Chapter 3: Clothes

 

Going through someone’s closet is like going through a photo album. Old shirts that remind you of a specific day. A good lunch. A trip to Tennessee. Serena looked around her mother’s closet and could practically see her standing there. She couldn’t understand why her father wanted to get rid of her clothes so quickly. She would have kept them hanging there for the rest of her life. Just so she could walk in from time to time and still see her mother. But maybe her father didn’t want the reminder. Maybe it hurt too much for him.

Serena knew this task wasn’t going to be easy for her. It wasn’t just the memories. It was having to touch her mother’s things. The mess of it all made her insides feel on edge. But closure is never tidy. She saw her mother in the white shirt with the ketchup stains from one too many hotdogs. She saw her in that old black sweater that was ratty from wearing it too much. One dark gray shirt still had a clearance tag on it with the original price crossed off and then the sale price crossed off and then a clearance sticker marked $7.99. She could hear Barbara’s voice, “A true find in the racks. What a deal.” Shoeboxes of never-to-be-worn shoes gathered layers of dust that made Serena uneasy. Smells of musk, old sneakers, and stale perfume on silk blouses filled Serena’s nose as she gently touched a sleeve of a cream-colored cotton sweater.

Abigail went right to work, methodically going through old purses and taking out old tissues, cough drops, and sugar packets.

“You’re being really thorough.” Serena handed her a garbage bag.

“Mom always hid money. I figured we could give it to Dad—it just seems silly to throw it away. Mom would have wanted me to look.” Serena noticed the wetness growing in Abigail’s eyes and wondered if Abigail still felt the pull of Barbara even from the grave, and the need to honor her wishes.

“Oh. I didn’t know that. About the money.” Serena looked down and tried to go through a purse, but the dirtiness inside made her feel sick. She wondered what else she didn’t know about her mom that Abigail knew.

Serena looked down and saw a familiar jewelry box. “Remember this? It used to be Grandma’s. I used to play with it when I was little.”

“Take it.”

Serena put the box in a bag along with some other random things. Perfume, which she never even liked to wear but for some reason felt bad throwing out. An old hot water bottle she had bought for her mother that was in the shape of a dog. A little girl’s shirt that might have been hers when she was little. A birthday card that her mother had written a recipe on. A picture that Serena had made with a note on the back that said, “Happy Mother’s Day. I’ll try to be a better daughter.”

“How’s it going, girls?” Robert peeked in the closet and handed them more bags.

“Good. We’ve gone through this side.”

“Great. Great progress,” he said with genuine enthusiasm as he left the room.

“Don’t you think it’s weird he isn’t helping?” asked Serena.

“He’s been weird since Mom died. Not helping doesn’t surprise me,” replied Abigail.

“I just don’t see what his rush is. And if he is in such a rush to get rid of her things, why doesn’t he help, too?” Serena wanted nothing more than to be able to go home and stop touching the dusty boxes and old clothes, but she didn’t want to leave Abigail alone. Every time Abigail called her these days, she was crying. Yet, here in the closet, her eyes were dry.

“Grieving is odd. It’s all part of the process, isn’t it? Getting rid of the past.” Abigail threw a cleaned-out purse into the heap of searched-through accessories.

“What’s that pile over there?” Serena asked.

“Consignment stuff. I figured some of this stuff is too nice to donate. We can take any money and put it toward the grandkids.”

“Good idea,” Serena said as she looked at the pile of formal clothes that were huddled up as if they just finished a football play. “She wore that to my wedding. The gray dress.” The dress’s shimmering fabric twisted and turned within the pile.

“You want it?” said Abigail.

“No.” Serena went back to work and pushed anything too dusty near Abigail to look through.

“Hey, look,” Abigail said, gesturing toward the bathroom.

“What?” Serena asked.

“The toilet seat is up. Mom would have killed him.” The girls laughed, but Serena’s eyes stayed looking at the seat. Somehow the big round O of the seat seemed to sum up everything that had changed—there was zero left of her mother.

