Okay, so I swear to God this update was going to be sooner, but I was really wrapped up the other night in finishing this article I was writing and then making a submission to this very well-known magazine that I obviously wanted to make PERFECT...and...well...I guess I saved a few things to THIS folder that I wasn't supposed to. That sucked a big one, but not to fear, because this ride's almost over, anyway. That's right. After the next chapter, in the words of Elton John, "that train don't stop here no more". Maybe when it's over you will have enjoyed it enough to be GLAD I drew it out for so long :-)
Did I mention how much I LOVE Garden State, and, subsequently, its soundtrack? Seriously. Big shout-out to Zach Braff for like single-handedly putting together that entire film AND compiling all the music. I know I included two songs (my favorite two) off the soundtrack in the last update, and don't you kiddies think I have any qualms about including another in this one. It's not MY fault they fit the context...
Enjoy. We're almost done.
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
"Half of the time we're gone but we don't know where, and we don't know here." -- Simon & Garfunkel
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
The bus rose and fell with the potholes and speed bumps in the road. Rachel leaned her head against the cool window pane and watched the ceaseless rows of townhouses and corner stores pan by. She'd opted for taking a bus rather than a taxi, because it was less expensive. She'd only had $10 in her pocket when she'd left that afternoon and the address she had written on her hand belonging to her mother was that of a condo all the way across town, in North San Francisco. Figures. Leave it to her mother to move someplace as ritzy and chic as San Francisco and THEN have to move to the richest section of it, as well.
Just as the tram began rolling to a stop on her mother's street, the skies opened and a soft drizzling started up. Also figures, she thought.
She paid the fare and barely had time to step off onto the curb before the driver slammed the door to her back and sped away. That was something that had surprised her about this city, and not for the better. From what she'd experienced of it so far, it seemed even colder and more indifferent than New York. At least she knew New York. At least she felt comfortable there. This town-- right now the rain and the cloudy sky and the isolated section she was in made it more liken to a town than a big city-- seemed to be swallowing her already and she hadn't even made it to the difficult part, yet.
She crossed her arms over her torso and bent her neck down, as if that were going to protect her from the rain. Despite the downpour, though, she paused at the bottom of the steps leading up to the house. It was massive. Though a townhouse, it was still 3 stories tall and somehow an amazingly immaculate white, even through the dreariness of the rain and smog. Peaking out from behind the shrubbery at the side of the house, Rachel could see a small moving truck and a few men in brown jumpsuits carrying furniture in through the back. Maybe this was a bad time, she thought, wishing now she'd had the presence of mind to grab Ross' hooded sweatshirt before walking out the door. It was raining and she was obviously still moving in. Maybe she should come back another time?
No. She couldn't talk herself out of this one. This was something she was just going to have to do, and without Ross or Monica or anyone else there to hold her hand.
Ross. Her thoughts were diverted for a moment to the thing she had managed to will herself from thinking of all morning. There it was again, though, in the back of her mind. It had never really left. Where was he? She knew he couldn't have come with her, anyway, but she still yearned for the small comfort that would have come from at least knowing where he was-- that he was waiting and wishing for her.
She pushed the thoughts away. This wasn't about that right now. Maybe it was. Maybe that's all this was about-- Ross, and her coming to terms with everything he meant. Perhaps she secretly knew that confronting her mother and the abrupt termination of her relationship with her father was the only way to ever find true peace of mind and happiness with Ross. If not...then she didn't really know WHAT she was here for. She'd find out soon enough.
She journeyed up the steep concrete stairs that were imbedded in the earth and bordered by an assortment of colorful flowers that she knew her mother would have every intention of watering herself but would soon enough hire someone to tend to for her. She made it to the landing and rang the doorbell, not surprised when Theme from the New World Symphony exuded itself from the speaker. She smiled. She had been expecting that, or something equally as pretentious. Nothing was too good for her mother. Apparently not even her father. Stop it.
The door opened and there she was, just like she'd never left. She didn't look a day older. She even looked younger, if anything. She was wearing white pants and a white three-quarter-length shirt with a white scarf tied around her neck and sunglasses. Sunglasses inside on a rainy day. That's mommy.
