Maria

Dear Kyle,

I’m sorry I didn’t say good-bye . . . I don’t think I could have faced you without falling apart. Please understand, I have to go. I know you think I don’t owe my mother anything since she walked out on us, but I have to go. I need to see if there’s anything left, I need to ask her why . . . Please forgive me. I will come back, I promise.

“Come on, Mother,” Maria sighed. She sat down in a chair and pulled out a faded picture of her mother. A beautiful woman in her mid-twenties, with auburn hair and cinnamon colored eyes that shone with love and happiness. Maria wondered where the picture had been taken. What will she look like now, Maria wondered. She’s got to be what, forty-something? Sighing again, she put the picture away and stared vacantly out the window, watching the other planes taking off. She tried to remember her mother, the way she acted, smelled, but the only image she could conjure was of birthday candles in the dining room, and her mother’s shining face next to her father’s as they stood together singing “happy birthday” to her.

Years later, her father told her that she had left two weeks after that night, leaving a note asking her father not to try and find her. Maria had found the note cleaning her father’s desk one afternoon. It had been full of apologies and regret and had made Maria angry. She remembered the years she had spent wondering if her mother had left because she kept asking for the Cabbage Patch doll, or she had made her angry, if it was her fault. Her father reassured her that it had nothing to do with her, but never explained why. Maria remembered the tears she had shed, and the wishes she had made on the first star, every night asking them to bring her mother back. She remembered all of the mother/daughter parties that she never could go to, how she never had a mother to confide in, to share her dreams with, her young and broken heart. Her father had tried to be both mother and father for her, and most of the time he was wonderful, and Maria loved him dearly, but there are times in a young girl’s life when she needs a mother.

“Maria?” she heard her name being called and slipped out of her trance. Looking down the corridor, she saw a well-dressed woman walking towards her. Kate was nervous. She hadn’t known whether Maria would be here or not, even after she had received the message that she had accepted the invitation. For forty-five minutes she had stood before the mirror, trying to decide what would impress her seventeen year old daughter that she hadn’t seen for twelve years. On the two hour drive to the airport she struggled with the best way to say everything she wanted to. And now, as she saw her daughter walking toward her, she forgot everything she was planning to say. What words can possibly erase twelve years of pain?
“Mom?” Maria asked, looking at Kate. She looks happy, she thought, resentment burning deep inside her. At least she looks older. Maria shook her head, trying to banish the unpleasant thoughts. Think positive, she reminded herself. She must have some reason for wanting me in her life again. Kate nodded, swallowing. After a moment she answered, “yeah. It’s me, baby. I can’t believe it. You’re so grown up . . . but that happens, I guess, whether anyone’s watching or not.” Maria thought of her father, back in Philadelphia bandaging her knee after she fell off her bike, and when the time came, shyly leading her to a department store to get her first bra. They stood there, just looking at each other. Kate wiped the tears that had been running down her face. “You ready to go?” she asked her daughter, trying to compose herself. Yeah, I got the luggage a while ago.” Maria hefted the suitcase and Kate took her carry-on.
“I’m sorry I was late. I was nervous as anything and the traffic didn’t help at all.” Kate glanced over at her daughter. “I know it’s not the best start in the entire world, but do you think it’ll be okay?”
“Whatever,” Maria said as they walked through the sliding doors.
“The Taurus is mine,” she said, pointing out a red car parked in the garage.

By the time they reached the highway, they had exchanged updates of what each was doing, like a high school reunion. When Maria had finished talking about her college search, Kate spoke. “Listen, Maria. I know that you must be wondering what I expect out of this . . . reunion. But I want you to know that I don’t expect you to call me ‘Mom’. I gave up that right a long time ago. I didn’t want to, and I have regretted it ever since, but it was too late to turn back. I would like to try to be your friend, though. You can call me Kate.”
“Okay, . . . Kate.” Why did you give up that right? Whatever made you leave? I’m your daughter- the maternal bond is supposed to be stronger than anything. Why? “Okay,” Maria said again.
Kate reached over and turned the radio back on, to a modern station. “Find something you like.”

Maria relaxed in her seat and thought about the past few hours. She had flown into Maine from Philadelphia, and waited an hour for her not very reliable mother. What am I doing here, with her? she thought. Hours later, she woke up as they were struggling down a rocky road. Kate looked over at her nearly conscious daughter. “Where are we?” Maria asked, unsuccessfully trying to stifle a yawn.

“We’re almost there, sleepyhead. Paradise Valley, New Hampshire.” Maria was jolted to complete consciousness as they turned into an even rockier driveway that the Taurus dubiously climbed up. An old house crept around the corner. It was not in good condition, but as far as she could tell, the only major problem was the paint job, or lack thereof.
“Ever think of getting ‘vinyl siding from Sears?’” Maria muttered under her breath as she stretched her legs from the long car ride. “This place looks like it needs it.”
“What?” Kate asked, oblivious. “Oh, come on. It gets better inside.” Maria hung back, guiltily wondering if her mother had heard her. “Really.”

