Ken Hada is a fourth generation Oklahoman, descendant of Danish and Hungarian immigrants: Gypsy poets, barn dance aficionados, art lovers, amateur philosophers, wheat farmers, preachers, teachers and common-sense craftsmen.

“These poems, acting as spare parts themselves, go into the making of one smooth-running, powerful engine.”

 - Diane Glancy

Author of Pushing the Bear

University Drive by Elizabeth R. Blandon

 

 

When Mom’s weeklong vacation with Paul extended to a four-month absence, Father’s family sent a scout for information: my fifteen-year-old cousin, Bette.  They had long since tired of trying to extract details from me and the rest of Father’s family avoided Mom, a star-threatening supernova.  The universe expanded too quickly for her; trekking was her nature.  Her parents left Cuba for the United States in the sixties.  She left Father for University Drive five years ago.  Now Mom had flown again.  Only Grandmother Maria feigned concern, explaining – as if these were good traits – that Bette was dependable and obedient.

Mom’s rental community was near a junior college.  The students left their hometowns for this better place, a suburb of Ft. Lauderdale, land of year-round shorts and flip-flops.  Like the ring of Saturn, University Drive wound around the community surrounding the unpredictable transients.  The sunlight shone on the roof of Mom’s townhouse so that it seemed loftier than the rest, closer to the sky.  Together with the telescope in the window of the upstairs bedroom and the wreath with the word DREAM in twigs hanging on the front door, this place made every effort to lift its surroundings.

Since the divorce, Mom was predictably happy, brightly smiling despite the whispers meant for my ears and the insults meant for her face.  Five years ago, as Mom packed the remaining items of her wardrobe into the car and kissed me on the cheek with the see-you-soon that became our reassuring adieu, Father screamed loudly enough for the help in all six bedrooms to hear.  He forbade all of us from allowing Mom to return to his mansion.  Not that Mom would.  She took the items she wanted that day; she took me a few days later.  What she did not want or need remained.  The brilliance of Father’s place, if there had ever been any, left with her.

Two years ago, when the plans for my fifteenth birthday party began, Father’s prohibition caused a churning in my stomach.  When I made Father happy, he masterfully flattered me for behaving so well.  When I doubted or questioned him, he used words like betrayal, disloyal and schemer.  Oprah and Dr. Phil taught me the name to his behavior:  manipulation.  Father and I went to the fine stationery store for the invitation, as always.  He chose the paper and wording, as always.  The party was to be held at Father’s mansion, as always.  Unlike prior years, perhaps because fifteen signaled the beginning of womanhood to Father, I was allowed to address the envelopes myself.  More than anyone else, Mom should be at the celebration of my birth.  I penned an invitation to her in my best calligraphy, sealed it carefully, and asked the lady in the office at my high school to drop it in the day’s mail.  Please and thank you.

Mom did not mention the invitation that entire week, nor the week that followed.  After a long day of quizzes and after school choir practice, I asked her about it.  The vertical blinds in her townhouse were partially open, as sunlight sliced the light wood floor, a log cabin made of fresh baked bread slices.  Rose-scented candles warmed the cherry end tables, two low bookcases, and a bar with metal grillwork that Mom bought during a trip to the antique stores of New Orleans.

Mom learned to cook when she moved away and spent most afternoons in her new playground, the kitchen.  The aroma of chocolate chip cookies filled the first floor of the house.  I dropped my book bag hard on the wood floor.  Mom tilted her head at the sound, but did not turn to face me.  Despite the tradition of afternoon goodies, Mom was slender.  She appeared more so because she was taller than most men and usually wore dark-colored dresses and tall heels.  Mom was beautiful in a simply elegant way.  To my disappointment, I was not the only one who thought so.

With a background of chirping birds and children playing outside, my voice sounded loud and dissonant,  “Why don’t you just tell Father that you have a right to go to my party?”