"Rachel, darling, is it really you? Oh, come here, sweety!" her mother practically squealed, pulling her daughter into an all-out embrace. Rachel stiffened upon contact, a bit surprised and unprepared, but relaxed into it after a moment.
"Hi Mom," she almost sighed, getting exhausted just looking at her.
"I just can't believe you're here! You should have given me fair warning-- I would have tidied up a bit!" Rachel looked around the foyer and off-shooting rooms. They were all completely empty, save a few random cardboard boxes and lonely pieces of furniture.
"Is this new stuff?" Rachel asked, squinting her eyes in confusion. Why would her mother have bought all new furniture? She'd 'won' most of their possessions, not to mention her father's prized car, in the divorce battle.
"Oh, yes, dear. You know, your father tried desperately to get rid of all that old junk along with me, but I wouldn't have it. He kept what we didn't throw out all together and I..." she paused, looking around and smiling in self-satisfaction, "...I got this. Isn't is beautiful?"
"Yes," Rachel lied. It WAS beautiful, but she couldn't think so in that moment-- not when all of her childhood memories had just been referred to as 'junk'. Snapping out of it, she realized her mother was looking around nervously in search of something or someone.
"Are you still moving in, Mom? Is this a bad time?" Don't try and get out of this, Rachel. You're here for a reason. You're sticking to your guns. You're toughing this out.
"Oh, don't be silly! No, no, come in! Tell me, what are you doing all the way out here?" she asked, leading Rachel frantically down the main downstairs hallway and into the back of the house where the kitchen was.
"Well," she began to explain, following modestly and unsurely, "Monica and some of our friends decided to come out here on a whim before school starts back up."
"And your aunt just let you go? Oh, she would. Your father's sister is a DREADFUL woman. She never did like me." Rachel would have probably actually answered her mother truthfully in telling her that her aunt knew nothing of the trip, but she wasn't able to get a word in edgewise. She was used to this, though, and had learned how to forget almost all thoughts or wishes to express them as soon as they flew into her head whenever she was around her mother. "So, what compelled you to come visit me? Surely you have better things to do in sunny California with your friends than to come hang out with your old mom," her mother wagered, now searching through the new refrigerator for something for Rachel to drink. She wasn't thirsty, of course, but that didn't matter.
"Um," Rachel hesitated, wondering if she should bring up the inescapable now or wait politely after a few more grueling minutes of small-talk and chitchat. She opted for the former. "I want to talk about dad."
Silence.
"No," she corrected herself. "No, actually, I want to talk about a lot of things. I want to talk about everything." There. She'd said it. 'Everything'. That pretty much covered it. She hadn't left anything out.
Ms. Green removed her head from the fridge and turned to face her daughter, smiling forcefully.
"Well," she stated, almost whispering it, "I guess we both saw that coming, now didn't we?" The older woman walked quietly from where she stood into the living room, which was right off the kitchen and consisted so far of a lonely gray couch and a bookshelf. Her mother never read anything besides Vogue and Vanity Fair, Rachel noted. "Where exactly do you want to begin, sweety? 'Everything' is a lot to handle all at once." That was probably the most honest, sensible thing she'd heard her mother say in a long time.
"Why don't we start with why you didn't come to visit me in the hospital?" she asked prudently, taking a deep breath afterwards and realizing that she'd chosen the road less traveled-- the hard way out. She watched as her mother carefully deliberated over this, rolling around in her mind the possible answers, none of which would be the truth and it was tiring for Rachel to even think about how long this would all take if they couldn't just be honest for once.
"Honey, I told you. There were no flights out and I--"
"No flights from California to New York, Mom?" Her tone was raised and her voice was questioning. She was already beginning to lose her tact and this was only the tip of the iceberg.
"That's a difficult thing for a mother to have to watch, Rachel, " she rattled off so mechanically and matter-of-factly that Rachel felt like she was back in the hospital all over again, listening to doctors explain things she didn't want to hear and was incapable of understanding.
"Yeah? Well it's a difficult thing for a girl to have to EXPERIENCE, Mom, but I didn't really have much of a choice, now did I?" she asked, practically shouting this time. She could see the astonishment in her mother's eyes at the way she'd raised her voice to her, but she didn't care.
"Rachel, I thought we had an understanding about this. Why are you bringing this up now?"
