Mother Dearest

Chapter 7

She frets over her clothing, her makeup. I've seen this woman interview psychopathic murderers without blinking an eye, but the notion of meeting her daughter has her half in tears just over the state of her hair. My mother doesn't own a blow dryer, and Sara didn't think to bring one with her when she drove out here.

"It'll be all messy," she groans, staring at her wet curls in the mirror. "It kinks when it dries like this."

"April's got curly hair too, honey. Curlier than yours, even. Remember?"

"Oh yeah." She looks over at me. "Guess she gets that from us, huh."

There's something surreal about the moment, as we stand in my mother's guest room and discuss where our daughter got her looks. "I guess so."

She throws another irritated glance at herself in the mirror. "Should we, you know."

"Go?"

"Yeah." Her face is pale, too pale.

"Are you okay?"

"I still don't know what to say when I meet her, Grissom."

"You could tell her that great story about your hair kinking when it dries."

"I'm serious."

"We stick with the plan. No telling April anything unless your mother wants to."

"Right." She nods to herself, then looks up in alarm. "But what if she asks?"

"Your mother?"

"April. I don't want to lie to her if she asks."

I step forward, reaching out to rub her shoulders gently. "Tell you what. If we walk in there, and April asks us if she's our secret lovechild who's been raised by her grandmother who's been posing as her mother, then yes, you can tell her."

"Okay." She shakes her head a little, laughing at herself as she turns to press her forehead against mine. "I'm such a mess."

"No you're not, you look great."

"No, I mean. I'm awful at dealing with children."

"She's hardly a child, Sara. She's a sophomore in high school. She's studying Shakespeare and calculus and AP physics, and you could always talk to her about that, or-"

Sara presses a finger to my lips, silencing me. "Thank you."

"What?" I mumble against her fingertip.

"I've spent the past two years thinking that if you ever were to find out that I'd kept this from you, you'd leave me. Thank you for. I don't know, for forgiving me, I guess."

I run a palm up her back. "Thank you, too."

"Me? For what?"

"For loving me enough to bring a part of me into the world." I pull her in close, and we stay like that for a while, gaining strength from one another. "Let's go meet April, shall we?"

"Okay." She takes a deep breath, reaching over to grab her purse. "AP physics, huh?"

"Yeah. I guess she got that from you."

o-o-o-o-o

We arrive at the house just after one. Taking Sara's hand as we head for the front walk, I can't help feeling nervous. I may have met April earlier, but that was before I knew who she was.

A ring of the doorbell, and footsteps approach. Sara squeezes my hand hard as the front door opens.

And there she is. Our not-so-little girl, dressed in jeans and a butterfly-print shirt. My heart breaks a little.

"What do you want, Gil?" April ignores Sara completely.

"Is your. um, is Laurie home?"

"She's at my parent-teacher conference." She's still not looking at Sara, which is a good thing, because my fiancée is not exactly a poker player. The expression on her face is a stormcloud of emotions.

"Can we come in?"

She finally glances over at Sara, and something she sees there makes her sigh in resignation. "I guess." She disappears into the house, leaving us to follow.

Sara is a bit subdued as she surveys the living room. "Most of this stuff was in our house when I was growing up. That grandfather clock over there is over a hundred years old," she says to me quietly, pointing. "Been in our family for generations."

"Doesn't work, though," April says, her arms folded.

"That's because I took it apart when I was little, to try and figure out how it worked," Sara admits.

April's lips quirk a little. "You guys want something to drink?"

"Sure," I nod. "What have you got?"

She marches into the kitchen, throwing open the refrigerator door. "Uh. water, milk, orange juice, pomegranate juice, iced tea."

"Iced tea for me. Sara?"

"Me too, please."

We take a seat at the kitchen table, watching as April clinks ice cubes into a couple of glasses.

"So I hear you're taking AP physics," Sara says finally.

April turns, setting our tea in front of us and dropping into a chair. "Yeah, so?"

"I majored in physics."

"At Harvard, I know." She looks at Sara warily. "I'll be going there at fifteen, you know."

"Going where?"

"Harvard."

"Oh, you could do better than Harvard," Sara says, blinking in surprise. "Go for Princeton, or Yale. They're the best schools nowadays, and you're a much better student than I was."

I could kiss her right now, I really could. I never even mentioned to her about the bitter rivalry April has had toward her, and in five seconds she just managed to change everything.

"Thanks," April murmurs shyly.

We sit quietly for a bit, sipping our drinks. Then a sudden thought occurs to me. "Who's watching the dog?"