Mom served three cookies on a plate with the words “Live. Love. Laugh.”  It was understood that two were for me.  Then she returned to the kitchen for cold milk.  “What is it you’re feeling, baby girl?”

“I’m angry.  That’s what.  You’re the only mother who doesn’t want to go to her daughter’s birthday parties.”

She inhaled slowly and took a politely small bite of her cookie.  Her pale face brightened at the taste.  After swallowing, “I never said that I didn’t want to go.”

“But you don’t fight Father about it.  You don’t force him to let you go to my party.”

“It’s his house and he doesn’t want me there.”  She took a cookie and placed it on one side of the plate.  “This is what happened.  You invited me to a party at your father’s house and I’m not going to go.”  Then she took another cookie and placed it on the opposite side of the plate.  “This is what you are interpreting.  Mom doesn’t love me.”  She shrugged her shoulders.  “Seems to me, there are hundreds of other interpretations you could choose.”

“Like what?”  I ate half of my cookie in a single angry bite.

“Like, Mom loves me and doesn’t want to spoil my party with Father’s anger. Or, Mom loves me and wants me to enjoy one day with Father and another day shopping with her.  Or, Mom loves me and can’t bear the thought of my getting any more grown up.”  

I smiled despite myself.  Mom spread her arms to hug me, to take me into her as if she could never get close enough.  As she kissed my forehead, I inhaled her vanilla and chocolate perfume.  Damn it all.  When she did that, the child I was hated her for embarrassing me and the woman I was becoming loved her. All at once.

 

2

 

So, with calm voice and confident gaze, Mom chose to be with Paul instead of me.  Just as she chose Paul over Father three years before.  

I always remember Paul reading a hardback novel, sitting on one of the four Parsons chairs.  He greeted me with his smiling deep brown eyes first and then his wide grin.  At night, Mom discussed literature with this retired English professor.  If I were studying in my room upstairs, I could hear their soft laughter and the clinking of wine glasses as they celebrated the best paragraph, the best sentence, and the best word.  

At first, Mom had told me Paul was her mentor.  She was an attorney; he helped her writing skills for appeals.  In time, Mom also called Paul her friend.  But Mom had no other friends.  That’s how I discovered what he really was when I was twelve, when my parents separated without so much as a single loud argument between them.  Paul was her lover.

Appropriately enough, I met Paul over one of Mom’s dinners.  As he sat across from me at the round table, he winked quickly at me and then turned his attention to the salmon pasta.  Despite his sixty plus years, I had to admit that his salient features – a distinguished chin and full head of soft, silver hair – made him attractive.

I hoped against hope that his relationship with Mom would remain my appalling secret, but it was confirmed for Father’s family when Paul’s health faltered.  Because of her insistence, he lived in Mom’s townhouse for a time.  He shared her bed.

The coughs were soft at first, followed by his embarrassed excuse-me’s.  Paul never wanted to be a bother.  One night when Paul arrived at our house, his face was pasty white.  The skin glistened slightly and Mom stood on tiptoes to put her cheek to his forehead.  She pressed her lips tightly and guided him onto the loveseat.

“I don’t have a fever,” he said, reading her thoughts.  Still, he stroked the upper part of his arms.  From the couch, I could see he was slightly shivering.  

“Uh-huh.”  Mom’s eyes steeled.  In that moment, I knew she would not release Paul until the germs released him.  The cheek to forehead test became the ultimate judge, deciding wordlessly whether Paul would remain in our house for coddling.  Despite his protestations, Mom served him a tall glass of orange juice.  As I went upstairs to fetch a pillow and blanket, Mom pulled a generous amount of garlic and onions from the refrigerator.  None of us could have imagined that night’s hearty chicken soup would be the first of almost a month’s worth of stews, soups and chowders.  In addition to the soups, Mom imposed a plan of liquids:  green tea, fruit smoothies, and a strict six glasses of water per day.  She did not give Paul anything that she did not drink or eat herself, except her food was eaten quickly in the kitchen.  She served his meals on a silver tray with a folded cloth napkin and a rose or hibiscus picked from the garden.