"What 'UNDERSTANDING' did we have? The only thing I understand is that you just weren't there! You haven't been there for a while, Mom, but this? This was a time when I really just needed my mother." The guilt trip. Intentionally or not, she had laid it on thick and she could sense from the stoic, rigid way her mother was sitting that it had worked.
"Is that why you're really here, Rachel? Because you need your mother back?" she asked, smiling a bit from the corners of her mouth. She sounded almost hopeful, but one could scarcely tell from the thick layer of shame that covered it.
"No," Rachel stated simply, shaking her head. "No, I'm here..." She paused to think, searching hard for the words that would let her mother know the truth. She knew her choice of phrases would most likely be crushing no matter what, though. "I'm here because I want to know that I don't need my mother back."
"Excuse me?" she asked, lifting her hand to her chest in the universal symbol of having taken offense.
"That's right," she continued, though her throat had instantly gone dry and she felt as if she were going to vomit. "I don't need you back, Mom. If you want to start your life over and you think you need to be alone to do it, fine...but I need to know that I'm not like you. I think I need YOU to know that, too."
"Of course you're like me, Rachel! Maybe not in every way, but you and I come from the same mold, darling. I know you think I'm terrible for leaving you and your sisters like I did, but--"
"Abandoning, Mom. You didn't just leave us-- you abandoned us."
"It's all the same, Rachel, really! Stop being this way! If you only came to my home to disrupt me starting over and insult me than I really think you ought to be getting back to your friends, now," she insisted, moving to get up from the couch. Rachel was not done, though, and she followed her mother determinedly into the kitchen.
"That's just it, Mom! You're starting over! You're starting all over and forgetting everything you worked for--everything you sacrificed for so many years to be with Dad! Everything HE sacrificed! You're just giving up! You're so disgusted with all of it that you couldn't even make yourself come back to be with your daughter when she was in the hospital!"
"Don't presume to know me, young lady!" her mother shouted, whirling around to face Rachel and pointing her finger at her. The look on her face had transformed from hurt to aggressively stern. She'd clenched her jaw and dug in her heels and wasn't budging, now, against Rachel's formerly dominant control over the conversation. "I gave your father the BEST years of my life and that wasn't good enough for him! HE'S the one who left his little princess, Rachel, NOT me! I think you're forgetting that! So don't come around here making accusations and pointing fingers because I'M just making the best of what he left me!"
"But why does the 'best' have to be without anything from before!?" she yelled, tears threatening to stain her cheeks now. "Just because things get difficult, that doesn't mean you have to give up on EVERYTHING! I learned that at 17 and you can't even learn it in your 50's!"
Rachel was crying, now. Her face was red and salty wetness trickled down her cheeks. Her mother stopped, choosing not to retaliate with force but rather with insight, in that truly motherly way that she still felt some of inside herself.
"This is about Ross, isn't it?" she asked. She almost smiled. Rachel wasn't sure if it was from contentment in her ability to still be able to see through her daughter or out of smug satisfaction that not ALL of her daughter's hostility was aimed at her. When Rachel didn't answer but looked away, her mother nodded. "I should have known," she murmured. "Always something or another about that boy..."
"So what if it is?" she yelled, feeling the urge to maintain her level of control. If she didn't, all of her emotion would surely crumble to depression and sadness and she'd end up nothing but a pool of wilted misery on the floor of her mother's new kitchen. "It's not like you'd understand! You don't know anything about REAL love! You don't know anything about sticking around when things get rough, and even if you did, you CERTAINLY wouldn't know enough about ME to care or listen!"
Her mother's next move was possibly the most unanticipated in the annals of all her history. It was more unexpected even than the divorce or her sudden cross-country move. She hugged Rachel. She stepped forward and embraced her broken daughter, pressing her head against her bosom and stifling and shakes and sobs that eradiated from her.
"Shhhh, baby," she whispered. "It's okay...it's okay." Rachel wrapped her arms around her mother, seeking both comfort and refuge from all the fighting and yelling and bitterness. All the resentful things she'd just said didn't matter, and her mother knew that possibly before she'd even uttered them.