They walked up the rickety steps, each carrying a piece of Maria’s luggage. “Jacob, we’re here,” Kate called as she opened the screen door. A tall, thin man with graying brown hair, glasses and a warm smile walked into the hallway.
“Hi, honey.” He gave Kate a kiss on the cheek. “How was the ride?”
“Fine,” Kate answered.
“Let me take those for you,” Jacob said. “You must be Maria. Nice to finally meet you.” He extended his free hand to her.

Maria shook it, and looked warily at the new man in her mother’s life. “It’s nice to meet you too,” she said skeptically.
As Jacob carried the bags down the hall, Kate said, “Let’s go find the kids.” They walked through the spacious living room adorned with a large oval braided rug in front of the television, and a love seat, couch and easy chair made of a flower decorated upholstery. “Evie! Trevor, come on out! Your sister’s here.” Two little heads peeked around the corner of a door in the long hallway, one with long brown hair in two braids and a pixie-ish smile, the other with an impish look and sparkling blue eyes. “There you are! Maria, these are Evie and Trevor.”
Maria walked over to the children. “Hi, guys. How are you?”
Evie, nine years old and the self-appointed guardian of her younger brother, spoke first. “Fine . . . Trevor, say something.”
The five year old ducked his head shyly and mumbled, “hi,” into the folds of his shirt. Maria thought they were adorable, but jealousy made her not smile as she looked at her mother’s other children. These cute kids had her mother, had had her mother through all of their troubles and hurts, and they will have her for the rest of puberty, when Maria had had to go through it alone. She just looked at the children, shaking her head.

“Okay, he’s going to be shy. Why don’t I show you to your room? It has a great view.” Kate was already walking down the hallway and Maria took one last look at the kids before following Kate into the yellow room.

“Yellow,” Maria said. I hate yellow. Maria associated the favorite color of her childhood with pain, and disillusionment. Her room as a child had been yellow, as had the bedspread, and most of her dresses. She had associated yellow with her mother, and happiness. When Kate had left, yellow no longer made her happy. It made her cry to be in her room with yellow flowered wallpaper. Finally James had to redecorate Maria’s room, to appease his struggling daughter.
Misinterpreting Maria’s intent Kate said,“oh, good. I wasn’t sure if you still liked yellow or not, but as a child it was your favorite. You had about twenty different dresses, and at least half of them were some shade of yellow. It was such a good color on you, a perfect match for your sunny personality and a great contrast to your long dark hair. It still is a good color for you, I think.”

Maria shook her head, trying to clear her confused mind. Why’s she trying so hard? She expects so much from me, she expects me to just forgive her for leaving me. For twelve years, I had to go through everything without a mother . . .

“Dinner will be in about forty-five minutes. I’ll let you get settled in now.” Kate looked at her seventeen year old daughter one last time before she closed the door.

Maria sat on the bed, looking at her new room. What am I doing here? she asked herself. She pulled her large suitcase onto the bed, opened it, and started putting the clothes into the dresser. She reached into the suitcase and pulled out her favorite shirt, a worn flannel that had faded from many washings. Her best friend, Kyle, had given it to her.

“I have a surprise for you,” he’d said one afternoon, holding out a bag to her.
“Ooh, what is it?” she’d asked.
“Open it and see, you idiot,” he responded, teasingly.
Opening the bag, she peered inside. “Oh, no way . . . Is it . . .?”
“Yup, it is,” Kyle replied, smug.
“Oh, wow,” she cried as she pulled out the shirt. “Why? I know you like it, too.”
“Well, it was getting to the point where I was afraid to wear it around you or you’d tear it off me.” He grinned charmingly.
“Well,” Maria said, looking Kyle up and down, a flirtatious smile on her lips.
“Don’t even start that,” Kyle laughed.
Seriously, Maria said, “Thank you so much.”

She hugged the shirt to her in her new room at her mother’s house before she put it in the dresser.
“Oh, Kyle . . . I know you didn’t want me to come, but I hope you understand now that I had to.” She thought back to a different conversation they’d had, the night before she left for this reunion.

