I’m nervous about telling Callie that I’m leaving, until it occurs to me that I’ve yet to tell Mom, and I still have to figure out how to tell Eddie—so Callie is actually the easiest person I need to talk to today. I’m driving to her Saturday morning ballet class, but I look up in the rearview mirror to find her sitting perfectly still, looking down at the book on her lap. It’s a textbook—maybe her French one. Her golden blond hair is in a thick bun right on top of her head, and she looks serene and more focused than any ten-year-old child has a right to be.
“Callie,” I say brightly. “Guess what? I’m going on a trip.”
“Oh?” she says mildly. Her gaze passes briefly between me and Eddie, who’s staring out the window, but she’s already looking back to the textbook as she asks, “Where are you guys going?”
“Just me,” I clarify. “I’m going to Poland.”
Callie slams her book shut and I can feel her eyes boring holes in the back of my head as I watch the road.
“Without Eddie?” she says, aghast.
“Daddy is going to look after Eddie for a few days. He’ll be fine,” I say. I meet Callie’s eyes briefly in the rear vision mirror. She blinks at me.
“Mom. Daddy will most certainly not be fine with Eddie for a few days. Does Dad know the first thing about Eddie’s life? He doesn’t even use the AAC. And he can’t work the coffee machine, and you know what Dad is like in the mornings if he doesn’t get his coffee. And you’ve seen what he does when he tries to cook. Oh—and please, don’t even get me started on my life—Daddy won’t know where to take me or when to pick me up...no. This won’t do at all, Mom. I mean, I love Daddy very much but he’s hardly equipped for this.”
I would definitely feel guilty in this moment if Callie’s outrage wasn’t so damned hilarious. I try to keep my expression mild, but I fail to hide my amusement, and as the smile breaks through, I let myself go and I actually start to laugh.
Callie does not echo my laughter with her own. When I glance in the mirror again, she’s an adorable mix of outraged and anxious.
“Callie Michaels,” I chuckle. “You will all be fine without me for a few days. You can help Dad with Eddie’s routine. You can teach Dad how to use the AAC when he finally realizes he needs to—and you know what, honey bear, I’m actually a bit jealous that you’ll probably get to see that moment and I won’t.”
“Mom. Please. That is not going to be funny. Dad’s been refusing to use the AAC for years.”
“Exactly. But he’s never had to manage Eddie’s routine on his own, and you know as well as I do that without the AAC—there is just no way to do that.”
Callie falls silent. I glance at her in the mirror again and find she’s staring out the window. She looks genuinely scared.
“It will be okay, honey bear,” I say softly.
“I don’t like this, Mom,” she says.
“I need to do this for Babcia and, frankly, having heard that little speech you just gave, I think I need to do it for you too.”
“Now I know you’ve lost your mind. You think you’re abandoning your family for me?” She’s scowling at me now, and I can tell she’s preparing to launch a full-throttled pout.
“One day, baby girl, you could have a family of your own, if you want one. And I don’t want you to think that becoming a mom means your entire existence has to revolve around your kids and partner. Our circumstances are difficult, but that’s not really an excuse. Daddy and I haven’t been very good role models for you in having a balanced family life.” I draw in a deep breath, then I admit, “Besides, this really matters to me. I’m nervous about leaving you guys, but I need to do it.”
Callie sighs impatiently and sinks back into her seat.
“Fine. But I hope you realize—I’ll help Dad with the basics, but if he messes things up completely, he’s on his own.” I start to laugh again, and this time she meets my gaze in the mirror and gives me a resigned smile. “Good for you, Mom. What’s in Poland?”
“Some special places from Babcia’s childhood.”
“She just wants you to visit some places?”
“And take photos. I think there’s more but...I’m not really sure what else. You know it’s been hard to communicate with her, but it’s very clear she wants me to go.”
“So—” She ponders this for a moment, then she brightens. “It’s like you’re going on a quest. You’re not completely sure what the quest is but you’re going anyway and hoping you figure it out on the way. That’s badass, Mom.”
“Watch your language, Callie.”
She smirks and glances back to her book. When we get to the ballet hall, she hops out of the car and scoops her bag up off the backseat, and then for the first time in ages, she actually approaches my window and plants a kiss on my cheek.
“Oh,” I say, surprised. “Thank you, honey bear. I love you.”
She throws a casual wave over her shoulder as she runs off toward the hall. I smile to myself as I turn toward the hospital, pleased that Callie was, eventually, supportive of this little venture, and then the day seems even better when we get to Babcia’s room, because not only does Eddie know the way and leads me there with enthusiasm, but Babcia herself is stronger today. She’s already sitting up in bed when we enter her room, and her expression brightens when she sees us. Eddie climbs up onto the bed beside her and cuddles up to her. I take Mom’s iPad from the tray table and with shaking hands, I give Babcia my news.
Alice plane Poland.
Babcia reads the symbols on the screen. I watch her eyes track across several times, then she looks up at me and a smile breaks over her weary features. Her eyes fill with tears, and a soft sob breaks from her lips. She doesn’t need speech to convey her gratitude. The expression on her face says it all.