"I just want to know that it'll be okay, Mom!" she sobbed into her mother's blouse, squinting her eyes and hiccupping like a baby. "Everything changed-- everything's still changing-- and I just want to know we're going to be okay! I just want to know we're going to be together..."
"I know," she consoled, nodding in agreement. "I know you do, sweety." She rested her chin on her daughter's head. "Oh, Rachel, we're so much more alike than you'll ever know."
"What?" Rachel asked, sniffling a bit and turning her face up to look at her mother.
"Don't you think that's what I wanted too, baby? Don't you think I wanted to love your father until the Heavens collapsed? Don't you think I'd STILL be loving him today if it could be helped?" Ms. Green stated asked softly, stroking her daughter's face.
"So what's the difference?" Rachel asked naively. "What's going to keep Ross and I together that tore you and Dad apart? What's going to keep me from running?"
"Rachel, Rachel, Rachel," her mother nearly giggled, shaking her head from side to side. She had Rachel's face clasped between her hands, along with her full attention. "Youth."
"Huh?" Rachel asked, more than a little confused. Hadn't her parents been only a little older than her when they'd gotten engaged? "But I thought you and Daddy were--"
"No," she insisted, shaking her head. "Not AGE. YOUTH. Passion. Determination. Adventure. YOU have all those things, baby girl, and so does Ross. I see it in both of you, and I see it even more when you're together. THAT'S youth. No matter how old you get, Rachel, I don't think you could ever run like I did. You have too much ambition. You have too much youth."
"So you're saying you and Daddy didn't have that youth, and that's why you couldn't stay together?"
"Oh," her mother reminisced, sitting down on the barstool behind her. "Your father and I were a hundred years old by the time we graduated from high school, Rachel. We never had time for that. There was a war to be won and families to be built and no one we knew really cared too much if we were 'in love' or not. We had our time. Don't think we didn't. But we had to leave."
"But WHY?" Rachel squeaked, her voice small still and carrying all the weighty unfairness she felt for her parents within it.
"In the end we were just too tired to stay." She paused for a moment before continuing. "Rachel, I don't think I ever really taught you much of anything. I understand that most of what you know came from teachers and friends and--"
"No, Mom, you did tea--"
"Don't interrupt, Rachel, I want to say this. It's important. Now, I know I didn't teach you much of anything, and you'll probably walk out of this house today for the first and last time in your life...but, dammit, I'm going to teach you this one thing before you do.
Stay young, Rachel. You have enough common sense to understand that nothing stays perfect forever. You have enough knowledge to know that things REALLY worth fighting for are going to be the hardest things to convince yourself of. You have that already. Now all you need is to remember to be a child. Be a child for as long as you can, sweety. That was all that ever stopped your father and me. We were far too serious -- to pessimistic and grown-up to keep things the way they should have been.
"Don't worry about things falling apart or falling out of love, because the moment you do, Rachel, that's when you stop being a child. Don't THINK, baby. Just DO it. Just LOVE him and let him love you. Once I started thinking too much, that's the moment I lost your father. So everything else? It'll take care of itself."
This was a lot of information for Rachel to take in at once. Her mother had never said this many words to her before her in life, and now that she was, it was about something that could potentially save her relationship with Ross-- something she thought her mother knew nothing about. For the third time since she'd been there, Rachel began to cry.
"Well if it's just that simple than how come we can't DO that?" she cried into her hands, resting them on her knees where she was hunched over on the couch. She pushed some damp hair from her face. "Why can't we just make it EASY for ourselves, Mom? We make things so goddamn difficult!"
"I know you do, Rachel, but it's the nature of being young! What kind of teenager would you be if you always looked for the easiest way out instead of the most dramatic?" she asked, smiling at her daughter and even earning a small grin from Rachel in return. She hugged her again. "Listen, Rachel. I know it's hard, and I know you feel like the world's just going to end if you don't have all the answers now...but that's part of the problem, dear. Just be young. If he loves you and you love him, just go to him and love him and let things be. You do still love him, don't you?"
"Yes," she answered unequivocally, nodding her head profusely.
"And he still loves you?"
"I know he does," she whispered, smiling a bit.
"Then don't even tell him about this. Don't even let him know it was ever bothering you."