“Have you noticed he doesn’t say her name? It’s been two weeks and we don’t say her name,” Abigail said without looking up as she shoved her hand into a purse that had been used so many times the leather was soft like linen.

“Yeah. He hasn’t mentioned Mom to me at all.”

“We never talk. He never calls me. I waited a week, and then I finally called him and all he talked about was having us come over to clean out the closet. He didn’t even ask about Hannah.”

“Who knows what he’s going through? Maybe this is how he deals. Remember after Grandpa died, he never really talked about him. Think about how hard it is for us. It must be even harder for Dad. I mean, they were married for so long.” Serena could see that Abigail’s face stiffened.

“You always did stick up for him.”

“I’m not sticking up for him. It sucks. All of this sucks. It sucks way worse than I ever could have imagined.”

“At least you were there for her when she was in the hospital last week. I feel like Hannah got sick, the babysitter canceled—so much time was taken away from me.” Abigail looked away and controlled her tears.

“You were there for her when she was alive. That’s when she needed you. You were there when she needed support. We couldn’t all be there 24/7. You were there a lot. All you missed that last day was—”

Serena closed her eyes as she thought of all the blood and said, “You wouldn’t have wanted to see what I saw, Abigail. And besides, she never would have left if you were there.”

The girls got quiet and breathed in the dust flakes of their mother that were circulating in the air around them. Serena looked at Abigail and tried to find some common ground in her eyes. Her hazel eyes were cold. Her dark brown hair was disheveled and up. And she wore a black T-shirt that was misshapen from too much wear and wash. Yet, even so, Serena thought Abigail was the prettier of the two sisters, and she was sure everyone else thought that too. It didn’t matter that Serena ran twelve miles every week and Abigail had never exercised in her life.

Abigail had started every type of sport when she was young: soccer, softball, basketball, volleyball, tennis, even fencing and badminton. Although she never finished up the season, Barbara always stuck up for her. “If she doesn’t like it, she doesn’t like it.” Yet every year, Abigail would come with some sort of form for some sport she just knew she was going to love. But when Serena got really good at softball and made the traveling team, Barbara decided that all the games were “taking up too much family time,” and so she encouraged Serena to quit. For Serena, that meant staying up in her bedroom and reading in her closet so Barbara wouldn’t come and nag her to clean. Abigail never had to clean. Although, being the good daughter that she was, she was always offering to help Barbara with laundry and making beds. Serena hated making beds. She saw no point in doing something that was just going to be undone in the same day. Whenever Barbara called from her bedroom, Serena would climb under her bed and hide.

Barbara’s bed was made now and looming behind the two sisters and their clothing piles. Serena would steal glances at the green, flowered bedspread. Sometimes she would look back and squint her eyes and she could almost see her mother lying there. She couldn’t imagine how her father lay in that bed every night.

“I was thinking we should do something every month in honor of Mom. Something fun. Something that reminds us of her,” said Abigail as she put a navy sweater in the giveaway bag.

“Sure,” said Serena, looking at her sister and trying to hide her bewilderment. Abigail never wanted to do anything with her lately. She always had things to do with Hannah. And even when Serena tried to get Hannah and Maggie together, Abigail would always say the girls had too many years between them to have anything in common.

***

The first sister date commemorating their mom was to the Blue City Diner, a silvery old diner with big uncomfortable booths finished in bright red plastic fabric and orange-and-brown tables. In the middle of the other dining room, which had tables and no booths, sat a big salad bar where Barbara used to fill her plate with chopped liver, cottage cheese, and beets, and rave about the half-stale raisin bread like it was gourmet brioche. Barbara never liked to sit in that room. “We’ll wait for a booth,” was always her reply when they offered it up.

“Doesn’t this feel weird?” asked Serena. “I keep expecting to see her.”

“It feels okay. It’s good to be near places that she was near,” said Abigail.

Serena took a good look at Abigail, who seemed remarkably calm for someone who usually perfected the stereotypical stressed-out-single-mom look.

