It’s been almost a month since those words cut deeply into my soul. It was like Jay tore something open, and my hopes and ambition drained out around me. Sure, I knew now what kind of person he truly was, but something about that moment when I realized how I truly was living a lie, it was like I’d been set free from prison and couldn’t get my bearings. Before I knew about the lie of the operation, I had the desire for revenge. Now even that motivation was gone.
“Haley, where have you been?” Finally, my mother appears on the doorstep of the motel where I’m staying. Yes, I checked back in. Even with money, I couldn’t bring myself to spend it, for fear I wouldn’t be able to find work. “You can’t be serious,” Mom says, as she barges into the room. “How long have you been staying in this rathole? Rent an apartment, Haley. For goodness’ sakes. What a dump. Here I brought you this—” She thrusts a teddy bear in neon pink flower fabric toward me.
“I have to find a job before I can afford…”
“Well, as I’ve told your brother Mike, you have to look for a job to get one. They don’t come looking for you.”
“I think I want to produce,” I say weakly.
“You’re producing a lot of nothing. Haley, it’s been months since Jay kicked you out, it’s time to start your life again. You’re just going to sit here in this motel room and watch daytime TV and blame Jay for everything, aren’t you?”
“I’m going to get a job, Mom. I just don’t want to make a mistake.”
“You have to make a mistake. Making mistakes is how we learn. You’ll learn you don’t like a particular job if you get one. You got married and learned someone else can’t fix things, right? That’s a productive mistake.”
“Albeit a costly one.”
She opens the curtains in my room and starts to pick up the chocolate wrappers on the nightstand.
“Mom, the maid will be in this afternoon.”
“Get your things together. You’re leaving. You’ve had more than enough time to wallow. If you don’t find an apartment by tonight, you’re coming home with me.”
No, not the teddy bears! “I don’t want to leave here. I’ve grown accustomed to it, and I have enough money to think about what it is I’m going to do next.”
“Look around you and see what you’ve grown accustomed to. Mushrooms grow accustomed to the dark and having fertilizer thrown on them, do you see what I’m saying?”
“Mom, I haven’t thought things through yet. I just don’t know what to do next.”
“Of course you don’t, and neither does Mike. And all this chocolate is probably fogging your brain.” My mom straightens the chair. “I did too much for you kids; that’s the problem.”
“Sort of like you’re doing now?” I ask.
She purses her lips. “I never let anything hurt you or get in your way, and look what happened…neither one of you can handle your lives! I’m a failure as a mother.”
My mother finds a way to induce guilt every single time. “Because I failed? Didn’t you say that’s how I’m supposed to learn?”
“One of you not working, not married, not walking with the Lord, I could say it was a fluke, a personality flaw. Two of you, and that’s batting a thousand. I’m going to tell you this once, and it’s not pleasant, but you have to hear it because Grandma told me I had to say it.”
“It’s not about Daddy being virile, is it?”
“Get dressed,” she says as she throws my jeans, which were lying on the chair, at me. “Haley, look at this room. It’s like you’re sixteen years old all over again!”
“It doesn’t matter.”
She sits down on the bed beside me. “You were always the good child. You always did what you were told, never gave me a day’s worry. You came home with excellent grades, you were the teacher’s pet, and the kids loved you, too, voted you Homecoming Queen, remember?”
“This isn’t a pitch for Gavin as a husband, is it?”
She pinches her lips together. “This isn’t a pitch for anyone as a husband. I used to brag about how perfect and compliant you were as a child, do you remember?”
I nod.
“It’s only after seeing you in that marriage to that self-absorbed man who never cared a whit about you that I realized I hadn’t prepared you for the world at all. You learned to please everyone on the planet, except yourself. You used to like sparkles, remember?”
“How could I forget? It led up to one of the worst nights of my life.”
“If there was an outfit with outlandish colors, maybe a little garish sequin at the hem, you were all over it. It made you happy to wear it, and you didn’t care what anyone thought. You used to tell me they were just jealous because they didn’t have the guts to wear those clothes. Where did that girl go?”
“I grew up, Mom, and I saw pictures of myself. I was…I was tacky.”
