take vitamin E and B12 every day? And C? And eat green peppers like potato chips ? People in my family don’t die young, she’d thought. Holidays at her mother’s looked like the gathering of a coven. I’ll be one of them, she’d thought. I can promise.
“Are you sure you’re not going to die, Little Mom?”
“I’m sure, I promise.”
“Do you promise, you’ll always be my Mommy Dolphin?”
“Yes, I will.”
“You’ll always be my Mommy Dinosaur?”
“I promise.”
“You’ll always be my Mommy Koala, and bring me eucalyptus leaves?”
Theory[001-112] 6/5/01 11:58 AM Page 38
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JACQUELYN MITCHARD
“Always.” This, as the two of them cuddled in a nest of old comforters, munching graham crackers they imagined as leaves.
Georgia at twelve, with a pout like a shelf that Lorraine’s mother, Grandma Lena, said the birds would poop on. Georgia, shoving in Lorraine’s face a library book on the adopted adolescent, “It’s all here. You just wanted to replace the perfect baby you couldn’t have. Nice try.” Lorraine had followed Georgia to her locked bedroom door that day, putting her mouth against the crack, opening her memory wide to receive some vestigial wisdom, something to say that all her teachers training might have somehow instilled in her angry, fearful mother’s brain. How could anything comfort a child who felt like an understudy in the drama of her own family’s history?
“Georgia,” she’d said finally. “You’re my child. I only love you.” Silence.
“I love the mother who gave birth to you. I love the father who made her pregnant. I would let them come to live at our house if they would promise not to take you away.”
Silence.
“Of course, you replaced the baby I couldn’t have. You didn’t only replace her, you . . . erased her. She never existed. When you were little, I . . . people would sometimes think I’d given birth to you because we looked alike. At first, I got a kick out of that. I did want to feel like everyone else. But after a while, it bothered me. It was like I was letting people pretend it was better that you looked as though you came from me. I wished you were blond, like Gordie, and six feet tall, so you would know for sure I didn’t have to pretend that you came from my body to love you. I just love you, not some facsimile of me.” A tremor had overtaken her voice, and she’d imagined Georgia’s contempt, then Georgia’s rage. She was in there doing something awful, sawing her wrists, swallowing a whole bottle of Tylenol, making a rope of sheets. “Georgia!” she’d shouted, “Come out here. I’m going to go get a screwdriver and take off this lock!” And she would have, but as she turned to go, the door opened a crack, so that Lorraine could see the glow of the weird black light inside, and Georgia extended one hand, which her mother had taken, without a word, the Theory[001-112] 6/5/01 11:58 AM Page 39
A Theory of Relativity
39
two of them standing there until both their palms were hot and their wrists weary.
Lorraine thought, I would take that. I would be happy with heaven if it were only that one hand. I would go to church every day and stifle all my doubts and forbid my bitterness.
Georgia at fourteen.
Quick-marched up the walk at two in the morning by Dale Larsen, after having slid on the downspout to run to a hideous, dangerous midnight beer bash in the woods. Lorraine dragging Georgia up the stairs, growling through clenched teeth that they were going to have to move to Canada, slapping her on the butt and the arms and the back of the head all the way up to her bedroom, to the pillow dummy Georgia had made to suggest her innocent, sleeping shape. Who were the parents of these other kids? Alkies? Third-shifters? Didn’t they value their children’s lives? When Georgia told her, proudly—“ Life is something you know nothing about, Mother”—that she was the only eighth-grader allowed, the rest of the crowd were
“Are you sure you’re not going to die, Little Mom?”
“I’m sure, I promise.”
“Do you promise, you’ll always be my Mommy Dolphin?”
“Yes, I will.”
“You’ll always be my Mommy Dinosaur?”
“I promise.”
“You’ll always be my Mommy Koala, and bring me eucalyptus leaves?”
Theory[001-112] 6/5/01 11:58 AM Page 38
38
JACQUELYN MITCHARD
“Always.” This, as the two of them cuddled in a nest of old comforters, munching graham crackers they imagined as leaves.
Georgia at twelve, with a pout like a shelf that Lorraine’s mother, Grandma Lena, said the birds would poop on. Georgia, shoving in Lorraine’s face a library book on the adopted adolescent, “It’s all here. You just wanted to replace the perfect baby you couldn’t have. Nice try.” Lorraine had followed Georgia to her locked bedroom door that day, putting her mouth against the crack, opening her memory wide to receive some vestigial wisdom, something to say that all her teachers training might have somehow instilled in her angry, fearful mother’s brain. How could anything comfort a child who felt like an understudy in the drama of her own family’s history?
“Georgia,” she’d said finally. “You’re my child. I only love you.” Silence.
“I love the mother who gave birth to you. I love the father who made her pregnant. I would let them come to live at our house if they would promise not to take you away.”
Silence.
“Of course, you replaced the baby I couldn’t have. You didn’t only replace her, you . . . erased her. She never existed. When you were little, I . . . people would sometimes think I’d given birth to you because we looked alike. At first, I got a kick out of that. I did want to feel like everyone else. But after a while, it bothered me. It was like I was letting people pretend it was better that you looked as though you came from me. I wished you were blond, like Gordie, and six feet tall, so you would know for sure I didn’t have to pretend that you came from my body to love you. I just love you, not some facsimile of me.” A tremor had overtaken her voice, and she’d imagined Georgia’s contempt, then Georgia’s rage. She was in there doing something awful, sawing her wrists, swallowing a whole bottle of Tylenol, making a rope of sheets. “Georgia!” she’d shouted, “Come out here. I’m going to go get a screwdriver and take off this lock!” And she would have, but as she turned to go, the door opened a crack, so that Lorraine could see the glow of the weird black light inside, and Georgia extended one hand, which her mother had taken, without a word, the Theory[001-112] 6/5/01 11:58 AM Page 39
A Theory of Relativity
39
two of them standing there until both their palms were hot and their wrists weary.
Lorraine thought, I would take that. I would be happy with heaven if it were only that one hand. I would go to church every day and stifle all my doubts and forbid my bitterness.
Georgia at fourteen.
Quick-marched up the walk at two in the morning by Dale Larsen, after having slid on the downspout to run to a hideous, dangerous midnight beer bash in the woods. Lorraine dragging Georgia up the stairs, growling through clenched teeth that they were going to have to move to Canada, slapping her on the butt and the arms and the back of the head all the way up to her bedroom, to the pillow dummy Georgia had made to suggest her innocent, sleeping shape. Who were the parents of these other kids? Alkies? Third-shifters? Didn’t they value their children’s lives? When Georgia told her, proudly—“ Life is something you know nothing about, Mother”—that she was the only eighth-grader allowed, the rest of the crowd were
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