They came to me from TV and books and neighborhood health clinics. Cher, Wonder Woman, a pantheon of Greek goddesses. Poor Persephone’s mother, the loving Demeter, seemed especially well suited. All were strong, all were capable, and all just a thought away from caring for me. Though I had a mother of my own, whose life I circled round like a planet to the sun, I was always on the lookout for another.
I looked for mothers the way other kids collected postage stamps.
I reached for mothers the way I reached for communion at Mass, hand extended, eyes to heaven.
I craved mothers like I craved bread.
And every so often, I’d get lucky and find one. At school, on a field trip to the planetarium, the art gallery, through the window of a car passing through our neighborhood. I’d see her, push my hair behind my ear, straighten my back, look hard in her direction.
I’d been stockpiling mothers for years, and except for Mrs. Dowling—the second-grade teacher who painted her lips a dusty shade of pumpkin and preferred showing filmstrips to reading books aloud in class—except for her, who had no magic and would not do, I had transformed every schoolteacher I’d ever had into a mother at one time or another.
I stared into the black of chalkboards while they talked on about sounding out vowels and the Revolutionary War, imagining my room in their houses, the pink ruffled canopy bed, the chest of dolls, closets full of dresses. Once I began to attend Catholic schools, I discovered that even nuns had their appeal.
When Sister Claire read poems by Langston Hughes and Sonia Sanchez and complimented my ability to diagram sentences, I found that my mother fantasies were entirely flexible. Giving up the idea of a frilly bedroom, I imagined a less furnished, but equally satisfying life at the Motherhouse, surrounded by all those plain and purposeful women, their tight clean rooms, their well-worn books. I imagined my hair cut short, the feel of my feet in Birkenstock sandals, and began to wonder how old you had to be to join up.
Mother collecting.
It’s how I passed the time.
But as I grew and changed, so did my need.
By the time I was done with grammar school, teachers and goddesses still had appeal—but I needed something more. Someone real. An ear to spill my secrets into. A voice that answered back.
I wanted someone who spoke in calm tones. Someone with a phone extension, a full purse, and car keys. Someone who’d gone to college, who had studied anything ending in “-ology.” Someone with done-up hair and belted dresses, who shaped her brows and applied lipstick. Someone who walked tall, wore heels, went places.
Someone who might take me with her.