“You were happy.” My mom shrugs. “More people should be tacky and happy. Look at Dolly Parton, she’s happy.”
“More people should decorate with teddy bears and 1960s-style TV trays, right?”
“Exactly!”
She’s got me there. I personally had way more fun with the TV trays and Full House than I ever did at an Oscar after-party. “All right, Mom. I hear you.” I lay back against the headboard.
“If I could have given your brother half the drive, and you half Mike’s ability to have fun, I would have been the perfect mother.”
“You’re not blaming yourself?” Because what a coincidence, I’ve been blaming yourself!
“I am blaming myself.” She pounds the pillows like she’s going to find much more life in these cheap motel pillows. “You’re not handling this, Haley. I didn’t teach you to handle upsets. Everything came so easily to you. You were always beautiful.” She shakes her head. “I think that was to your detriment. Your personality was always like morning sunshine. Boys flocked to you like ants to a picnic.”
“Your point?”
“Life isn’t like that. You never learned about mean people, or bills that don’t get paid, or what happens when your sewer line is stopped up by a tree.”
“Do I need to know about sewage?”
“Sometimes life is hard and you still have to pick yourself back up and walk.” She is trekking around the room, nervously folding things and putting them into my suitcase. Even when my mother is taking responsibility for her lack of parenting, she makes me feel guilty.
It’s disconcerting to hear my mother offering advice. Firstly, because she never has before, and secondly, because she’s married to my dad, and they hardly have anything I want to emulate. At least I thought so nine years ago. They have about as much marital advice to offer as anyone in Hollywood. Two people who live their different lives under the same roof, but the fact is, each of them is their own person. I can’t fault them for that. Neither of them tried to change the other. Oh, I could argue they probably should have, but they didn’t waste their time on pointless activity.
“I never thought I’d be divorced. It feels like the ultimate failure.”
“Why? Because you believe Jay was the perfect husband, and you let him down?”
“No, of course not.” But when I have time to think it over. “Well, maybe.”
“See, that’s my point about sewage. If you can’t discern sewage, you’re always going to think you were the only problem. Because you believe you should be the one person alive without sin, save Jesus.”
“I made my mistakes. I see that now. When someone doesn’t care how you think, it’s not enough to let him have his way until you forget what you’d want, is it?”
“No, it’s not. His job was not to necessarily agree with you, but he had to listen at least.” She comes toward me and wraps me into a hug. I feel myself stiffen at the touch, not realizing how long it’s been since anyone showed me affection. It makes me bristle, and I can’t relax, but my mom doesn’t leave me, she just clings tighter. She stays there until my body finally crumples into hers, and I feel the tears start to flow again.
“You wanted children.”
I nod against her shoulder. “I did. I don’t see how that can happen now.”
“You say you want to produce.”
Again, I bob my head up and down.
“If you want something, you have to go out and take it. No one is going to bring it to you anymore. Not me. Not Jay. Not even Jay’s money. It’s up to you now, Haley. God is in control. Take the life He offers you and run with it.”
“Mom, I don’t believe in all that.”
“Shh! Don’t say that.” She cowers under the ceiling. “He hears everything, you know.”
“I asked Him, Mom. I asked Him to fix things.”
“Maybe He did, did you ever think of that?”
“He fixed things all right. Rachel Barlin is in my house, living my life, and I’m in a cheap motel made to grovel at the feet of the only tall man left in Hollywood.”
“See, that’s exactly what I’m talking about. You’re going to play this up for all it’s worth, aren’t you? He was a callous jerk, Haley. He was always a jerk; you just chose to overlook it. Do you remember what he said about the dishes you had picked out since high school?”
“He didn’t like them.”
“What kind of man picks the china, Haley?”
“I just thought he had a strong preference.”
“You had a strong preference way back in high school. What happened to that?”
“It was just china. What did it matter?”
“It mattered because that first time you gave in, you told Jay exactly how things would be. Now he’s done something you can’t overlook, so it’s time to take some action for yourself.”
“You should have seen her sitting in my family room and knitting, like everything belonged to her. They even have my cat, Mom.”
