I'm
living in the shadow of my mother and I hate it. Ever since I came into the
world I have been. My mother died an hour after giving birth to me on a cold
December night, two weeks before Christmas. I came out, she held me, my father
held me, the nurse took me to clean me up…and she died. My father was deeply
shaken. They'd tried twice to have a child – both times my mother had
miscarried. And then at her chance at success, she doesn't live to see her
creation grow. Daddy carried a huge burden upon him. A paraplegic since he was
in his late twenties, he was usually depressed, but my mother's death had taken
a toll on him. With my mother gone before she could even get to know me, it was
Daddy's duty to name me. Maxine Guevara Cale was boldly printed on my birth
certificate, after my mother, although she was just "Max", never Maxine. I was
called Neena or Baby Boo by Aunt Cindy, who was my mother's best friend and
Little Maxie by Bling, Daddy's best friend. Daddy preferred pet names for me,
like "kitten" and "sweetie". He very rarely called me by a real name. Neither
Aunt Cindy nor Bling liked leaving me alone with Daddy. It's not because he was
violent, oh, no, he never even raised his voice. They simply pitied him and me
both, for having such a tragedy befall us, although the tragedy occurred before
I even knew where I was. I don't know if I attended my mother's funeral or not,
but Aunt Cindy said I was, sleeping in her arms the whole time. Daddy became
hysterical and had to be given a sedative. Aunt Cindy moved in with Daddy for
about a month until he could get around okay and get into the habit of waking
up over and over again in the middle of the night to take care of a colic
infant.
"At yo'
momma's funeral was many a people, boo," Aunt Cindy said. "I 'member I dressed
you in this li'l sweater she'd been workin' on fo' you. She learned how to knit
jus' so she could have somethin' to give her baby."
Daddy had
saved that sweater. I've seen him just sitting in his wheelchair, looking out
at the rain with it in his lap along with the last picture ever taken of her.
It was
almost like she never died, just away on business. Pictures of her hung almost
everywhere. Her clothes were still in the drawers and closets. Her Ninja
motorcycle is still in the garage. Her leather jacket is still strewn on the
same chair it has been for fifteen years. I wear her wedding ring on a gold
chain around my neck (Daddy gave it to me when I turned thirteen). It said To Max, With Love inside, along with
their wedding date.
It breaks
Daddy's heart to live day-by-day with out my mother. I've seen him lighting
candles beside her picture in a mournful vigil. I've smelled him spray feminine
cologne on the bed sheets when I was little and had a nightmare (it was my
mother's favorite scent and it was called Clinique Happy). I've spied him
taking her clothes out of drawers and inhaling their scent.
"She
always smelled so nice," Daddy said fondly. "Like vanilla and fresh grass—like
you."
Every
time I looked into the mirror I saw my mother. It was terrifying. I had her
name, her face, her scent and her ring. To think that there was a chance I
might suffer her same fate…it was something I didn't want to comprehend. My
mother was so beautiful…it was impossible to believe she died when she was
thirty-two. I sighed and turned off the bathroom light. Daddy, the culinary
genius, was already in the kitchen, whipping up breakfast. Snow rather than
rain fell this morning, a rare treat in Seattle. My birthday was next week—four
days to be exact. It was a bittersweet occasion for all of us—Daddy, me, Bling
and Aunt Cindy; along with many of my mother's friends.
"Good
morning, kitten," he greeted, wheeling from the stove to kiss me, like every
morning. "Could you hand me that spatula? Honestly, Bling always forgets I
can't reach up there anymore. My arms aren't as long as they used to be. I'm
getting old."
"Oh,
Daddy!" I sighed. I reached on my tippy-toes to reach the spatula Daddy was
aiming for. "You're not old."
"I feel
old. My little girl's going to be sixteen!"
"Have any
special presents in mind?" I winked as I poured us each a glass of milk. My
mother always drank milk. It was practically her life force.
"A few,"
Daddy flipped the pancakes on the stove and watched them turn golden-brown, the
color of honey. "How many?"
"Two,
please."
"Are you
staying after school today?"
"No,
Daddy. I'm coming home, but Gina might come. I'm her math tutor."
"Oh?
Since when?"
"Since
she discovered I got an A and she got a D last marking period," I went to the
refrigerator and grabbed the maple syrup, which was very hard to come by.
Daddy
chuckled. "Your mom was great at math, too. A real whiz with numbers."
Again,
being compared to Max Guevara Cale the First. I had her intelligence, now, too.
"You have
your fair share of intelligence, too, Daddy. All my friends are real impressed
on how good you are on that computer," I sat down and played with the necklace.
I ran my fingertip delicately along the inscription, To Max With Love.
"Am I
destined to be a computer tutor?" Daddy put two pancakes on each plate, grabbed
each one in each hand and placed them on the table.
"Maybe,"
I admitted. I cut my pancakes and doused them in syrup.
"Take it
easy on the syrup, kitten," Daddy warned. I want there to be enough for your
birthday breakfast."