"I think he already knows," Rachel nearly giggled, wiping her eyes. "It's kind of been an ongoing thing for a few months-- ever since the hospital, really," she added.
" Well, just go to him and sit beside him and be with him, then. That's really all you've ever had to do. Just be young together."
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO End Chapter 22. Continued in Chapter 23.
Did I mention how much I LOVE Garden State, and, subsequently, its soundtrack? Seriously. Big shout-out to Zach Braff for like single-handedly putting together that entire film AND compiling all the music. I know I included two songs (my favorite two) off the soundtrack in the last update, and don't you kiddies think I have any qualms about including another in this one. It's not MY fault they fit the context...
Enjoy. We're almost done.
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
"Half of the time we're gone but we don't know where, and we don't know here." -- Simon & Garfunkel
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
The bus rose and fell with the potholes and speed bumps in the road. Rachel leaned her head against the cool window pane and watched the ceaseless rows of townhouses and corner stores pan by. She'd opted for taking a bus rather than a taxi, because it was less expensive. She'd only had $10 in her pocket when she'd left that afternoon and the address she had written on her hand belonging to her mother was that of a condo all the way across town, in North San Francisco. Figures. Leave it to her mother to move someplace as ritzy and chic as San Francisco and THEN have to move to the richest section of it, as well.
Just as the tram began rolling to a stop on her mother's street, the skies opened and a soft drizzling started up. Also figures, she thought.
She paid the fare and barely had time to step off onto the curb before the driver slammed the door to her back and sped away. That was something that had surprised her about this city, and not for the better. From what she'd experienced of it so far, it seemed even colder and more indifferent than New York. At least she knew New York. At least she felt comfortable there. This town-- right now the rain and the cloudy sky and the isolated section she was in made it more liken to a town than a big city-- seemed to be swallowing her already and she hadn't even made it to the difficult part, yet.
She crossed her arms over her torso and bent her neck down, as if that were going to protect her from the rain. Despite the downpour, though, she paused at the bottom of the steps leading up to the house. It was massive. Though a townhouse, it was still 3 stories tall and somehow an amazingly immaculate white, even through the dreariness of the rain and smog. Peaking out from behind the shrubbery at the side of the house, Rachel could see a small moving truck and a few men in brown jumpsuits carrying furniture in through the back. Maybe this was a bad time, she thought, wishing now she'd had the presence of mind to grab Ross' hooded sweatshirt before walking out the door. It was raining and she was obviously still moving in. Maybe she should come back another time?
No. She couldn't talk herself out of this one. This was something she was just going to have to do, and without Ross or Monica or anyone else there to hold her hand.
Ross. Her thoughts were diverted for a moment to the thing she had managed to will herself from thinking of all morning. There it was again, though, in the back of her mind. It had never really left. Where was he? She knew he couldn't have come with her, anyway, but she still yearned for the small comfort that would have come from at least knowing where he was-- that he was waiting and wishing for her.
She pushed the thoughts away. This wasn't about that right now. Maybe it was. Maybe that's all this was about-- Ross, and her coming to terms with everything he meant. Perhaps she secretly knew that confronting her mother and the abrupt termination of her relationship with her father was the only way to ever find true peace of mind and happiness with Ross. If not...then she didn't really know WHAT she was here for. She'd find out soon enough.
She journeyed up the steep concrete stairs that were imbedded in the earth and bordered by an assortment of colorful flowers that she knew her mother would have every intention of watering herself but would soon enough hire someone to tend to for her. She made it to the landing and rang the doorbell, not surprised when Theme from the New World Symphony exuded itself from the speaker. She smiled. She had been expecting that, or something equally as pretentious. Nothing was too good for her mother. Apparently not even her father. Stop it.
The door opened and there she was, just like she'd never left. She didn't look a day older. She even looked younger, if anything. She was wearing white pants and a white three-quarter-length shirt with a white scarf tied around her neck and sunglasses. Sunglasses inside on a rainy day. That's mommy.
"Rachel, darling, is it really you? Oh, come here, sweety!" her mother practically squealed, pulling her daughter into an all-out embrace. Rachel stiffened upon contact, a bit surprised and unprepared, but relaxed into it after a moment.
"Hi Mom," she almost sighed, getting exhausted just looking at her.