The cough worsened.  It started deep inside his chest and erupted as a painful bark.  I innocently hoped that by sending Paul away, the gossip in Father’s family would die down to a faint roar.  “A hospital is a better place,” I insisted in a firm whisper.  “You don’t even have aspirin.”  

Mom stroked my cheek gently with her thumb.  Her face brightened as if she had caressed her own heavy heart.  “Chemicals aren’t always the answer, baby girl.”  

Paul was stoic.  When Mom helped him get to his feet for his nightly warm bath, his body ached, but he winced quietly.  While I was looking at him over the top of my book, the throw he had over his shoulders slipped to the floor.  Paul moved to reach it.  He closed his eyes and grabbed his chest.  Then, he left the throw on the floor.  I gathered it for him, placed it around his shoulders, and tucked it into a side.  As I glanced at him, I noticed he was attempting to grin through his pain, to settle my concern.  Perhaps he realized and regretted that he was an intrusion in my life.  

In the decade since she had opened her law firm, Mom had only missed work because of sickness three times.  Caring for Paul, however, sapped her energy.  Each day while he slept, she swept the house, removed the dust, and sprayed the house with antibacterial cleaners.  While he watched television or rested on the couch, she washed his sheets and vacuumed the upstairs carpets.  That month, she worked on her cases from home, remotely connecting to her office computer.  All client appointments were attended via conference call, with the help of an associate.

“I can certainly wash my own plate.”  Paul’s anger was directed at his own helplessness.   

Mom’s eyes darkened and she let him try.  When he stumbled as he stood, she held him strongly.  Her joy faded.  Paul and Mom were connected, but not connected, together, but not together.  Like binary stars, which appear to the naked eye as independent luminaries, the distress of one inexplicably affected the other.  Just when I was certain that Mom’s refusal to give Paul medications bordered on cruelty, his fever broke.  Paul accepted what I could not:  Mom’s will was stronger than medicine.  

By Christmas, the only memory of Paul’s weakness was the abrupt change in Mom’s cuisine.  The cookbooks above her refrigerator included vegetarian diets, heart-healthy recipes, and a compendium of the medicinal properties of herbs.  Every evening with dinner, Mom placed a packet of vitamins and minerals besides each of their plates.  

Mom gave me a Flintstone’s vitamin.  The first time, I argued that I was too old for it because I was a teenager.

“When another mother adopts you, she can ruin your health with hot dogs and fountain sodas.  Until then, you’ll do yourself this one favor.”  

Paul observed Mom and me quietly.  He reached to pat Mom’s hand and she snapped at him.  “Are you going to sass me about pills, too?”

He retracted his hand like a smacked child.  “No, mam.”

 

 

 

That was around the time that Father’s family started feeling sorry for Mom.  She had lost a mansion, they said.  She had lost a fortune, they said.  By choosing an older man like Paul, she would sooner than later be lonely.  They said.

 

3

 

Without Bette, I never would have returned to Mom’s house.  Her home was Pandora’s Box; nothing there but pain.  She left in April.  I had just turned my calendar to August and she was still away.  

Experience had taught me to avoid questions.  When I was twelve, when Mom and Father used to stare across the dinner table, the uneasiness in my stomach triggered me to ask her if they would divorce.  Mom said yes and moved out that week.  As a child, I often thought that if I had ignored my feelings, the marriage would have lasted longer.  That’s all I wanted, for things to remain the same.

This summer, things changed again.  She forgot that I would be starting at Boston University, her alma mater.  She forgot about the promised summer vacation to Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff.  Bette and Father’s family wanted to know why she forgot; I feared the answer.