"Is that
one of my presents? Pancakes?" I teased.
"Maybe.
It is your Sweet Sixteen," Daddy sighed. He stabbed his pancakes as if he was
trying to kill them. "Which reminds me. I need to pick up some more flowers.
These are wilting."
"No,
Daddy. I'll go on my way home from school. The roads are too icy. I don't want
you to fall out of your chair again. It rained last night and with the snow,
the sidewalks will be a deathtrap."
"Ah, my
little girl looking after me," he tugged playfully at my curls. "I'll give you
some money, then. Get something bright that will last for awhile. You always
loved those, ah, white tulips, right?" Daddy turned his chair away from the
table and wheeled towards his bedroom.
White
tulips. He had me confused with my mother again. "No, my favorites are pink
carnations."
Daddy
stopped dead in his tracks. "Oh, that's right. I'm sorry. I have you mixed up
with—"
"Your
mother," I finished. I bit my lower lip. I stood up and began to clear the
table. Daddy took off his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose. It looked
to me like he was crying. I put the dishes down and gave him a hug. I kissed
his cheek and he patted my hair, kissing my forehead.
"I just
wish Max was here to see how beautiful you've become," he said, as if it was
his fault she was dead.
"She's
here, Daddy. In spirit."
"But is
it enough?"
I didn't
answer. I looked at the clock. Bling would be here any minute. He was not only
a close friend, he was Daddy's physical therapist. He came every day at eight
and usually stayed till I came home at two-thirty. I cleaned the kitchen up and
pulled on my boots and gloves. I began to hunt down my down jacket I'd saved up
for to buy when Daddy came out of his bedroom and handed me some money.
"Here,"
Daddy extended to me a twenty-dollar bill. "Keep it safe, don't show it to
anyone. Too easy to be mugged these days."
"Okay," I
said. I tucked it into my back pocket and asked if he'd seen my jacket.
"No,"
Daddy shook his head. "Um, here. Might as well have someone enjoy this before
it goes to waste. It's a beautiful jacket. It will look good on you." He
wheeled over to the old rocking chair and gave me my mother's favorite leather
jacket. A gasp caught in my throat. I've never touched the jacket, let alone
wear it. Daddy looked so eager for me to wear it that I put it on. What else
could I do? I put my hands in the pockets and withdrew a smashed beeper and
yellow-tinted sunglasses with black frames. I threw the beeper in the trash and
handed the sunglasses to Daddy.
"No, keep
them. They'll look good on you."
Because they looked good on your mother. The
first Max. The better Max, the one that fulfilled his fantasies and persuaded
him to do things he was reluctant to do. I knew he was thinking along the
lines of that. The doorbell rang and I went to answer it. Bling stared at me
wide-eyed, "Max?"
"No, it's
me, Little Maxie," I took off the glasses.
"Oh. You
scared me, girl. You look just like Max dressed like that. Does Logan know you
wearin' that?" he asked quietly, taking off his jacket. I hung it up on the
rack.
"Daddy
told me to. I found the glasses in the pocket."
"You're
the spitting image of your mother, Little Maxie. Which reminds me—Little Maxie
won't be so little anymore, eh?"
The phone
rang and I heard Daddy wheel across the room and answer it.
"Four
days," I said. "Sixteen. It sounds like a dream."
Bling
laughed. He stroked my cheek. I knew he was thinking about my mother. "Just be
nice to your daddy on that day, okay? It's tough for him. Max was his world."
"So I'm
just her replacement?" I blurted. As soon as the words flew out of my mouth, I
wished I could swallow them again. Bling gave me a worried stare.
"Kitten?"
Daddy called to me. "That was the school. Cancelled on account of snow."
"Okay,
Daddy." I took off the leather jacket and put the glasses back in the pocket.
"Now you
look like Little Maxie again," Bling hugged me. I loved his hugs. He had the
strongest arms next to Daddy.
While
Bling and Daddy did physical therapy, I sat in my room. I stretched out on my
bed and started up at my ceiling. My favorite picture of my mother was taped
there, stolen from her frame when I was ten, so it was like she was looking
down upon me from Heaven. I wondered if my life would be any different if my
mother hadn't died having me. Or if I looked nothing like her and everything
like Daddy. If I wasn't born with her dark hair and puppy-dog brown eyes, would
I still be Maxine Guevara Cale? Or would I be someone else? Daddy once told me she
wanted to name me Eva, after her sister who died when she was nine. It was my
mother's dying wish, I guess, but Daddy gave me her namesake. If I had Daddy's
aqua eyes and blond hair, would I have been Eva Cale? Daddy would call me by a
name rather than "Kitten" or "Baby Doll". Sometimes I hated my mother for dying
before I could form a memory of her. If she had to die, why not wait until I
was at least ten? Did she think about how hard Mother's Day was for us? Or
their anniversary? Her birthday? While I was hating my mother, Max Guevara Cale
the First, I was admiring Daddy. He was a genius in the kitchen, great at
computers, a good listener and was admired also by most of the parents of the
kids in my class. My teacher in fourth grade asked Daddy to speak to our class
about being a paraplegic. He politely refused and I was a little disappointed.