And just for a moment, I’m not at all torn about this. I know there’s more she wants than photos, and she has no way of telling me what it is, so I’m going to have to hope that I can stumble onto the needle in the haystack. It’s insane—but I’m now certain that I’m doing the right thing.
Of course, that certainty evaporates the instant my mother bursts into the room in a cloud of expensive perfume and fluster. She’s wearing a stiff black suit despite the fact that it’s the weekend. I know she’ll go into chambers today—that’s pretty typical for her. Weekends have never meant much to my mom.
“I’ve just come from hospital administration,” she greets me, and I can see from the set of her jaw that some poor receptionist has probably just copped a dressing-down. “My God. I just wanted to see about getting a Polish interpreter but apparently no one knows how to arrange one on short notice let alone a weekend. Honestly, the fees they charge here you’d think that we could—”
“She’s doing okay, Mom,” I say quietly. “We’re managing fine with the AAC.” I know Mom is worried sick about Babcia. I just wish that instead of focusing all of her energy on battling and belittling the hospital, she’d admit she’s hurting and feeling alone and scared. Maybe she should take the time she just spent throwing her weight around and put it into an honest phone call with Dad, one that ends with a request or demand for him to simply tell his golfing buddies that his mother-in-law is sick and he has to come home.
Then it occurs to me that she doesn’t even know she’s going to be alone for a few days, because I haven’t told her yet. I take a deep breath.
“Mom,” I say abruptly. “I’m going to Poland.”
She blinks at me.
“What?”
“Monday afternoon. Wade and I decided last night. I’ve booked flights and there’s a guide who’s going to take me around—”
“You have got to be kidding me, Alice. I don’t even know where to start here—this is so like you, isn’t it?” For a seventy-six-year-old woman with a successful professional career, my mom sure does do an impressive impersonation of a bitchy fourteen-year-old when she’s pissed. Her gaze narrows, and she goes for the sucker punch. “This is college all over again. Alice has an impulse, so Alice goes right ahead and acts on it. Feel like rebelling? Ignore a decade of planning and working toward law school and study journalism instead. Feeling randy? Get yourself knocked up by your TA—”
“Mom, he wasn’t my TA—” I groan, although there’s no point, because she knows damn well that Wade never taught me—what interest would I have had in nanotechnology? Mom isn’t looking to be factual—she’s looking for dramatic effect.
“Feeling overwhelmed?” she adds now, the snide tone sharpening further. “Drop out of your career altogether before you’ve even given it a shot and stay at home like some 1950s housewife. And now the kicker—feeling pity for a confused old lady on her deathbed? Then jump on a plane for God’s sake—”
“Mom!” I exclaim. “Just stop!”
Mommy hurt, Eddie’s iPad says. Mom and I stare at each other in the strained silence, until Babcia’s iPad announces, Alice okay. Julita naughty.
The voice is robotic, of course, but that doesn’t mean it’s not accusatory. Mom and I both turn sharply toward the bed. Babcia looks pointedly at us—no words required to communicate her displeasure with our raised voices and Eddie’s reaction to them. I glance at my son, and he’s staring at me, visibly concerned and confused. I offer him a smile, trying to project a calmness that I don’t feel at all. Mom is in fine form today and apparently we’re going to dredge up every past disappointment I’ve ever managed to inflict upon her.
“Mom,” I say, drawing in a deep breath. “May I speak to you outside, please?”
Mom grunts her reply, then follows me into the hallway. We stand facing one another like fighters in a ring, our breathing ragged.
This conversation is not new to us, so we both know how it goes now. This is the part where I back down—maybe I go ahead and do what I want later anyway, but at this point in the conversation, I usually concede that she’s right just so I can end the tension. Even when she’s not being downright mean, like today, my mother can run rings around me in any argument. She was a prosecutor for forty years—she knows how to get her point across. In some ways, it’s actually easier to argue with this emotional version of my mother because she’s not quite as rational as she ordinarily would be. Maybe that’s why, today, I’m going to ignore my automatic inclination to acquiesce.
“She is not confused,” I say flatly. “She knows exactly what she wants. I don’t know why this is so important to her, but it clearly is.”
“So you’re just going to leave me here to deal with all of this?” Mom says. It’s hard to stop my eyes from widening in shock, because suddenly I understand what this little spat is really about. Mom doesn’t care that I’m going; she cares that I’m leaving.
The very idea of the formidable Judge Julita Slaski-Davis being afraid of anything—let alone something as pedestrian as being alone is jaw-dropping. I love my mom—I admire her—I resent her—I am intimidated by her—I’m so many things about and toward her, but one thing I’ve not often been is surprised by her, and I’m not sure I’ve ever felt sorry for her before.
“Maybe it’s time to call Dad—”
“I am not asking him to come home.”
“He’d understand, Mom. He’d come right away if you asked him to.”