"I just can't believe you're here! You should have given me fair warning-- I would have tidied up a bit!" Rachel looked around the foyer and off-shooting rooms. They were all completely empty, save a few random cardboard boxes and lonely pieces of furniture.
"Is this new stuff?" Rachel asked, squinting her eyes in confusion. Why would her mother have bought all new furniture? She'd 'won' most of their possessions, not to mention her father's prized car, in the divorce battle.
"Oh, yes, dear. You know, your father tried desperately to get rid of all that old junk along with me, but I wouldn't have it. He kept what we didn't throw out all together and I..." she paused, looking around and smiling in self-satisfaction, "...I got this. Isn't is beautiful?"
"Yes," Rachel lied. It WAS beautiful, but she couldn't think so in that moment-- not when all of her childhood memories had just been referred to as 'junk'. Snapping out of it, she realized her mother was looking around nervously in search of something or someone.
"Are you still moving in, Mom? Is this a bad time?" Don't try and get out of this, Rachel. You're here for a reason. You're sticking to your guns. You're toughing this out.
"Oh, don't be silly! No, no, come in! Tell me, what are you doing all the way out here?" she asked, leading Rachel frantically down the main downstairs hallway and into the back of the house where the kitchen was.
"Well," she began to explain, following modestly and unsurely, "Monica and some of our friends decided to come out here on a whim before school starts back up."
"And your aunt just let you go? Oh, she would. Your father's sister is a DREADFUL woman. She never did like me." Rachel would have probably actually answered her mother truthfully in telling her that her aunt knew nothing of the trip, but she wasn't able to get a word in edgewise. She was used to this, though, and had learned how to forget almost all thoughts or wishes to express them as soon as they flew into her head whenever she was around her mother. "So, what compelled you to come visit me? Surely you have better things to do in sunny California with your friends than to come hang out with your old mom," her mother wagered, now searching through the new refrigerator for something for Rachel to drink. She wasn't thirsty, of course, but that didn't matter.
"Um," Rachel hesitated, wondering if she should bring up the inescapable now or wait politely after a few more grueling minutes of small-talk and chitchat. She opted for the former. "I want to talk about dad."
Silence.
"No," she corrected herself. "No, actually, I want to talk about a lot of things. I want to talk about everything." There. She'd said it. 'Everything'. That pretty much covered it. She hadn't left anything out.
Ms. Green removed her head from the fridge and turned to face her daughter, smiling forcefully.
"Well," she stated, almost whispering it, "I guess we both saw that coming, now didn't we?" The older woman walked quietly from where she stood into the living room, which was right off the kitchen and consisted so far of a lonely gray couch and a bookshelf. Her mother never read anything besides Vogue and Vanity Fair, Rachel noted. "Where exactly do you want to begin, sweety? 'Everything' is a lot to handle all at once." That was probably the most honest, sensible thing she'd heard her mother say in a long time.
"Why don't we start with why you didn't come to visit me in the hospital?" she asked prudently, taking a deep breath afterwards and realizing that she'd chosen the road less traveled-- the hard way out. She watched as her mother carefully deliberated over this, rolling around in her mind the possible answers, none of which would be the truth and it was tiring for Rachel to even think about how long this would all take if they couldn't just be honest for once.
"Honey, I told you. There were no flights out and I--"
"No flights from California to New York, Mom?" Her tone was raised and her voice was questioning. She was already beginning to lose her tact and this was only the tip of the iceberg.
"That's a difficult thing for a mother to have to watch, Rachel, " she rattled off so mechanically and matter-of-factly that Rachel felt like she was back in the hospital all over again, listening to doctors explain things she didn't want to hear and was incapable of understanding.
"Yeah? Well it's a difficult thing for a girl to have to EXPERIENCE, Mom, but I didn't really have much of a choice, now did I?" she asked, practically shouting this time. She could see the astonishment in her mother's eyes at the way she'd raised her voice to her, but she didn't care.
"Rachel, I thought we had an understanding about this. Why are you bringing this up now?"
"What 'UNDERSTANDING' did we have? The only thing I understand is that you just weren't there! You haven't been there for a while, Mom, but this? This was a time when I really just needed my mother." The guilt trip. Intentionally or not, she had laid it on thick and she could sense from the stoic, rigid way her mother was sitting that it had worked.