When I asked Daddy why, he sighed and shook his head,
"Nobody
needs to hear me complain about my condition, kitten," he said as we walked
home together that day. "Especially a bunch of 10-year-olds."
I propped
myself up on my elbows and stared hard into my mother's eyes. Those hateful
eyes. My eyes. My mirror. My hands itched to tear the picture down. It was a
familiar itch that surged through my fingertips every time I spoke ill of the
dead. I wanted to smash her every picture, burn her every article of clothing,
pawn her ring, take a crowbar to her motorcycle. But that would just injure
Daddy more than my pride. Why was I so full of hatred for her? How many times
have I asked myself that question over the past four years when I needed her
most but had to ask Aunt Cindy for advice, which meant going to her apartment
four blocks away by foot, which was a pain in the butt.
I slid of
the bed and went into the bathroom. I washed my face with cold water and put a
CD in my player. As the music flowed every where and I was re-reading Little
Women, I heard a loud crash that scared me. My thoughts raced to Daddy,
thinking he was hurt. I put a marker in my book and got up. When I opened my
door a crack, I heard Daddy sobbing and Bling assuring him that I would be all
right.
"We can
glue it, Logan," he said.
"That was
Max's favorite vase."
I stayed
put. My feet wanted to go to him and console him, but I stayed nailed to the
floor, my eyes glued to the scene that was unfolding before me. Bling was on
his hands and knees picking up pieces of a stained glass vase that had sat in
our foyer for so many years. Daddy was sweeping up the microscopic pieces with
a broom. His glasses were off and sweat marked his gray tank top he wore when
he did his exercises.
"I think
I can fix it," Bling held the bigger pieces in his palms. "You got any Crazy
Glue?"
"I was
going to give it to Maxine to put in her room for her birthday."
Maxine!
He'd called me by a name! Oh, joy! Oh, rapture!
"I said,
do you have any Crazy Glue?" Bling repeated.
"It won't
be the same, Bling. Just leave it alone. Throw it out."
Bling
hesitated. "You sure? You loved this thing more'n Max did."
"I said, throw
it away!" Daddy shouted. "Don't give it a second thought." He
wheeled his chair into his office. Bling went into the kitchen and pulled out a
plastic bag. He put the pieces into it and put the bag in a high cabinet that I
could reach and Daddy couldn't. Bling couldn't let go of my mother any easier
than I or Daddy could.
"Did you
throw that thing out?" Daddy called bitterly.
"Yeah,"
Bling lied. He sighed and returned to Daddy, who had retreated to his cyber
world. "It's amazing how a person like Max could be so strong and so delicate
at the same time."
"Meaning
what?" Daddy asked, not looking away from the screen. I knew he was watching
the DVD of their wedding without the sound.
"Well,
what she was and how she acted most of the time was brutal, lethal, tough but
once you got her in a room full of warmth and care she melted and became a
beautiful person on the inside as well as the outside."
What she
was? What was she, if not a person? They were talking very, very softly but I
could still hear them perfectly.
"Are you
saying Max didn't have any inner beauty?" Daddy sounded hostile.
"Of
course she did, Logan. It was just…well, she was rough, tough biker chick who
could break a guy's neck without remorse and then come here and be all love-y."
"This
isn't helping, Bling. With Maxine's birthday and Max's death day all rolled
into twenty-four hours, nothing's going to shake me."
"It
should be a happy occasion."
"It
hasn't been for fifteen years and it's damn well not going to be any different
the sixteenth time around."
"Have you
ever thought about her traits?"
"Whose?"
"Maxine's.
Do you think Max's genetic make-up…?"
"Well,
it's entirely possible, but she hasn't demonstrated any thing particular."
"Her
straight-A pluses for ten years?"
"That's
not unusual. She's just smart."
"No
normal kid can do that."
Normal.
Why wasn't I normal? I had always thought of myself as normal. What was Bling
talking about? What was wrong with her genetic make-up?
"Maxine
is normal. I don't think she has any Mandicore traits. If she did I would have
noticed them, don't you think? Besides, she's more Cale than she is Guevara."
That
wasn't true.
"Logan, I
think you should tell her about Max."
"No!"
Daddy pounded a fist on his desk. "Not yet."
"How long
are you gonna wait, Logan? The girl's sixteen. When are you going to tell her,
on your deathbed? Shame, Logan. It's a damn shame depriving a child of her
history."
"I was
going to wait until her eighteenth."
"Why?
Because Max was around that age when she met you?"
"Max was
nineteen."
"I can
see you're being impossible now. I'm just gonna leave you alone for an hour,
okay?"
I closed
my door and looked out my window. The snow was still falling but it wasn't
sticking too good. As quietly as I could, I put on my boots, gloves and my baby
blue sweatshirt over my T-shirt. I slipped out of the apartment and made my way
to Aunt Cindy's.