In My Mother's House by Margaret McMullan

Author:Margaret McMullan
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: St. Martin's Publishing Group

ELIZABETH

My mother was telling me about a woman she had met at a hospital benefit who was devoting her life to God and nutrition.

“She’s very big,” my mother said. Then, “Father Brown’s newsletters are getting weirder and weirder. He says he can’t get out of bed. He says he’s had depressions but none so deep.” She waited a beat. “I know, I know. Don’t say it.”

“I didn’t say anything,” I said.

“You don’t have to. You and your father are always making fun. Maybe if Catholic priests didn’t wear all that black they wouldn’t be so depressed all the time.”

My mother had gotten into the habit of calling every Friday night to give me updates on all that she was doing to the house. The shutters were in and she wanted them to be just the right yellow. The beams in the bedrooms had been exposed, and now there were the bookcases to consider. I knew my father must have been getting tired of all the indoor construction.

“Your voice sounds thin,” she said. “Thinner even than last week. You’re still not eating, are you?”

“Mom,” I said impatiently. I ran my hand over my hip bone to feel where I jutted in and where I jutted out. I leaned against the refrigerator. Stuck on the door was a copy of a photograph I had cut from a magazine. The black-and-white picture of bodies piled in heaps was taken when the concentration camps were liberated. I wanted to see this death up close, and every day, I did. Ever since I learned German, I resolved to starve myself back into the past.

“I got another letter from Isabella,” I said. The name was like a fire alarm going off. I waited. “She says she and Grandfather went to Hungary in May before he went to the hospital. They visited the old factory. She says he’s been asking for you. She says his heart is leaking.”

“His heart. He doesn’t have a heart. And if he wants to see me so badly, why doesn’t he pick up a phone and call me? It’s the twentieth century, for God’s sake.” She had on her snippy, European voice—the one she used for solicitations when people called during dinner.

“You’re really not going?” I said. “This could be it. I mean he’s going back to visit the factory and everything.”

“I’m not going back just because that woman says I should,” my mother said quickly. “You are such a fool, you really are. Why don’t you go?”

“He’s not asking for me. He has no interest in me. He’s your father, Mom, and he’s dying. No one should die alone.”

“He has her.”

“You know the situation.”

There was a long pause. “It is a situation of his own making. My father made decisions all his life on his own. Isabella was one of them and I’m not discussing this anymore with you. It’s none of your business.”

In the kitchen the ice maker’s moan echoed and turned into a whisper as I took the cellophane off a Sabbath candle.

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