"Is that why you're really here, Rachel? Because you need your mother back?" she asked, smiling a bit from the corners of her mouth. She sounded almost hopeful, but one could scarcely tell from the thick layer of shame that covered it.
"No," Rachel stated simply, shaking her head. "No, I'm here..." She paused to think, searching hard for the words that would let her mother know the truth. She knew her choice of phrases would most likely be crushing no matter what, though. "I'm here because I want to know that I don't need my mother back."
"Excuse me?" she asked, lifting her hand to her chest in the universal symbol of having taken offense.
"That's right," she continued, though her throat had instantly gone dry and she felt as if she were going to vomit. "I don't need you back, Mom. If you want to start your life over and you think you need to be alone to do it, fine...but I need to know that I'm not like you. I think I need YOU to know that, too."
"Of course you're like me, Rachel! Maybe not in every way, but you and I come from the same mold, darling. I know you think I'm terrible for leaving you and your sisters like I did, but--"
"Abandoning, Mom. You didn't just leave us-- you abandoned us."
"It's all the same, Rachel, really! Stop being this way! If you only came to my home to disrupt me starting over and insult me than I really think you ought to be getting back to your friends, now," she insisted, moving to get up from the couch. Rachel was not done, though, and she followed her mother determinedly into the kitchen.
"That's just it, Mom! You're starting over! You're starting all over and forgetting everything you worked for--everything you sacrificed for so many years to be with Dad! Everything HE sacrificed! You're just giving up! You're so disgusted with all of it that you couldn't even make yourself come back to be with your daughter when she was in the hospital!"
"Don't presume to know me, young lady!" her mother shouted, whirling around to face Rachel and pointing her finger at her. The look on her face had transformed from hurt to aggressively stern. She'd clenched her jaw and dug in her heels and wasn't budging, now, against Rachel's formerly dominant control over the conversation. "I gave your father the BEST years of my life and that wasn't good enough for him! HE'S the one who left his little princess, Rachel, NOT me! I think you're forgetting that! So don't come around here making accusations and pointing fingers because I'M just making the best of what he left me!"
"But why does the 'best' have to be without anything from before!?" she yelled, tears threatening to stain her cheeks now. "Just because things get difficult, that doesn't mean you have to give up on EVERYTHING! I learned that at 17 and you can't even learn it in your 50's!"
Rachel was crying, now. Her face was red and salty wetness trickled down her cheeks. Her mother stopped, choosing not to retaliate with force but rather with insight, in that truly motherly way that she still felt some of inside herself.
"This is about Ross, isn't it?" she asked. She almost smiled. Rachel wasn't sure if it was from contentment in her ability to still be able to see through her daughter or out of smug satisfaction that not ALL of her daughter's hostility was aimed at her. When Rachel didn't answer but looked away, her mother nodded. "I should have known," she murmured. "Always something or another about that boy..."
"So what if it is?" she yelled, feeling the urge to maintain her level of control. If she didn't, all of her emotion would surely crumble to depression and sadness and she'd end up nothing but a pool of wilted misery on the floor of her mother's new kitchen. "It's not like you'd understand! You don't know anything about REAL love! You don't know anything about sticking around when things get rough, and even if you did, you CERTAINLY wouldn't know enough about ME to care or listen!"
Her mother's next move was possibly the most unanticipated in the annals of all her history. It was more unexpected even than the divorce or her sudden cross-country move. She hugged Rachel. She stepped forward and embraced her broken daughter, pressing her head against her bosom and stifling and shakes and sobs that eradiated from her.
"Shhhh, baby," she whispered. "It's okay...it's okay." Rachel wrapped her arms around her mother, seeking both comfort and refuge from all the fighting and yelling and bitterness. All the resentful things she'd just said didn't matter, and her mother knew that possibly before she'd even uttered them.
"I just want to know that it'll be okay, Mom!" she sobbed into her mother's blouse, squinting her eyes and hiccupping like a baby. "Everything changed-- everything's still changing-- and I just want to know we're going to be okay! I just want to know we're going to be together..."
"I know," she consoled, nodding in agreement. "I know you do, sweety." She rested her chin on her daughter's head. "Oh, Rachel, we're so much more alike than you'll ever know."