“I am not you, Alice Slaski-Davis,” she hisses at me, predictably resorting to my full name as if I’m a child, also predictably refusing to acknowledge that I took Wade’s surname without so much as a hyphen! Mom is nothing if not consistent; she was horrified with that decision ten years ago, and apparently it still smarts today. “I do not and will not rely on a man to get me through this. It is—”
“Listen,” I interrupt her, because I know we’re about to start the whole Alice-is-a-bad-feminist argument again and it never ends well—or at all, actually. “I don’t want to argue with you about Dad.” Or Wade. Or my surname. Or my mind-boggling ability to survive without a career. “I just want you to understand why I want to do this for her. She’s given me real places, real names...” At least, I seriously hope so. “I’m just going to go to Poland and take some photos for her, maybe FaceTime her once or twice if the time zones line up okay. I don’t really understand why this matters so much to her, but clearly it does and God only knows how much time she has left.”
“What on earth do you think you’re going to achieve? Who travels halfway across the globe to take some photos? It’s a fool’s errand.”
“Well,” I say quietly, thinking of Callie’s comments about Wade in the car this morning. “Let me find that out the hard way.”
I pack Eddie up after that and kiss Babcia on the cheek.
Today is Saturday. I tell her, via the iPad. Alice home tomorrow. Alice plane Poland Monday. She looks at me, and her brow furrows with confusion.
“See?” Mom says bitterly. She’s sitting in the corner with her arms crossed over her chest. “I told you we need a translator.”
I look at the iPad, and for a moment or two I can’t figure out what’s confusing Babcia. She knows the symbols for today and Alice and home and plane and she had no trouble at all finding the flag that means Poland.
It’s the days. The titles are in English, so she can only use the icons she creates herself and the ones she already knows. A sudden thought strikes me and I hit the settings on the iPad.
Polski.
I change languages, and move back to the icon screen. Babcia looks again, and she grins at me and nods. She takes the iPad and I wait as she plays with the device for several minutes. She takes a selfie, grimaces, deletes it and repeats this process several times until she’s apparently happy with the result. Finally, the device reads me a string of robotic Polish. I look at the icons, and find she’s created a new icon and adorned it with a selfie of herself midsmile, and she’s wedged that around grinning clip art faces. I flick the iPad back to English and reread it.
Babcia happy. Babcia proud.
Five minutes later, Mom, the head nurse and Babcia all know how to use the AAC as an inelegant translator. I take Babcia’s precious letter and snap a series of photos, trying to catch it in just the right light so that Zofia-the-Polish-tour-guide has a chance of translating it.
“Okay, I’m going now,” I say, pointing toward the door. Babcia beams. Mom stares at me impassively. “I won’t be in tomorrow, I have to get things ready for the kids. But I’ll be home in six days, and I’ll try to keep in touch via phone and text messages.”
Mom is still giving me that expressionless stare. I sigh and kiss Babcia, and then I walk around her bed, and I bend to kiss Mom’s cheek too. At the last second, Mom catches my forearm in her hand, then she stands and kisses my cheek in return.
“Good luck,” she says stiffly. I thank her, but then bolt out the door before she can add the inevitable you’re going to need it and spoil the gentle buzz her farewell has given me. Once Eddie and I are in the car, I grit my teeth and dial Dad.
“Ally,” he greets me warmly. “How are things? How’s your grandmother?”
“Not good, Dad,” I admit. “Has Mom told you she can’t speak?”
“She did. And your mom seems to think the hospital is dropping the ball.”
“Yeah, I know...”
“But you think Mom is being a hard-ass, like she always is.”
I laugh weakly. I seriously love my Dad, especially the oh-so-chill retirement version of him.
“I kind of do. But, Dad—I actually think Mom needs you. I know she doesn’t want to ask you to come home, but I think you need to. Babcia has asked me to go to Poland, and I’m going to go, so Mom is going to be alone—”
“Just back up a bit there, love,” Dad says patiently. “What’s this about you going to Poland?”
“It’s complicated,” I mutter. “Babcia asked me to go and I’m still not sure why, but I’m going anyway.”
“Well, that’s unexpected. How fun for you.”
I laugh at the ease of Dad’s acceptance of my crazy quest.
“This is almost exactly the opposite of how the conversation with Mom went when I told her,” I tell him. “She’s stressed out of her mind—between her work and visiting Babcia at the hospital—I’m a bit worried how she’ll cope if anything happens with Babcia while I’m away. Can you come?”
“Of course I can,” Dad says, and he sighs heavily. “If she’d asked, I’d have come right home when Babcia got sick. You know that, right?”
“I do, Dad.” I sigh too. “I really do.”
“Well, when are you shifting gears from stay-at-home mom to international jet-setter?”
“Tomorrow afternoon,” I say, then I swallow.
“I guess I won’t see you until you get back,” Dad says. “Do me a favor, Alice, and bring me back some vodka. Good stuff—as strong as possible. I think I’m going to need it to deal with your mom when Babcia finally goes.”
“I can’t even think about that yet,” I admit.
“Well, my darling daughter, I won the mother-in-law lottery when I met your mother, so I hate to say this—but Babcia is ninety-five years old. Sooner or later, we’re all going to have to let her go.”