"Kennel."

"You guys have a dog?" April's eyes light up a little. "I love dogs."

"Me too," Sara nods. "Never had one growing up, because-"

"Mom's allergic," April finishes.

They smile at each other awkwardly, and Sara reaches out a tentative hand to touch April's hair. "I love your curls."

"I used to hate them, when I was little. All my friends had gorgeous, shiny straight hair, and I had. this." April stretches out a curl dubiously. "But Mom took me to this hairdresser who taught me how to condition it, shape the curls and all that. Now I don't mind it so much. But I wish it were more like yours. I bet you can straighten your hair when you want to."

"Yeah, I can," Sara says. "But I leave it curly when I'm at home, Gil likes it that way."

I shrug in agreement, pleased to see them interacting so well. There's a quiet ding coming from my pocket, and I pull out my cell phone, reading the display. "My mother. She says hello."

"Your mom knows how to text?" April looks amazed. "Most people over sixty can't even figure out how to answer a cell phone."

"Actually, she finds them quite handy." I type out a quick response to her, then put the phone away. "My mom's deaf, so text messaging is the closest thing she's had to a phone in years."

"Deaf?" A strange expression comes over April's face, and I wonder if she's softened toward me. "That's so sad."

"She's a strong woman. She never let it hold her back. Her hearing was gone completely by the time she hit her teens, but she can still speak, and her lip-reading is excellent."

"How come she went deaf?"

"She had something called otosclerosis. It's this. well, it's basically a degenerative bone condition in the ear."

"Oh." She frowns, looking troubled.

"Nowadays it's fixed pretty easily with a stapedectomy; I had one myself when I was diagnosed."

"You had it too?"

"A few years ago, yes. It's hereditary. But when my mother was a child, medicine hadn't progressed that far."

"Do you have a good relationship with her?"

"Very good, yes. My father died when I was young, so for most of my life I was raised by a single mother."

"Like me."

I nod, taking a sip of tea.

April shifts her attention to Sara. "So why haven't I ever met you before, Sara?"

She coughs. "What?"

"I'm thirteen, and this is my first time ever meeting you. Why?"

A voice comes from the doorway, startling us all. "Because I asked her to stay away." Laurie is standing there, looking pale. "Hello, Sara."

Sara stands shakily. "Hi, Mom." They hug awkwardly, and April and I look away.

"I asked Sara not to visit," Laurie says, pulling back to look tearfully at Sara's face. "I didn't want all the baggage of our past weighing down on April."

"It's okay, Mom," April says quickly. "Really. Don't worry about it."

Sara is growing teary too, and I take the opportunity to excuse myself, escaping to the living room to give them some privacy. There are a series of framed photos on the walls, so I make my way down the line, watching April grow from a baby into a young woman.

"I hated that sweater," April says, coming up behind me.

"The one with the sheep on it? It's cute," I say, grinning.

"It's hideous." She doesn't smile back, but falls into step beside me as I look at each photo. "That one was taken in Mexico. And that's my sixth grade class picture."

"You look just like Sara there," I say before I can help myself.

"Yeah." We continue down the line. "Funny, isn't it."

"What?"

"How much Sara and I look alike."

"Well, you are related." I lean in close to study a photo of April posing at a campsite. "Is this Yosemite?"

"Like the curly hair," she goes on, as if I hadn't spoken. "Weird how we both have curly hair, and Mom doesn't. And we both have wide mouths, and Mom doesn't."

"Sometimes genes are recessive," I say weakly, and then I look at the next photo. It's a recent one of April, smiling from a hospital bed. "Are you. why are you in the hospital here?"

"Oh, that was after my surgery last year."

"Surgery?"

She looks at me appraisingly. "Yeah, I had something called a stapedectomy. Ever heard of it?"

I stare back at her, the blood freezing in my veins. "You-"

"It was the funniest thing. Juvenile onset of otosclerosis. Very rare, especially with no family history of it."

Laurie pokes her head into the room, wiping her nose with a tissue. "Sorry about that, Sara and I were just catching up a little. Everything fine and dandy?"

"Yeah, Mom," April says, flashing a bright smile at Laurie. "We were just looking at old photos."

"Well, come on in the kitchen, I'll make us some lunch."

"Sure, we'll be right there."

Once Laurie goes back in the kitchen, April turns back to me, hissing, "I don't know what you two are doing here, but if you do anything to hurt my mother-"

"We won't." I'm still reeling. "That's not why we-"

"Not a word of this to them." She spins around, heading for the kitchen as I struggle to breathe.