PROLOGUE to Don’t Look by Patricia McLaughlin

I am rocking back and forth, back and forth, as the bowed legs of the chair creak rhythmically. I am four years old, staring intently out the window as my grandmother is in the kitchen cooking. She is large and speaks in a language I do not understand. Her strangeness scares me. My father is at work, all my siblings are at school, and my mother is gone. I do not understand about babies and giving birth. I only know something has changed and my mother is not here. The fear of that fact resonates through my little being until she returns, and my world wears on again, as it should.

I rarely write about my mother, although her memory remains a noble constancy in my life. To me, my father, other relatives, religious denominations, and political systems all have a level of inconsistency, at times hypocrisy, of what they could, or should be. Not my mother. From my earliest childhood, she could confront any situation and shape it into a manageable outcome. For anyone, except herself.

I don’t know if my mother regretted her life. I know she regretted aspects of it, as we all do. I know there were times when she wanted more. She wanted to go to college and study music. She wanted to be a missionary or a nutritionist. She wanted to get married to a man who would be a fine spiritual leader in the home. She wanted to have two girls and two boys, and live in a nice home, one where her children would be proud to bring their friends. These are the aspirations she was not able to fully achieve.

I also know she wanted a piano during the Depression, saved for one, and bought it against her father’s wishes. I know she hated alcohol and would not tolerate it from my father. Why did she meet some challenges with success and not others?

What made her so powerless in the presence of my father’s inappropriate outbursts of anger? Why did she allow us to be put in such dangerous situations with him? Why was she afraid to be in water only three feet deep? Why could she not drive an automobile with some level of confidence? Why is it we ask for some things in life, and with determination go and get them, while others, even those impacting our very survival, remain just beyond our reach?

My son died. I still cannot pen those words without a deep sensation rising up into my throat, causing my breath to catch, my eyes to burn. I have to swallow hard before it suffocates me. If my mother did not achieve everything she wanted in life, I have allowed her to achieve something more in death. It has been the memories of her life that have been the safe conduit for me to comprehend, on some level, the death of my son. She is the one who has taken me into the deep waters. She is the one who is leading me through the valley of the shadow of death. She is my spiritual beacon, keeping me out of the danger of my loss, a loss that in a moment, in the tiny jerk of a wrist, could sweep me away.

It is her unrelenting hope that guides me now, and I want to rail against it! I want to condemn anything that tries to put a salve on such a deep wound. I want to damn her hope chest, her precious Jesus, and her perfect ravioli in our messed up home. My son died. But her spirit will not allow me to speak in tongues of rage for very long. In the end, I am still that little girl sitting by her side on those red velvet pews, singing the alto line on all the hymns. So I write about my mother.

SAMPLE CHAPTERS

Hope Chest from Section I -Florence

In the dank confines of the basement on Francis St., my mother’s carved, wooden hope chest rested against a gray cinderblock wall. It was a curiosity to me each time I opened it, for rising from the scent of cedar, was the remnants of my mother’s life before her marriage. Among its preserved treasures, a fur coat, a small cardboard welding diploma, crocheted doilies, and her satin silk wedding dress.

The basement on Francis St. was like the hold of a ship carrying me and my siblings to places where our imagination could be unleashed. The right side belonged to my mother. It had a closet fruit cellar, a laundry section, a red striped sofa, her piano, and the hope chest. Laundry would occasionally rain down on us from the chute on the first floor. In the laundry room you had to be careful when you ironed clothes, because the electrical wire my father had installed from the ceiling was not grounded and you could get a little shock if you weren’t careful. The left side of the basement belonged to my father. It had the furnace and a large wooden workbench. A myriad of tools and packaged sale items from the Sears Roebuck Catalogue hung from nails on the wooden ceiling beams. Next to the workbench were old bikes, and piles of junk.

On rainy afternoons, when it was too muddy to play outside, I would descend the stairs in my bare feet, make my way across the cold cement floor to the mystery of the coveted chest. The tradition of women creating hope chests could be traced to many European countries, including Italy, where it was known as a cassone. This was a solid piece of furniture, crafted with care, with items carefully hand-made for a future marriage. For my mother it had become more of a box of remembrance, holding precious snapshots of who she was in another place, another time.

