That Nice Girl with the Dogs
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The next morning, I wake early to a hushed, shadowy house. Thankfully, my mother is still sleeping. The dogs stir, shaking their collars. I turn on the lamp at my bedside, hoping for a few minutes’ peace before Mom wakes up, remembering how last night, after she was in bed and just as she was falling asleep, she whispered, “Why are you so mad at me?”
Why indeed? Why such fierce anger over her failures? The refrigerator clicks off into an echoing silence, like a quarter dropping in the slot, and I admit, with an odd feeling of resignation, that although my mother was sometimes cruel, and too often neglected me, the larger truth of my mother and myself is a bedrock of attachment and loyalty built from the many more frequent times when she was kind, proud of me, encouraging and sympathetic.
I know why I am so angry with you, Mom. From the moment I saw you at the airport gate, where you stood, swaying a bit, looking tentative and frail, I’ve spun up a fine rage. Don’t you see? By remembering your faults, brooding on your inadequacies, anger has protected me from the terrible pain of watching the good mother I’ve known crumble away, bit by bit.
But I am wrong to draw away from you. If Sirocco gave me anything, it was the realization of finding peace and bearable grief by accepting the inevitable, and then, by doing what I am supposed to do.
I creep out to the kitchen, call the dogs in a whisper and get them fed. A half-moon drifts over the quiet house, framed in the west kitchen window. Soon, footsteps come padding down the hall carpet and Mom appears.
“I woke up.” She looks uncertain.
“Sit down, Mama. Here’s some coffee for you.” She scoots onto a chair, shivering in her thin pajamas. “Mom, you need a robe. Go get it from your room, okay?”
“My room?” She raises her head, darting glances around the kitchen. “I don’t think I can find it.”
She looks at me. I see the fear and confusion plain on her face. I am losing her, my mother and now my charge. Knowing what I must do, I get up, touch her shoulder and say in the kindest of voices, “Come on, Mom. I’ll show you the way.” I take her arm, and lead her gently from the lighted kitchen into the shadowy hall.