“Is that Mom’s coat?”

Abigail shrugged and touched the black peacoat softly and said, “It seemed like a waste to give it away.”

“I thought you were going to take it to the consignment shop.”

“Oh, yeah. Well, whatever. I liked it, so I kept it. You kept clothes.”

“I know. I just don’t think I could wear them.”

“Can you get us a table? I have to go to the bathroom.”

“Sure.”

Serena watched Abigail walk through the restaurant in her mother’s black coat and thought her shoulders looked small and sunken, like the coat was swallowing her. The old hostess, Betty, came to the podium, and Serena thought she was going to remember her. She was hoping Betty remembered her. Her heart raced in anticipation. She wanted so much for her to ask about her mother so she could tell her she was dead and have someone react. Serena had stopped sharing her pain with anyone; she had bottled it up so tight that she thought if the hostess just mentioned her mother, it would rip her chest open with a stab. Even though Serena didn’t talk about it, she missed people reacting to it. She missed the release of emotion. Now it was just an accepted fact that she had no mother. No one cried, no one said sorry. No one even acknowledged it. The world just went on and accepted she was motherless.

“Want a table or a booth?” The same scratchy-voiced woman with platinum old-lady curls didn’t even look up at her.

“A booth,” Serena said quietly and followed her to the table.

“Dining alone?” the waitress asked, with a rehearsed, false tone.

“No, my sister just went to the bathroom.”

“I’ll bring back some waters for you two then.” She returned shortly with two small glasses and Serena started to sip on hers while she waited for Abigail.

She stared at the old couple in the booth next to her and thought about how her dad no longer had someone to share a booth with. She felt like she should try to remember that when she didn’t understand why he was acting so strange. The old lady got up and went to the bathroom and was back before Abigail. Serena wondered if she should go check on her. She’s probably calling to check up on Hannah, she thought. The old lady sat down and touched her partner’s hand.

“There’s a young girl crying in the bathroom.”

“Is she okay?” he asked in a grandfatherly way.

“Shh. Shh. Here she comes.”

Serena watched as Abigail and the old woman shared solemn nods. Abigail sat down at the booth and said with a smile, “What do you think? Order the salad bar?”

The two girls walked around the salad bar multiple times but put nothing on their plates. It was like neither one could make the first move. That somehow putting food on their plate signified their mother was not there. She was not over their shoulder saying, “Ooh, put a few pieces of cantaloupe on there for me.” Or “This noodle salad looks great.” Or “Don’t forget to get some raisin bread; it’s delicious here. I wonder if they make it. I should ask.” Instead, there was silence and empty white oval plates. Serena stared at the container of beets. They looked like huge platelet’s swimming in a pool of blood. Mom had too many platelets, Serena couldn’t stop her brain from thinking, and she got that bad leg clot. That was the beginning of the end. She stirred the beets, trying to break them up as if she could stop her mother’s thrombosis.

“I thought you hated beets,” said Abigail.

“I do,” said Serena as she silently piled lettuce, garbanzo beans, and cheese on her plate. She wasn’t even that hungry. She didn’t even really like salad.

The girls said little through the lunch. They did talk about their daughters, mainly about Hannah—the one subject Serena knew would make Abigail happy. They did not go up for seconds. Neither sister touched the raisin bread, even though they had both gotten extra pieces. They hugged and departed, both sisters saying how they should do it again. Both sisters feeling utterly sad and isolated from the world and each other.

Serena decided to stop at the grocery store on the way home and was surprised to see Abigail’s car go past. She didn’t live that way. She’s going to see Mom, she thought to herself. The community graveyard was down the road. As Serena shopped for pasta, cereal, milk, kale, and the remainder of her grocery list, she couldn’t help but feel guilty that she had not visited her mother. She wanted to laugh at herself, that she could still feel the guilt that Abigail was the better daughter because she was taking the time to visit her mother. As if her mother’s dead body was keeping a tally of who came and when. Serena drove by the cemetery on the way home and stopped across the street. She could not go in. Abigail’s car was still there. She could see Abigail sitting next to her mother’s grave—a rectangle of soft dirt amid gravestones. Her knees to her chest like a little girl. Their mother’s black coat was around the gravestone next to her gravesite as if Abigail put it around its shoulders so it would not get cold. Serena started her car quickly so Abigail wouldn’t notice her.

