Warning Signs by Stephen White

Author:Stephen White [White, Stephen]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, pdf
Published: 2011-08-30T18:39:55+00:00

When did you find her for the first time?” I asked.

“I didn’t even know if she was still in town when I joined the police department. I figured there was as good a chance that she had moved away as there was that she was still here. I never looked for her. That’s not true. I checked the phone book once — does that count? Then I went to a reception when they opened the new coroner’s offices in the Justice Center. That was about, I’m not sure, four or five years ago. She was there with Royal.”

“You recognized her?”

“Sure. Susan had aged well. But I grew up with lots of photographs of her. My father is quite the amateur photographer and he always wanted me to know who my mother was. But she didn’t recognize me. And I didn’t talk to her that night. Not at all.”

A cuckoo clock chirped once. I’d been wondering what time it was. Now I knew. I was also wondering how people survived living with cuckoo clocks. I still didn’t know that.

“I finally went and saw her after I heard rumors about her illness. You know, her MS. I don’t know why, exactly. Compassion? More likely pity, I guess. That, or it was just a good excuse to see her so I could try to begin to understand how she could leave her daughter so cavalierly. It was probably a combination.”

I was uncomfortable with the way Lucy was referring to herself. “Her daughter was you, Lucy.”

“Yeah. Her daughter was me. But, let’s face it, I’m not the only kid who’s ever been left behind by a parent. I remind myself of that a lot. Being left behind by my mother is not an excuse to let myself be damaged for life. My dad raised me well. My stepmother is a sweetheart. Whatever mistakes my father made with women, he got them out of his system by marrying Susan.”

“Does reminding yourself that you’re not the only child who’s been left behind by a parent help?”

“Not much.” She sighed. “I was terrified that first time that I went to her house to see her. Not that she’d slam the door in my face. My biggest fear? My biggest fear was that I was going to adore her, like instantly, the moment I set my eyes on her. As a girl, I’d idealized her after she left. My father was always kind; he never criticized her and I was left to create this image of her that had almost no basis in reality. She was as pretty as a movie star, as kind as the best mother in the world. Anyway, going to see her that day, I felt that some angel was going to answer the door. And I was afraid that the more it turned out that I adored her, the angrier I was going to be that she’d left me behind. Does that make sense?”

“Of course.”

Lucy’s voice grew small. “But it didn’t turn out that way.

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