.  And man, to hang up on your own mother and then it turns out that’s the last conversation you’d ever have.  Brutal.  Hang on, what did Ashley say?

“I’ll get out of your hair.”

It’s what Granny had said to my mother.  And what I’d said to my mother the last time I talked to her before Thanksgiving.  I had no clue where I’d even picked that phrase up.  It wasn’t one I used very often.  Really only with…relatives.

Then it hit me.

The look.  The one that liquefied my bones that day I’d picked up Granny’s second box of notebooks.

Holy wow.

I sat staring out the window for I don’t know how long until it finally occurred to me to wonder if Granny had written anything about what happened between her and my mother.  I seriously doubted it since she, you know, died the very next day.  But maybe.

My hands hesitated for a brief moment as I reached for the box of journals.

Are you sure you want to do this?

For some reason, the voice in my head sounded strangely like my mother’s.

I resolutely pulled the box down and shuffled through them until I found the last one.  My heart was beating a bit faster as I flipped to the last entry.  I scanned it and realized that there was nothing pertaining to the last time she spoke to my mother.  Unsure of what to do at that point, I flicked a few pages back and my eye was caught by my mother’s name.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

April 18

Had a conversation with Jessica today.

Well, maybe conversation is too generous a word.

Verbal sparring match more like.

I was reminded once again just how badly I failed her.

And yet if there’s anything I’ve learned in the last several years, it’s that I can’t take on responsibility that isn’t mine to bear.

Jessica made her own choices.

We all have times when we can’t seem to focus on anything but ourselves.

I get that.

But Jessica…

Ah, she’s taken it to heights heretofore undreamt of.

She has continued to make those choices and now I see that she has ceased to realize that she’s made her entire life about her and how she feels.

Nothing I say — nothing anyone says seems to get through to her now.

All she sees is that she’s a perpetual victim who does nothing but give and love and everyone around her does nothing but throw her love back in her face.

She’s deceived herself for so long that she no longer sees it as deception.

It’s become her truth.

And it shatters my heart.

She told me that she’s given and given and given because that’s just what she does, what daughters are supposed to do and I’ve done nothing but reject everything she’s tried to give me.

When I asked her for specifics, all she could come up with was that I sarcastically said ‘Oh thanks’ whenever she gave me gifts.

I wish so much that I could remember what she’s referring to.

She claimed to want a good relationship with me yet when I asked her what that would look like, she couldn’t define it.

I probably shouldn’t have said it, but I commented that it often seemed as if she would be happier if I wasn’t in her life.

She spat out the words, ‘You’re my mother, of course I love you.’

She might as well have slapped me across the face because that’s exactly how it felt.

That level of rage and unkindness and ferocity — it took my breath away.

Oh, Jessica.

My sweet, little girl.

If only you knew…

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

I struggled to imagine my mother as sweet at any age.  I also struggled to understand why Granny kept trying even when it was abundantly clear that my mother wanted very little to do with her.  Until the day she died.  Was it a mystery of motherhood?  Or was it something else?  Did Granny know something the rest of us didn’t?

Careful, girlfriend.  You know what happened last time you went down the rabbit hole.

“But Granny wanted me to have her journals.”

There was a reason.  She singled me out.  I had to know why.