When Serena got home, the house was quiet. She saw the light blinking on the answering machine and pressed it.

“Hi, honey. It’s me. Maggie is having fun at the playground, so we’re going to stay a bit longer. Hope you had fun with your sister. I’ll call you on the way home.” Tom’s voice sounded relaxed. It had been a while since she had heard that happy tone in his voice. Lately, it seemed like all she heard was stress and work and frustration at her.

“Three old messages. Playback?” the robotic-sounding answering machine inquired.

Serena pressed play. “Hi, Serena. It’s Abigail . . .” Delete.

“Hello. We have been trying to reach you to . . .” Delete.

“Hi, Serena. It’s Mom. Give me a call when you get a chance.” Serena stared at the answering machine, her hand shaking as she pressed it again. “Hi, Serena. It’s Mom. Give me a call when you get a chance.” How long has this been on here? she wondered. She pressed play again: “Hi, Serena. It’s Mom. Give me a call when you get a chance.” She closed her eyes and in that moment her mother seemed real. She could imagine Barbara on the other end of the phone, calling her from the couch. If she closed her eyes tight enough, Barbara felt alive. “Hi, Serena. It’s Mom. Give me a call when you get a chance.” This time Serena noticed her mom sounded out of breath. “Hi, Serena. It’s Mom. Give me a call when you get a chance.” Her voice sounded like she was forcing herself to sound happier than she was. “Hi, Serena. It’s Mom. Give me a call when you get a chance.” How couldn’t I have noticed that? thought Serena. She’s trying so hard to sound happy; she’s stuck on a couch, for God’s sake. Serena pressed it one more time and closed her eyes. This time she just listened to the voice and thought nothing. She walked over to the desk and wrote a note, “Do not erase message,” and taped it to the machine. It made sense to hear her mother’s voice. Not hearing it anymore made no sense, to her head or to her heart. She had to save it for the times when she would be alone and needed to hear her mother’s voice. Even though when she listened to Barbara’s voice, Serena felt an indescribable, shaky combination of ache, love, and uncertainty.

Serena had stopped talking to Tom about her mother. She didn’t want to share her grief with him. She wanted to hold her grief close to her, because the pain of it at least felt like love. But it showed up in places where she did not want it to. Like when she was in the lab, running a western blot, and used the wrong buffer on her gel. Instead of neat little black bands that could prove her scientific quest, it showed a smear of black that revealed only what her current emotions felt like inside.

How stupid, Serena thought to herself.

Mostly it crept up on her when she was driving somewhere. When she had just dropped Maggie off at daycare, her car filled with quietness and loneliness, and she cried. She did not expect to miss her mother as much as she did. Serena tried to plan for Maggie’s second birthday, but her heart wasn’t in it. She didn’t feel like making invitations. She didn’t have the energy to make the pony cake that Maggie wanted. She didn’t feel like smiling with the other moms. Serena realized so much of what drove her to be a good mother was to impress her mother. And with Barbara gone, Serena just didn’t care to try.

***

Barbara was a real pill at Maggie’s first birthday party. She wasn’t feeling well, and she never did have much of a stomach for socializing. Serena knew Barbara would hate all her polished mommy friends with their organic food, nursing shawls, and two-hundred-dollar diaper bags. Serena pushed herself to be the alpha mom. She made the monkey invitations from scratch and even cut out banana-shaped labels for the envelopes. She took two days off of work to make an organic and healthy monkey cake. She even made mini monkey cupcakes for the kids. She made all the healthy wraps and salads from scratch. And she had presented all the food as if, on that day, it was about her mothering and not about Maggie turning a year old.

