Next Chapter in a Life

My mother's husband announced on a mid-spring Saturday that once school let out, Mother and I would be moving out. He'd deliver us to my uncle, who lived in New Jersey. Mother did not dispute this pronouncement, but failed to understand why her husband was neither willing to accept her as she was, nor willing to help her change into someone better. He'd simply given up. It was not a happy time for her. I perceived it, for even though I think she did her best to remain attentive, her mind was clearly elsewhere. I'm sure it was the meds that kept her alive.

The man was biding his time. Mother tried, sometimes desolately, sometimes desperately, but always futilely, to convince the man she loved that there was much worth saving in the marriage. Her temper, her madness, could be controlled, either through sheer will or through medication.

He followed his instincts instead of being swayed by his heart. Our days on the farm were numbered.

I'd grown accustomed to our all-but-monochromatic cats, whom we named CowCow and Spice. I think they grew to like us, too, especially Spice, to whom Mum would call upon returning from her Bridge days. He'd gambol down the curved driveway to greet her, occasionally bringing her a vole, dead or alive. He often napped next to her as she read books, either in the porch or in the garden when it was sunny.

The trailer arrived in June. It would be available for packing for three days before the movers would come to take it. The permanent resident of the farm helped Mother pack our belongings into the trailer. She had purchased twelve lineal feet of space, and so everything had to be made to fit into that volume: 100”x108”x144” = 900 cubic feet. After pressing in the furniture, boxes of books, and what kitchen supplies Mother decided she wanted to keep, there was little space left. Mother went through all of her possessions and decided that a lot of it – probably as much as we'd be taking with us – would be left behind, either to be used by her soon-to-be ex-husband, or thrown out.

Sports equipment, like her tennis racquet, were left behind. “ I'll buy a new one if I ever play tennis again,” she whispered, mostly to herself. Discarded were many of her keepsakes, like her high school and college yearbooks, dozens and dozens of printed photographs before there Mother had available technology to scan and preserve the images, and every letter ever written to her by every boyfriend she'd ever had. I watched her reread a lot of the letters, her eyes soft with emotion and memory. She showed me her autograph book from elementary school. Even though she still kept in touch with many of the people she knew then online, she'd lost touch with many others. “Well, that's the past, isn't it?” she said, “And it's really just all stuff.” There sure was a lot of stuff destined for the recycling bin or, more likely, the wood-burning stove.

She did pack my keepsakes. She looked wistfully at my first medical record books from our visits to my first paediatrician, the bit of cord that had dried and subsequently sloughed off after my first few days of life, and story and poetry books that she had read with me when I was an infant and toddler. “These might hold sentimental value to you someday,” she said, placing the books carefully in a cardboard box labelled with my name in her careful architect's writing.

When the trailer was packed, we looked at cube of our earthly belongings, all rammed and stacked carefully at the rearmost portion of the trailer. Then the movers took it and drove it westward, probably on the I-80 as far as Youngstown before heading south to zigzag through as many states as they had stuff to carry from and to.

The drive to Uncle David's took about five hours. The first three and a half hours, across Pennsylvania, were long and quiet. We followed the 80 to the Delaware Water Gap, where Uncle David met us at a rest area at the side of the highway. It was dark already when we got arrived. Mother gave her husband a last embrace. He seemed troubled by the affection. As he turned back to his truck, he said, “Good luck.”

He climbed into his truck, and started his engine. He drove away westward, never to reappear in our lives.

We'd packed a couple suitcases to see us through the few weeks we'd be staying with Uncle David and his partner. We stopped at a roadside restaurant where we ate some nondescript food, then drove the rest of the way to his home in Towaco.

Mother and I stayed with Uncle David and his sweetheart, Aunt Theresa, for a few weeks. We visited a neighbourhood park. We took a commuter train to Hoboken, then rode the PATH under the Hudson River into Manhattan to sightsee and to watch a show one evening. I enjoyed the show but I'm not sure Mother did, though she smiled at the end of the performance, anyway. Perhaps she did not like the happy ending. That sowed the seed of cynicism in my heart though it would take years for the seed to take root and flower into doubtfulness regarding the entire romantic enterprise.

Uncle David used to work as an electrical engineer, but had quit. He'd started teaching yoga. We attended Uncle's classes, at a couple of yoga studios. Mother seemed to appreciate these more than any other activity we engaged in. Aunt Theresa, a slightly portly figure with long, light brown hair, did not go to the yoga classes with us. I remember Uncle David looking more fit than when we'd seen him, several months earlier, after he started his practice but before he became an instructor.

The yoga was doing him good. Aunt Theresa spent most of her day in her home office, working on her computer, though she would take occasional breaks and come into the living room to talk with Mother and me. She did not appear to resent Uncle David's improving health and fitness, but rather, she appeared to always be trying to catch up without wanting to do very much physically in order to reach that goal.

Uncle David would take Mother to the beginners' yoga classes with him because, he said, it would help her to get some exercise and relax. It was true. Mother's mood improved as the days passed; her demeanour became more peaceful and her voice, softer. It reminded me of how she used to speak to me before the blonde Daddy came into our lives. She slept longer, and I think, better.

After three weeks, Uncle brought Mother to Newark Airport, where she boarded a plane that took her to Albuquerque, to Antique Alice and Uncle Rick's.

Mum decided that she would try living with her only sister. Previously, she had lived with Antique Alice when she, Antique Alice, was stationed in Japan several years ago, while Mother was still in school. That was before either of them had married, before I was born. At the time, Antique Alice worked on an American military base on Honshu Island, in a settlement named Misawa.

Unlike Misawa, where the snow becomes feet deep in the wintertime, there was only just a dusting of snow in the mountains above her current city. Albuquerque, like Denver, though not as vocal about it, lies 5000 feet above sea level. The clear air would cause us to misjudge distances. We'd think that a walk down the street would take only ten minutes when in reality, it would be at least a mile, taking us at least half an hour, with the sun beating down on us.

After the first few days of living there, Mum bought hats for herself and me. They were lightweight synthetic shade hats, with a rigid bill in front and a soft cape on the back. We wore those hats everywhere during the day, for the sun was not only high, but the day long. Not a whole lot of shade to be found at that elevation. There was also a lot less atmosphere through which the sun's radiation needed to pass before landing on one's head. Having dark hair didn't help.

Even though there were occasional wind-driven sandstorms, the air was, predominantly, still, dry, and hot. Very hot in the sun. By that same token, nights were clear and cold, since there wasn't much moisture in the air to trap the heat. On those cold clear nights, we'd look up at the moon, in the company of a gazillion stars. Mother pointed out the Milky Way to me. It's a wide, glowing stripe crossing the vast skyscape, and made me feel at once small an insignificant, but also connected, part of the larger universe that contains everything known and possible. My world, and my mind, expanded, and my horizons grew wide.