I would pull the items out one by one and examine them. Nothing in our home was as exotic as that soft fur coat. As I draped the hide over my tiny frame I wondered what kind of animal it had been, roaming the hills of Appalachia. I imagined my mother sitting in the rumble seat of a friend’s Model Ford going to the local dance. Sometimes, when we listened to music on our record player console, my mother would walk into the living room and burst into the Charleston. We laughed to see her five foot, two inch frame, kicking wildly across the worn wooden floor.

My mother was born and raised in Clarksburg, West Virginia, in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains, teaming with beaver, bear, and wild bull. West Virginia is a wilderness. Driving along the back roads, before the Interstate highways were completed, one could view lovely panoramic vistas with undulating hills, proving a challenge to any driver. It could take hours to go relatively short distances. The mining towns surrounding Clarksburg could be dreary places, with the dust from the mines filling the atmosphere. Many Italian immigrants, perhaps drawn to a topography similar to their home country, carved a niche for themselves, where families all knew each other, and visitors were looked upon with suspicion.

My mother was a fine pianist and told us she wanted to become a teacher, or a choral conductor. She was offered a scholarship by a missionary who often visited their church. He saw her potential, but she had to turn it down. In 1932 her parents needed her at home, tending the family garden, making sandwiches that would be sold to the miners working during the Depression. A decade later she became a Rosie Riveter, working on the B52 during World War II, a small cardboard diploma the only proof of training after high school. This welder by trade held our lives together as well. A housewife and mother with six children and a challenging husband, I saw her spend many hours sitting atop her hope chest, praying for sustenance to make it through another day.

The petite size of my mother’s wedding dress gave testimony to slimmer days gone by. On June 28, 1947, she married my father at the Bethesda Missionary Temple in Detroit, Michigan. A lavish affair, witnessed by the wedding photos, with multiple bridesmaids and groomsmen. Fancy dresses. Beautiful floral arrangements. Everyone is smiling, except my father, who has a sober expression on his face as he cradles my mother’s arm and holds her hand. She has to stand on a box, hidden by her dress and long train, so she would not look too small next to his six foot, three inch frame. I would hold the delicate fabric of that dress up against my face, or suspend it over the narrow light coming in through the small metal-framed windows.

We never used the doilies. They would have been ruined. At least she could look at them from time to time. Did she imagine a different life, with a different family, in a different place? I would put them on my head, a parishioner going to church to pray, like I saw Jackie Kennedy do in a photo in Look magazine. She was with her family, holding John John’s hand, ascending the steps of a Catholic cathedral in Washington, D.C.

When I was about twelve, the basement flooded from one of the many hard rains of spring. My mother’s hope chest was one of the victims. Soaked and moldy, most of the contents were irretrievable, and had to be thrown out. In their place, only we, her children, remained. Running around, playing imaginary games, our laughter and bickering rising up the stairway to the kitchen, where she would always be, preparing the evening meal.

Trains from Section II -Dan

The ebony night is luscious and calm. A full moon radiates its soft cream colored glow. It is time for gentle strolls, breathing the warmth of an Indian summer, teasing us in November, before the Michigan winter descends. As I drive, I pass college students who amble along the city streets. An Amtrak train is pulling into the station. Once home, I climb the stairs, and lay my body upon the rumpled comforter of the bed. My nylons feel sleek against my legs. I do not have the strength to change my clothes. I should cocoon myself under the covers, but the darkness is the only blanket I need. I stare into the void, recalling the week’s fractured events, and all I want is my mother.

It is the day after Halloween. I have come to my son’s apartment because he has not answered the phone. This is never a good sign. I ring the buzzer to his apartment but there is no answer. I can see his balcony from the doorstep. He is not in his usual spot. I call his friend, but she has not heard from him, not even on Halloween, a day he would have spent with her and her children. I run along the undulating lawn in back of the complex to the management office. I need a key. Why don’t I have the spare one? They let me in, and I start calling my son’s name, moving through the rooms. I cannot find him and am slightly relieved. He must be out getting coffee. He loves to walk to the gas station. He goes multiple times a day. I enter the kitchen. His body is prone on the kitchen floor as if he just decided to lie down and take a nap. I kneel next to him, and stroke his short brown hair. He is not wearing a shirt and his back is cold and hard. There are reddish blue bruises along one side. There is a pool of blood just below his nose. I keep stroking his hair, whispering something through my tears. His friend has arrived and called the police.