Barbara came in and fingered a sandwich and asked, “What is this? Spinach?”

“Yes. And there’s tomato and plain wraps, too.”

“You didn’t put much meat in there.” Barbara popped a piece of cheese into her mouth and sat on the couch. “Make me coffee,” she said.

“Already made it. Give me a sec, okay, Mom. I got to get a few things ready.”

The party progressed as Serena knew it would. Serena watched as Barbara talked with her friends and controlled the conversation like a hungry raptor.

“And what is your daughter’s name?

“Aurora.”

“What?” Barbara’s voice heightened loudly to show her disdain.

“Aurora.”

“You don’t hear that very often,” Barbara said to Robert and laughed a short, insulting chuckle. “Kids these days, feel like they have to name their children something to stand out. Whatever happened to nice normal names like Sara and Rachel? Now those are the abnormal names.”

Aurora’s mom smiled nicely, with her short, perfectly coifed hair, and offered her pink-cheeked child another organic kale puff.

She remembered feeling jealous when Aurora’s mom brought out a fancy sippy cup with a straw. Maggie couldn’t drink through a straw yet. And yet there was Aurora drinking through the straw while her mom looked on like she was a prize-winning pony. It’s amazing how much the small things got in the way of motherhood. How many times had Serena thought about the “straw” milestone? As if any forty-year-old person grows up and can’t drink through a straw. And yet Serena would practice with Maggie. She’d buy milkshakes and try to share to encourage her.

“Come on, Mags, you got to sip like a big girl to get the chocolate milkshake.”

Always in a rush to move Maggie along to the next bigger stage—as if straw-drinking was like a game of soccer where she could keep working on her skills and improve. Maggie refused. She put the straw in her mouth and would just smile. She laughed now and thought how different life would be if someone could just tell all the moms in the world that it was all going to be okay. All the stress, all the small worries, it’ll all end up being small.

And wasn’t that what Barbara had told her that day: “Don’t worry about straws, Serena.” For a moment, on the couch, their relationship felt almost normal. A mother reassuring a daughter. That was the magic of Maggie. A bridge of joy that let Barbara and Serena talk in ways they hadn’t talked. Serena’s guard came down. And Barbara’s time was almost up. While Serena worried out loud about milestones, Barbara worried inside if Maggie would even remember her.

***

As Serena drove to the store to pick up food for the party, she couldn’t stop thinking back about Barbara. Things weren’t fun when she was around, and they didn’t seem as important when she was gone. Of course, at the time of Maggie’s first party, Serena felt like she couldn’t breathe. Just waiting for Barbara to attack another friend. Maybe that is why Serena missed her so much. Barbara was so much of a presence that the air seemed to not know what to do without her.

When Serena got home, she went to Maggie’s baby book and searched for a picture. She found the one she was looking for after page after page of smiling, tiny Maggie pictures. Maggie’s first Thanksgiving. Barbara was wearing her wig and actually let Serena take a picture of her.

“You’re not in Maggie’s book yet, Mom. I want a picture of you with her,” Serena said without looking up at Barbara for fear that Barbara knew what she wasn’t saying. Who knew how long Barbara had left? Who knew how many picture opportunities she had left?

Barbara held Maggie tight and said, “Take a picture.”

Serena loved that picture. A true smile from her mother. She looked at the picture now and it grounded her. She did exist. My mother did exist, she thought to herself. How could this person feel so far away, like such a faint memory that maybe never was? Serena went to her closet and took out the maroon sweater she had kept from the pile of her mother’s clothes they were going to give away. She had slid it into her bag, not wanting Abigail to notice her being sentimental. She was unsure of putting it on. She hadn’t washed it. It was like a symbol of their changing relationship. In that picture, in that moment, Maggie linked them together. A mended arc in a lifetime of broken coldness. If only they had more time to fix it. If only Serena could understand why her mother had always been so hard. Serena touched the sweater again, then hung it up in the very back of her closet.