Mom had a small bookcase on the first floor, topped with countless picture frames, and a second larger bookcase upstairs in her bedroom.  The tiny smiling faces, mostly of Mom and me -- on roller coasters, at the beach, at the park – were covered with a film of dust.  On the wall, Mom also had a collage of my thirteen school photos, one for each year plus kindergarten.  Bette walked over to the single photo of Paul.  She nodded her head to it and then looked to me.  “Where do you think they are?”  That was Bette’s way.  She stared with her beautiful black eyes, blinked her long lashes, and just waited for the truth.  

“Not where they should be,” I replied.

Bette placed a hand to her hip, “How awkward.  Surprised your Mom wanted you to live with her and the dude.”

I ignored the comment.

“Why didn’t you just stay with your dad and leave the lovebirds alone?”

I ignored the question.  “Paul was a visitor, not a roommate.”

Bette tilted her head to one side.  She knew how Paul was home when I arrived, stayed through dinner and dessert, and left long after I went to sleep.  “How much more living together did you want?”  

I had to ignore that question, too.  I looked at the dining table to avoid Bette’s eyes.  Judgment weighed on my shoulders.  Around Father’s family, I could say that I did not like Paul; they pitied me and loved me for that response.  This house, however, reminded me that I felt accepted by both Mom and Paul.  Bette’s queries forced me to tell the truth to Father’s family or lie to myself.

Instead of answering, I remained quiet and remembered the day I worked at this same table.  As Mom boiled pasta, chopped onions and tomatoes, and simmered a meat sauce, I told her about what happened in each of my classes, leaving history for last.  The air was my diary and I could let my feelings fly through it without judgment, knowing my comments would never be disclosed.

History was Paul’s favorite subject, after English.  A Virginia man to the core, his eyes particularly brightened when I began to study the Civil War.  

At this table, he tried to tell me about the battlefields he visited, about the memorials remaining and the strategic mistakes.  I would have none of it.  “I don’t need you to figure this out,” I snapped and closed the book.  My hand twitched for him to argue.

Mom turned on her heel, but Paul’s calm demeanor kept her from speaking.  He simply raised his eyebrows and left me alone.  In the kitchen, he touched Mom lightly on both shoulders as he leaned in to catch the scent of the lasagna she was preparing.  “Do you want me to open a Syrah?”

“Que Syrah, Syrah,” Mom replied and they both laughed.

Without warning, Paul’s visits stopped.  

Almost as soon as Father’s family discovered this, the matriarch concluded that he must have proposed.  “She refused him,” Grandmother Maria said, with a rancorous look.  

“Why would he even … at his age?” a spinster aunt asked.

Despite their comments that Mom must be devastated (wishing it could be so), she said she was fine.  She was fine as she abandoned her practice of law.  She was fine as she sold her office.  She was fine as she asked Father - actually called him to make the request - if he could keep me for a few weeks.  After she packed my luggage, she packed a small bag for herself.  Her eyes closed as she kissed me goodbye.  She inhaled the scent of my hair as she hugged me.  

During that time, I received joyless postcards with the obligatory words.  Wish you were here.  Miss you.  Hope you see it someday.  Her quest to visit the 50 states became a desire matched only by her need to write me that she had been there.  Mom burned inside, needing a witness for her life.  I wanted Paul back.  I wanted her joy back.

The sound of a wood box falling from Mom’s desk brought me back.  Bette was rummaging through the drawers.  The mementos of Mom’s travels spilled out.  A red ribbon inscribed with “The Inn at Little Washington” from Virginia; a seashell from Naples, Florida; a euro from Italy; a guitar pick from Memphis, Tennessee; a pebble from Rowan Oak in Oxford, Mississippi.

“What did she do about her mail?” Bette asked with the sensitivity of a crime scene investigator.

“She went to the post office before she left.  So they would hold it.”

Bette pursed her lips.  “She knew she would be gone longer than a week.”

We could hear a pickup baseball game starting.  A bat scraped and hit against the asphalt on University Drive as the players determined the bases.  This was the hallmark sound of August in this community; students moved into their rentals and had nothing to do until the school year started.