“So go get the cat, Haley. No one is bringing you the cat.”
“How did you find me, anyway?” For a seedy motel, people sure seem to find me easily enough.
“Someone named Lindsay called the house to tell us you hadn’t been out of the motel in a long time. She’s been inviting you to something at church, she said. You even missed a pedicure appointment, and that’s when I knew I had to step in. It’s not one of those weird California churches is it? Where they talk to rocks or wear strings?”
“No, Mom. In fact, I don’t think they have one famous member. You’d approve.”
“Well, that’s something, I suppose. When we found out where you were, your dad got me an airline ticket, and I flew down.”
“Daddy did that?”
“He’s worried about you.” She rests her hand on my head.
Truthfully, it’s hard to believe my dad even knows I’ve gone missing. He’s not exactly one to pay attention. To me, or to life in general, unless it involves the 49ers or the Giants.
“It’s time to wake up, Haley. I’ll make you a new sparkle dress.”
I laugh out loud. “That’s all right, Mom. I think I’ve been laughed at enough times for my taste in sequins. My interest has sort of waned. Are you going to make me go home?’
“Have you been listening to me at all? I’m not going to make you do anything. It’s time you did it for yourself. Go buy yourself a car today. The broker called the house; he’s had that mini you wanted for two weeks now! Rent an apartment and get some furniture. Apply for credit in your own name and find yourself a job or start producing something. I bought you some Suze Orman and David Bach books on money. I saw them on Oprah with that debt diet of hers. Very good stuff. I have money in my name now. If anything happens to your father, I’m ready.”
“You make it sound like you’re too ready.”
“Don’t worry, he’s safe for now.” She laughs.
“You read a Suze Orman book?”
“I did.”
“What’s a HELOC?” I ask her.
“A home equity line of credit,” she answers smugly. “Not smart in this day and age with fluctuating interest rates and with the Fed, you never know what’s going to happen to rates. They could rise any day now.”
“You’re scaring me.”
“Our house is paid in full. We have four income-producing properties. We have absolutely no debt, own our cars outright, vacation where we want, buy what we want, live how we want—”
“But Mom, you and Dad don’t go anywhere on vacation, and how do you live like you want?”
“We like to stay home. I sew; your Dad subscribes to a dozen or so sports channels, that’s how we want to live. Maybe you need to embrace the simpler side of things. It’s time we taught you and Mike to do the same because you have to be ready to do right by us in the end.”
“Mom, what are you talking about? You’ll outlive us both.”
It’s like this woman is an alien posing in my mother’s skin. I thought all she did was go to Goodwill and find old clothes for teddy bears. She owns her house outright? Rentals?
“Jay is not doing this to you, Haley. You’re doing this to you. If I sat around and let your father handle everything, we’d have nothing more than our house payment, do you know that? Now go get dressed.”
My body doesn’t want to move. “It’s almost time for Judge Judy,” I plead. I try to pull my jeans on, but the fact is, I’ve put on a little weight since this divorce business started, and I sort of want to breathe too. “I’m just going to get another pair of pants.”
I slide into my favorite UCLA sweats, and my mother shakes her head. “You’re not getting a job in those. We’ll go shopping if we have to. But you’re paying for yourself. I would have taken that settlement and had it in various CDs coming due at different times so I always had money. Did you do that?”
“No.” I pull my sweats back off and get into a breezy summer skirt that fits loosely. I find a pair of sandals and slide them on, only to realize it’s been some time since I shaved my legs. “I think I need a shower.”
“I think you do,” my mother says.
I unwrap another small chocolate on the way to the bathroom, and my mother plucks it from my fingers.
“I think you’ve had enough.”
I enter the bathroom and start the shower running. Looking into the mirror, I can see the dark circles under my eyes. It looks as though it’s been ages since I slept and really, that’s all I have done. And my roots? Ugh, don’t even get me started! I see my natural color, and it’s not pretty. “Mom,” I open the door a crack. “What day is it?”
“It’s February 23. Friday.”
“I’m almost officially divorced.”
“Yep,” she answers.
A weight falls away as I realize I’m three weeks away from being free. It’s over. I need a life. One of my own.