A Watershed Year by Schoenberger Susan

Author:Schoenberger, Susan [Schoenberger, Susan]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: United States, Christian, Contemporary Women, Contemporary Fiction, Religious, Family Life, Literary, Domestic Life, Literature & Fiction, Genre Fiction, Christian Books & Bibles, Women's Fiction
ISBN: 1477848010
Publisher: Lake Union Publishing
Published: 2013-11-26T05:00:00+00:00

HARLAN LOOKS at Lucy and sighs as it becomes clear that they are stuck on the balcony for the night.

“I haven’t told my mother yet,” he says, as though this has been on his mind. “She hasn’t been the same since my father died twenty years ago. Once I left for college, she bought a bunch of sweat suits and moved to Florida and let her hair go gray. She just sits around her little complex with the other widows, acting way older than she is.”

Lucy thinks he must be exaggerating.

“She must have been a good mother, though, because look at you. You turned out fine.”

“A pleasure to have in class.”

“Of course you were.”

“I wonder what happened to all those report cards.”

Lucy thinks of the large trunk in her mother and father’s room, stuffed with her and Paul’s report cards and art projects and posters on the four basic food groups. Her past is almost too well preserved.

“I don’t know how to tell her I’m sick,” Harlan says. “I’m afraid she’ll cry.”

“I’d be surprised if she didn’t cry.”

“But that’s what I remember most about my dad’s death. She came home from the hospital and sobbed and wailed and screamed. It was pitiful. I couldn’t sleep until they sedated her.”

“That must have been awful for you.”

“You have no idea.”

And she didn’t. In her experience, a mother puts her own needs after the needs of her children. A mother skips her annual trip to Atlantic City so she can watch her daughter’s math team compete in the state finals. A mother lets her daughter borrow her new shoes for the high-school concert, shoes right out of the box. A mother on a diet sits with her daughter and eats a pint of ice cream when her daughter’s college boyfriend dumps her.

“My parents would adopt you,” she says, trying to make him laugh. “I’ll have them call a lawyer tomorrow.”

He smiles at her, but without mirth. The shadows under his eyes look deeper and darker in the yellow haze of the lights from the apartment parking lot.

“I want this to go away,” he says, closing his eyes. “I want to go to sleep and then wake up and shudder because I had a terrible nightmare. That’s what I want.”

“That’s what I want, too.”

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