 

Paul did come back.  He returned to his natural orbit around Mom’s place.  Even when the three of us traveled together, their strengthened bond was practically visible. At the airport, the rental car agencies, their bodies unintentionally leaned into each other.  

Bette went to the kitchen and opened the refrigerator.  “Like I said, she wasn’t coming back in a week.”  She slammed the door closed.  “Didn’t she have two more states to go?”

“Alaska and California.”  Bette’s presence began to bother me.  

“I’m thinking California.  Your mom never really liked the cold.”

 

The year before she left Father, Mom mentioned the idea of traveling the fifty states.  “I’ll start with Maine.”  Her tone was determined.  

I looked up from the napkins I was folding.  Sloane-Kettering had done nothing for her mother’s breast cancer that year.  After the funeral, Mom was not wasting any time.  This adventure could be like Mom’s skydive, an announcement one day and photographs in hand a week later.

Father spread butter over the turkey’s skin; he lived for family gatherings like Thanksgiving.  His requests were commands.  “Set out the place cards.  My mother is going to sit at one end of the table and I’ll be at the other.”  Only when Mom did not answer did he look up.  In her mind, Mom was already buying a souvenir lobster t-shirt.

“Elizabeth, did you hear me?” Father’s brow was furrowed.  Lines curled around the corners of his thin-lipped mouth.

Her voice seemed dreamy.  “I don’t suppose we could just let people sit where they want this year.”  

Father guffawed as he washed his hands.  “Yeah, let’s let them make their own drinks, too.”  As he spoke, he mixed together the secret orange juice and chicken broth sauce that he injected into the meat.  When asked for the recipe, Father omitted the sauce.

Mom shrugged her shoulders and smiled at me.  I imitated her.  Father banged the heel of his hand against the sink.  “We’ve invited these people over.  They expect to be treated like guests.”  The latter part was true anyway.

 

 

4

Bette went upstairs to find out what clothes Mom had packed.  

“Don’t go into her shoe closet!” I yelled up to her.  I noticed how carefully the novels in Mom’s bookcase were organized by alphabetical order.  The organization confirmed that Mom was not returning.  She read Isabel Allende at the living room coffee table, John Irving in her bed, and Jhumpa Lahiri in her car while she waited for me in the school carpool lane.  

“Already there,” the voice came back.  “Cool stuff.”  

 The corner of an envelope stuck out from the pages of Eva Luna.  Mom treasured this book because the reclusive author signed a copy to her.  I removed it from the shelf, leaving it open so that I could replace the letter craftily.

“Dearest Sergio.”  The words were rapidly scrawled.  The pen dug into the stationery at the end of Father’s name.  “I forgive you for everything.  I forgive you for the tears, the screaming, the times you hit me, your making me believe everything was my fault.  I forgive you for the way you bared your teeth at me when you were angry, for your scaring me.”  My legs gave out beneath me.  

But then I had to finish the letter.  “I forgive you because it is good for me, not because my feelings for you have changed.  For the years that I existed, without living, I forgive you.”  She signed it, “Your first love.”

I could not claim complete ignorance.  I had been there, peeking around the corner, when Mom said she wanted to move out, that she needed time to think things through.  Her face seemed as innocent as I felt, until that day.  Mom thought Father would understand her explanation.   Instead, a single phrase escaped him before she left the house:  “You whore.”  

 

My cellular phone rang.  It was Mom. In the past, she had told me Father was a good man.  I had told her Father treated me well during my weeks with him.  Now I wondered how many of our conversations had been covered with half-truths to spare the other.  

The phone rang again.  “Yeah,” I answered.

Her voice sounded like a forced New Year’s hurrah.  “Just wanted to say hi.  I miss you, sweetie.”  

I missed her, too, but it did not seem to matter.  “Are you going to take me to BU or is Father?”