"What?" Rachel asked, sniffling a bit and turning her face up to look at her mother.
"Don't you think that's what I wanted too, baby? Don't you think I wanted to love your father until the Heavens collapsed? Don't you think I'd STILL be loving him today if it could be helped?" Ms. Green stated asked softly, stroking her daughter's face.
"So what's the difference?" Rachel asked naively. "What's going to keep Ross and I together that tore you and Dad apart? What's going to keep me from running?"
"Rachel, Rachel, Rachel," her mother nearly giggled, shaking her head from side to side. She had Rachel's face clasped between her hands, along with her full attention. "Youth."
"Huh?" Rachel asked, more than a little confused. Hadn't her parents been only a little older than her when they'd gotten engaged? "But I thought you and Daddy were--"
"No," she insisted, shaking her head. "Not AGE. YOUTH. Passion. Determination. Adventure. YOU have all those things, baby girl, and so does Ross. I see it in both of you, and I see it even more when you're together. THAT'S youth. No matter how old you get, Rachel, I don't think you could ever run like I did. You have too much ambition. You have too much youth."
"So you're saying you and Daddy didn't have that youth, and that's why you couldn't stay together?"
"Oh," her mother reminisced, sitting down on the barstool behind her. "Your father and I were a hundred years old by the time we graduated from high school, Rachel. We never had time for that. There was a war to be won and families to be built and no one we knew really cared too much if we were 'in love' or not. We had our time. Don't think we didn't. But we had to leave."
"But WHY?" Rachel squeaked, her voice small still and carrying all the weighty unfairness she felt for her parents within it.
"In the end we were just too tired to stay." She paused for a moment before continuing. "Rachel, I don't think I ever really taught you much of anything. I understand that most of what you know came from teachers and friends and--"
"No, Mom, you did tea--"
"Don't interrupt, Rachel, I want to say this. It's important. Now, I know I didn't teach you much of anything, and you'll probably walk out of this house today for the first and last time in your life...but, dammit, I'm going to teach you this one thing before you do.
Stay young, Rachel. You have enough common sense to understand that nothing stays perfect forever. You have enough knowledge to know that things REALLY worth fighting for are going to be the hardest things to convince yourself of. You have that already. Now all you need is to remember to be a child. Be a child for as long as you can, sweety. That was all that ever stopped your father and me. We were far too serious -- to pessimistic and grown-up to keep things the way they should have been.
"Don't worry about things falling apart or falling out of love, because the moment you do, Rachel, that's when you stop being a child. Don't THINK, baby. Just DO it. Just LOVE him and let him love you. Once I started thinking too much, that's the moment I lost your father. So everything else? It'll take care of itself."
This was a lot of information for Rachel to take in at once. Her mother had never said this many words to her before her in life, and now that she was, it was about something that could potentially save her relationship with Ross-- something she thought her mother knew nothing about. For the third time since she'd been there, Rachel began to cry.
"Well if it's just that simple than how come we can't DO that?" she cried into her hands, resting them on her knees where she was hunched over on the couch. She pushed some damp hair from her face. "Why can't we just make it EASY for ourselves, Mom? We make things so goddamn difficult!"
"I know you do, Rachel, but it's the nature of being young! What kind of teenager would you be if you always looked for the easiest way out instead of the most dramatic?" she asked, smiling at her daughter and even earning a small grin from Rachel in return. She hugged her again. "Listen, Rachel. I know it's hard, and I know you feel like the world's just going to end if you don't have all the answers now...but that's part of the problem, dear. Just be young. If he loves you and you love him, just go to him and love him and let things be. You do still love him, don't you?"
"Yes," she answered unequivocally, nodding her head profusely.
"And he still loves you?"
"I know he does," she whispered, smiling a bit.
"Then don't even tell him about this. Don't even let him know it was ever bothering you."
"I think he already knows," Rachel nearly giggled, wiping her eyes. "It's kind of been an ongoing thing for a few months-- ever since the hospital, really," she added.
" Well, just go to him and sit beside him and be with him, then. That's really all you've ever had to do. Just be young together."
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO End Chapter 22. Continued in Chapter 23.