“Maria, why are you doing this?”
“What, the dishes, because if I don’t, they’ll get all crusty and the spaghetti sauce will never come off.”
“You know that’s not what I meant. Why are you avoiding me?”
“I’m not avoiding you, you’re in my kitchen.”
Kyle sighed, frustration drawing lines in his forehead. He ran a hand through his brown hair. “You’re avoiding. We haven’t talked about anything important all evening. We haven’t talked about us.”
“Oh Kyle, how many times do I have to ask you not to pressure me?”
“What pressure? You won’t even talk about it. You know we’d be great together.”
“I know, but what about when we’re not great together? What about when it all falls apart, and we can’t even be friends? I’m not willing to risk it. I won’t lose you.”
“Maybe you will,” Kyle said softly, looking away from Maria. “I can’t keep waiting for you to realize that I won’t leave you like your mother did. I can’t keep praying that one day you’re just going to tell me that you’re not scared anymore. I don’t think I can wait that long.”
“Kyle, I love you, you know I do. I just . . .”
“I know. I love you, too, but it hurts too much to have you keep pushing me away.”
“I’m so sorry,” Maria said, wiping the tears spilling from her eyelids. As she sat on the bed in the yellow bedroom, she stared miserably out the window. What am I going to do? she wondered miserably. What am I going to do?

That night, after Evie and Trevor were asleep, and the leftover pizza stored in the refrigerator, Kate, Maria and Jacob sat in the living room, watching television. Maria was trying to write a letter to Kyle, but had no idea where to start. She wanted to talk to him, to get a feeling that she still had some say in her life, but she didn’t know what to tell him. Confusion clouded her mind as she stared at the television, blankly absorbing the colors.

Dear Kyle,
I don’t know what I’m doing here. I don’t know what I was trying to do, or what my mother was trying to recreate, but whatever it is, it’s not happening. I can’t stop hating her kids because they have her. I only had her for five years, and then she left. She wasn’t there for me when I had the chicken pox in second grade, when I broke my wrist in third grade. She never sent cards on my birthdays, or gifts at Christmas . . . My parents are divorced, but she never fought for custody of me, she never asked to see me. How could she do that? How could she walk out on me?
How could she bring me here to see her new family? Doesn’t she see that I’m only going to hate her for it? I resent her adorable children for having the childhood I didn’t have. I don’t want her back, now. I wanted her in my life then. It’s too late now. It’s just too late.

Maria stared at the page in front of her and sighed. She looked across the room at her mother, who was smiling at something Jacob had said. Shaking her head, Maria stood up and stretched. “I’m going to turn in,” she said. Kate and Jacob called good nights after her as she walked down the hallway to her room. Once she was on the bed, she stared at what she had written. Maria had had know idea she was so bitter toward her mother. Abandonment goes down deep, she realized with a pang. She looked at her yellow surroundings, inwardly cringing at the color, and wondered at Kate’s motives. She must have really wanted this, to write after so many years of nothing. Sighing again, Maria changed out of her clothes and slipped under the yellow covers of the bed.
The next morning, Maria woke to the sound of her half brother and sister playing noisily outside. Rolling her eyes, she stepped out of bed and walked over to the dresser. Looking into the mirror she made a face at her reflection. She had her mother’s eyes, and mouth. Her hair, nose and personality were from James, a fact that greatly relieved Maria on that bright morning. As she walked down the hallway after getting dressed, she heard Kate singing as she banged around the kitchen. She stopped suddenly as she saw Maria in the doorway.
“Good morning, would you like some pancakes?” Kate asked.
“Whatever,” Maria said, overly polite.
They suffered through a strained meal until Jacob came in on his way to work. Even though it was Saturday, he put in time at his law firm, trying to get ahead on the corporate ladder. Kate was occupied with him, and Maria was able to eat her breakfast in peace. The rest of the day was uneventful, and there was a visible tension between Maria and Kate. Maria knew that it was only a matter of time before she was going to explode, but she tried to keep a lid on her simmering emotions. Kate tried many times to include her daughter in conversation, but Maria remained sullen and unresponsive. She tried, really tried to think about plausible reasons her mother could have left. She knew that she would have to accept her mother’s excuse eventually, and that there would come a time when the bitterness would probably fade, but that time seemed far off in the distance. Maria was leaving on Monday, and the remaining day loomed over her like a brick. Sometime in the next twenty four hours, Maria was going to find out the truth. She would not board the plane back to Philly without confronting her mother. She planned to find a moment when the kids weren’t around, and calmly ask for Kate’s version of the story. She would be mature and dignified.

Sunday afternoon, the kids had been outside playing when Evie limped slowly inside with a skinned knee. Kate rushed her daughter to the bathroom to fix the injury with the special brand of mother’s tender loving care that Maria had been missing for most of her tomboy playground years. She sat in the living room, stewing, while waiting for Kate to finish “kissing it better.” When Kate had finally deposited Evie back outside with Trevor, Maria walked into the kitchen after her.