There was a long pause on the other side.  Mom started my college fund when I was one year old.  She encouraged my enrollment at Boston University by gifting me hats, t-shirts, hoodies and even socks with the school’s emblem.  Since I entered high school, Mom and I had spoken about this trip.  Even as I asked whether Father would accompany me, I assumed the answer would be easy for her.  Instead, she shocked me.

“This time Daddy’s going to have to do it.”  

She had not called Father by the term Daddy for years.  After reading the letter in the book, I knew why.  “What’s so important that you can’t take me to Boston?”  My voice began to crack.  I was angry with myself for still needing her so much.

“I have to be where I am.  There’s nothing more to say.”  She was tired.  Maybe she had decided she was not going to take me to Boston some time ago and saying it aloud drained her.

“Well, where the hell are you, Mom?”

“Don’t talk to me that way.  I deserve better.”

She did.  She undoubtedly did.  Still, I wanted to know what travel wish of Paul’s was more important than our mutual lifetime dream.  “Is it Alaska or California?”

“New York, baby girl.”

“New York?”  They had already been there.  I had a bookmark with a photo of the Statue of Liberty.  Her note on the back said, “Everything reminds me of you.”

“Why did Paul want to go to New York?”

“I’ve already told you.”  Her voice turned away from the phone and I imagined she was explaining something to Paul.  We could not even have a private conversation any more.  She turned her attention back to the phone.  “He joins me where I want to go, too.  One day, you’ll believe me.”

“Sure, Mom.”  I had to hang up the phone to avoid crying or yelling or both.  If not for their 50 state trips, she would have taken me to college.  “I have to go.”

“I love you,” I heard her say as I clicked off the connection.

“Hey,” Bette called from upstairs.  I was grateful for the cheerful ignorance in her voice.  I returned the letter to the correct pages and the book to the shelf.  “Your mom’s room has a great view!”

In the master bedroom, the bed cover was down-filled and the walls were decorated with varying prints of Italian plazas.  Soft afternoon sunlight came through the wall-length window.  Bette was poking through the drawers of the night table.

Outside the bedroom was a tree.  Two pigeons nuzzled and cooed in synchronicity.  On weekends, the morning song of birds inspired Mom to a symphony by the time I awoke, complete with the clothes dryer buzzing downstairs and the bacon sizzling in the skillet.

I was still overcome by the letter and fell onto Mom’s queen bed.  The comfortable quilt soothed my skin; the familiar scent of her perfume soothed my mind.

Her bedroom door was covered with Mother’s Day cards.  “Bette, how do you ever really know a guy?”  She flashed a broad smile at me.  The topic of boys fascinated her.  “I mean, how do you know what he’s really like – at his core – the part that won’t ever change?”

Bette sat on the bed, reached out and grabbed my hand.  “His kiss. If he gives you tongue, he’s great in bed.”

She was too young to know how wrong she was.  The more I looked at Mom’s door, the more I thought that a man’s personality had something to do with the way he knocked.  I remember that Paul knocked with a gentle, respectful tap.  After a few moments, he accepted his fate and stood silently until Mom reached the front door.  Father, on the other hand, could not be bothered to find his house keys.  Because his cellular was always at hand, he called the house phone.  If Mom did not answer that, he called her cell phone demanding to know why she forced him to wait.

“What does your Mom see in Paul anyway?”

I shrugged my shoulders, tired of hiding the truth:  “Mom always said he could keep up.”  

Bette showed me an empty pill container.  “Is this Paul’s?”

“Oh, God.”  I sat up in bed and grabbed it from her hand.  There was a history of heart problems in Paul’s family.  Perhaps he was sick again and Mom did not want to worry me.  That explained why Mom had changed her diet for Paul.  She had practically become a vegan and drank red wine with dinner, though she preferred white.

Cytoxan.  The container had Mom’s name.  From childhood memories by grandmother’s bedside, I made the connection instantly.  New York.  Home of Sloan-Kettering.