January 29th 2017
Chapter 29
Her Way to Home Life
One Sunday morning, Maya woke up and realized they had been in Texas for almost a month already. She had woken up that day and she felt good. It wasn't to say she had felt badly on all those previous mornings, and with her friends and everything they tied to, it was no wonder, but really this one morning felt different. It felt like something was slowly awakening inside her, and its presence filled her with that standout sort of contentment. She didn't want to let it get away.
She was the first one up, and had she any hopes of attempting to cook breakfast without either making a mess, a tasteless disaster, or burning the whole house down… Instead, she found herself sneaking into her mother's room. Katy Hart was not a graceful sleeper, a trait she had passed on to her daughter and then some. Maya climbed to sit cross legged at the foot of the bed, until a few minutes later when her mother opened her eyes, saw her, and startled.
"Maya, what…" she yawned. "What is it, what… Everything alright?" she sat up, rubbing sleep from her eyes.
"Everything's fine," Maya promised, and maybe on some points this couldn't be true, not yet, not ever, but they didn't feel so near today as they did on most days, and so she was content in ignoring them in favor of one truth she could recognize through the clutter: she loved her mother. "Can we do something today?" she asked. The surprise that bloomed on her mother's face could only make her remember how rarely she might have made a request like this. Her mother was soon sitting there in her bed with thoughts rolling through her head.
"Something…" she repeated under her breath, and to Maya it now became clear maybe her mother had not had the benefit of a guide or five.
"Can we go see a movie?" she suggested, and her mother sat up smiling.
"Sure," she declared, like she was throwing caution to the wind. "A movie sounds great."
The night after she'd gone to that theater for the first time, her sketchbook had seen many a new addition, like snapshots she had held right there behind her eyes until such a time as she could return home and unload those memories on to the blank pages of her book. The ceiling of that movie theater had been the best thing she had yet portrayed. Her mother had seen it on paper, and now she would get to meet the real thing.
So many times before she had shown herself borderline embarrassed to be seen with her mother, to have her be her loud and lively self out in the world. The move had been hard on both of them, and in time Maya had seen that even for her mother it had meant a part of her feeling absent. The weeks had been good to her, and she only wanted to know that it would be the same for her. Her mother was that loud woman, that absent woman, that one who'd chased her father away, who'd taken her from all she knew… but she was also the one who'd been there, the one who wanted so much to do well for her, the one who had given her that sketch book just when she'd needed it, a small gift that felt large as the world. She was the constant of her life in everything.
"What's that look there?" her mother asked, and Maya realized she'd been staring at her as they walked down the street. She just shrugged and smiled, and her mother pulled her to her side with a smile of her own as they reached the theater and went through the door. "Well would you look at that!" she immediately stopped and pointed to the ceiling. Maya pulled her arm down, but she also nodded. "I can see why you liked it so much."
They didn't often go to the movies just the two of them back in New York. Actually, she was sure she had been eight when they had last gone. It made today feel that much more of a special occasion, but maybe in time it wouldn't be that anymore. It could become normal…
What if it didn't? What if it couldn't? She knew their track record, didn't she? The Hart girls, hopeful? Optimistic? What good had it done them before? Realistic, now that was the quality they had relied on, or at least Maya could say as much of herself. Maybe her mother had gone by the other way, sometimes. And what did they have to show for it?
Well, now they had a house, paid through the help of others, but still a house, their house. And her mother had a good job, a better job, and it made her happy. And Maya had friends, great friends, and school was good, it was… So what was she meant to do? Let the past lead her around? It had been prudent and could still be for her here.
Something was awakening in her, a voice she had felt lost for so long. And what it told her, as it rose from its slumber was all she could want or need to hear. Tomorrow would be a new day, and she would go through it. Whatever needed to happen would happen, and she would know it as it came. Tomorrow. Today, now, she was going to see a movie with her mother.
TO BE CONTINUED
See you tomorrow! - mooners