The earliest memory I have of my mother is sleeping sandwiched between her and my father, in the bedroom they shared. When she became pregnant with my younger brother, I was moved to the upstairs dormer, away from my other siblings, next to the scary attic door. I didn’t like being the one set apart. When we moved to Francis St., my father slept in a double bed in the room with my older brothers, who inhabited the bunks. My older sisters, who were nearing their teenage years, retained their own room. My younger brother and I remained with my mother. He occupied his crib, while I slept by her side. As she read the evening Bible stories, the sound of a train whistle could be heard in the distant night sky. Sometimes she would stop and pause to listen. Once, my mother said she wished she could board that train. I wasn’t sure if she was taking us along. I would drift off to sleep to the sound of her snoring, louder than any locomotive.

The officers come dressed in their police uniforms, ready to face the situation. One is an older, overweight male. He gently pulls me away from my son. Another male officer is middle-aged and goes directly to the body. The third is a young female. She is walking around the apartment examining things, maybe she is a trainee. I keep stammering about my son. The overweight one tries to console me. He says, ‘No mother should find her son like this’. I want him to hold me. I notice the buttons on his vest are very tight against his full chest.

I held a special place in my mother’s heart because I achieved more in school than all of my siblings combined. As my sister once proclaimed, ‘You were the golden child’. My mother would go to parent teacher conferences for my brothers and have to sit through all the subjects, and behavior, that needed to improve. When she came to my conferences, the teachers were delighted to meet the mother of such a gifted child. I performed solos in choir, held the lead in school plays, won speech awards, was elected class president, became a finalist in the local beauty pageant, and graduated in the top ten of my high school class. Any decent psychologist could tell you that her pride stemmed from the fact that the accomplishments of my life redeemed her. It gave her assurance that she had done something right.

I have been led out into the hallway. The medical examiner has arrived. The apartment is a crime scene. Everyone is suspect. There are questions. Did he leave a note? Does he have any medical conditions? I answer, ‘Yes. Yes, he has schizophrenia’. They want to know if there is anything else? I wonder why having schizophrenia is not enough. But I say no. He seemed in good health. I notice there is a red light on the vest of the overweight officer. It is a body camera. They are filming me. I notice I am wearing blue Lululemon pants and a white long-sleeved sports top, with a University of Michigan block M insignia. My gym shoes are also blue with a maize strip on the side. Somehow it is important to me to be dressed in these clothes and not the ones I usually wear when I stop by to help my son clean up his apartment. My mother used to say it was important to present yourself well when you go out.

On the evening of the funeral I am still wearing my black dress and peach blazer as I lie awake. What did I do wrong? What did I do right? I am looking for some assurance. I run the lists past my mother’s mute spirit. I think about the police officer filming me, like a TV show. I make up a script
in my head, (The officers confer with the medical examiner, who banters about meeting up later, once the body has been examined. It doesn’t look like fowl play. Just forty-nine years old! Poor chap. No real mother would find her son like this). Nothing good can come from these thoughts. The 2 a.m. Amtrak train bellows in the distance.

Some of my family has arrived, but they will not let us go back into the apartment. I ask if they are going to clean up the blood. I don’t want them to clean it up. It is alI I have left of his human body. The only part that seems alive to me. They misunderstand. They think I want them to clean up the fluid. ‘I’m not going to clean up anything’. The overweight officer says. ‘I’m going to take this body out and lock this door. If you want to enter again, you will need to go through the apartment management’. They will not wait for my other son to arrive. They have places they need to be. The medical examiner says we are lucky it is a slow morning. Lucky? We are allowed to say goodbye to the body bag.

I wax and wane in and out of sleep, snoring much lighter than my mother would have done. There is an overwhelming need to escape. I cannot stay in this room, this house, this city. I cannot continue to be me. If I am to survive this crack in the universe, I can no longer be the person I became for my mother. No achievement in the past will be enough to protect me from the pummeling I’m administering to myself on top of these covers. I tell my mother’s spirit, as soon as everything is in order, I will get on that train and I will go.