“You were never there for me,” she said, icily. “All of those bruises, and injuries when I learned how to ride a two-wheeler, playing soccer . . . You were never there to make it all right. And when I was confused about boys, Dad had to explain it to me. He bought me my first bra, you know? He took me to Sears and asked a saleslady to help him. He told about sex, well, hew gave me a book, but he was there for me. He let me cry on his shoulder when Ryan Mitchell stood me up for our movie date freshman year, and he stood proudly by as Kyle took me to our junior prom. He was there. “He took care of me, and you never once sent a card, or a letter, or called, or anything.” Maria was yelling at her mother, trying to inflict as much pain on her with words as Kate had done to her years ago. “What do you want from me? You can’t really expect me to forgive you so easily? After twelve I suddenly hear from you, inviting me to Hicktown, New Hampshire for the weekend. I admit I was curious, that’s why I’m here, but I also knew that I would finally find out what I did that made you not love me enough to stay.” Tears streaked down Maria’s face, confusion, pain, bitterness and anger etched in her eyes. She sat down at the kitchen table, and put her head in her hands, sobbing.

Kate watched her daughter for a minute and then spoke. “Is that really what you thought? That I didn’t love you enough?” Maria wiped her eyes and nodded. She gave her a look as if to say, what was I supposed to think? You never told me differently. “That was never the reason. Oh God, no. It was because I loved you so much that I had to leave.”

“What? Whatever,” Maria said, shaking her head.
“It’s true. I know I haven’t given you much reason to believe me, but it’s true. I had to leave because I was abused by my mother as a child. She beat me and verbally abused me, and I had a terrible childhood. From her I inherited a very violent temper that really frightened me at times. As a teenager I was always getting into trouble because of my anger, and I decided that I wouldn’t have children because of my mother. When I married your father, he agreed, reluctantly, not to have children. I went on birth control, and things were fine. But then, I guess I skipped a pill, or something, and I became pregnant. Your father was overjoyed, and I didn’t have the heart to bring up abortion or adoption. So, I decided I’d give it my best shot, after all, knowing that you have abusive tendencies is supposedly half the battle.

So there I was, a new mother with this beautiful little girl to call my own, and I thought that I would never ever want to hurt you. But as you grew older, and starting behaving like a typical toddler, very cranky and inclined to tantrums, I let your father deal with the disciplinary action. I was so afraid to punish you, to reprimand you or anything because I thought I would lose control and become my mother. When you turned five, things became so emotionally intense because your father got his job at the university, which meant that I would be caring for you. I was terrified. I loved you more than anything, and the thought that you would end up suffering because of me, being hurt physically and mentally because of me . . . I couldn’t let you have the kind of childhood that I’d had. So I left. James knew why, I think. He had tried to pretend everything was fine, but deep down he must have known.” Kate ran her hands through her wavy auburn hair, and massaged her temples.

Maria looked at her mother. “So, you’re saying that you left because you were afraid that you’d beat me.”
Kate nodded. “That’s right.” She tried to swallow the lump in her throat.
“I don’t buy it. You have kids now, how can you say that and expect me to believe you?”
“No, no, no . . . You see, Jacob helped me so much, and he made me realize that I am not my mother. I am a product of her, but I will not turn into her. I have more determination than she ever did. She was a weak woman, severely depressed with her life and took out her anger on her children. I am not like her, and Jacob helped me realize that. Your father just assumed that once I had the baby, all my fears would go away, and I would realize that I am fabulous with kids. But the opposite happened. I became so paranoid and terrified, that I almost couldn’t trust myself to be alone with you. Oh God, it was such a horrible time for me. I hated leaving you, but I was convinced I was doing the right thing- protecting you from me.”
“So you just all of a sudden were cured or something? You found a magic spell?” Maria asked wearily.
“No, it didn’t happen overnight, I spent nearly two years in therapy. Having Jacob was wonderful, he was, is, so supportive of me, and knew at the time not to pressure me into decisions about kids, at the same time reassuring me of my individuality. But, no. I didn’t find a magic spell.”
“Oh.” Maria just looked at the wooden table. “Oh.”
For hours, Maria just sat at the kitchen table, thinking about everything Kate had told her. There it was. The reason, an actual plausible excuse for giving up twelve years of her daughter’s life. After dinner, Maria called a still bemused “night, Kate,” before heading to her room. Cuddled on her bed, she wrote a letter to Kyle.

Dear Kyle,

I finally talked to her. I am so confused! I guess I sort of understand her now. I don’t know if I like her or not, but I guess I understand her. She said that she left for my own good, and I knew that would be part of her answer- it’s so cliched already. But I’m not sure I was really ready to hear her side. Now that I have, I feel surprisingly empty. I thought about you a lot, I thought about ‘us’ a lot. If you still want there to be an ‘us’ . . . I know I was pushing you away, but I was so scared, and you knew why even before I did. I know you won’t leave me- I’m sorry I didn’t trust you, and I’m sorry I hurt you. I’m on my way home. I love you . . .

Maria More Prose, Poetry, or back to