so, as I watched her rip the seam. Her renouncement of the way she had been was ripping out some vital thread that had run through my whole childhood. In our other life, my mother had always starred as “The Daughter.” I was left with the role of the sturdy little soul, the companion of the grandparents, who colluded with them in allowing Louise to go on being herself. “We must let Louise have the rest of her college,” my grandfather would say. “We must let theyoung couple have the honeymoon that the war interrupted,” my grandmother would say. Leaving me feeling, almost as far back as I could remember, like a prematurely aged little parent myself, who must exercise self-restraint and empathy—the two chief virtues of my grandmother and grandfather, respectively—so that my mother could prolong her life as a girl.
And now she was saying she wished we hadn’t allowed it, she wished that self had never been. Where did that leave me? In some kind of limbo, with a lost childhood on either side. There was no reason for me to go on being the kind of person I had been in Fredericksburg; in fact, I couldn’t be, even if I wanted to, because it had been in my role as granddaughter that I had excelled, and my grandparents were dead. And as for the few years of childhood left to me now, hadn’t my mother just implied that those must be devoted to the art of suffering?
I sat on miserably, in uncomfortable silence with my mother. Even now, the old responsible adult-child self was asserting itself in me. I knew I should say something “wise,” or at least gracious, in order to take away some of the sting of my previous remark. But what could I say? Then I recalled the words of the woman I had met today, as we had been walking back toward the sunny fields from the hut, when she had her hand on my shoulder.
“Money does lurk in the plot of everybody’s life, then,” I heard myself saying. “Even more than passion, probably.”
My mother stopped what she was doing and gave me a strange look. “What a deep thing to say. When I was your age, I wouldn’t have been capable of such a thought.” She laughed bitterly. “Up until a
year
or so ago, if someone had said what you just said, I would have tossed my head and retorted, ‘Don’t be an old fogey, passion is what makes the world go around!’ ” In the act of saying this, she tossed her head and became the old Louise for a moment: the girl-mother I worshiped and admired and was jealous of, all at the same time, and was so proud to show off to my friends.
It was this mother I allowed to hug me, and whom I hugged back. “You see,” she said, as she let me go, “that’s what I’m talkingabout. Already you are becoming a much stronger and smarter woman than I’ll ever be.”
But I went outside feeling her triumphant words had been more a threat than a compliment.
Jem was riding his small bike with training wheels up and down the sidewalk in front of our house. He was bright for his age, but small, which put him at a double disadvantage with the other “development” children: if he had been larger, he would have fitted in with the older boys because of his intelligence; the children of his size looked upon him cautiously, as a kind of phenomenon, and he quickly tired of their games. He suffered the additional handicap of having been born in October—just after the cutoff date the public schools cruelly enforced—so he could not enter first grade until next fall, when he would be almost seven. He looked up with such hope, when I came out, that I didn’t have the heart to tell him I wanted to go up to the empty house alone and meditate.
We climbed the grassy hill together, Jem taking manly strides to keep up. He was breathing fast with exhilaration at my having actually asked him first. “Want to hear the joke Mott told me?”
“Sure.” I could not imagine what kind of joke steady, serious Mr. Mott would tell.
“Why did the robber take a
And now she was saying she wished we hadn’t allowed it, she wished that self had never been. Where did that leave me? In some kind of limbo, with a lost childhood on either side. There was no reason for me to go on being the kind of person I had been in Fredericksburg; in fact, I couldn’t be, even if I wanted to, because it had been in my role as granddaughter that I had excelled, and my grandparents were dead. And as for the few years of childhood left to me now, hadn’t my mother just implied that those must be devoted to the art of suffering?
I sat on miserably, in uncomfortable silence with my mother. Even now, the old responsible adult-child self was asserting itself in me. I knew I should say something “wise,” or at least gracious, in order to take away some of the sting of my previous remark. But what could I say? Then I recalled the words of the woman I had met today, as we had been walking back toward the sunny fields from the hut, when she had her hand on my shoulder.
“Money does lurk in the plot of everybody’s life, then,” I heard myself saying. “Even more than passion, probably.”
My mother stopped what she was doing and gave me a strange look. “What a deep thing to say. When I was your age, I wouldn’t have been capable of such a thought.” She laughed bitterly. “Up until a
year
or so ago, if someone had said what you just said, I would have tossed my head and retorted, ‘Don’t be an old fogey, passion is what makes the world go around!’ ” In the act of saying this, she tossed her head and became the old Louise for a moment: the girl-mother I worshiped and admired and was jealous of, all at the same time, and was so proud to show off to my friends.
It was this mother I allowed to hug me, and whom I hugged back. “You see,” she said, as she let me go, “that’s what I’m talkingabout. Already you are becoming a much stronger and smarter woman than I’ll ever be.”
But I went outside feeling her triumphant words had been more a threat than a compliment.
Jem was riding his small bike with training wheels up and down the sidewalk in front of our house. He was bright for his age, but small, which put him at a double disadvantage with the other “development” children: if he had been larger, he would have fitted in with the older boys because of his intelligence; the children of his size looked upon him cautiously, as a kind of phenomenon, and he quickly tired of their games. He suffered the additional handicap of having been born in October—just after the cutoff date the public schools cruelly enforced—so he could not enter first grade until next fall, when he would be almost seven. He looked up with such hope, when I came out, that I didn’t have the heart to tell him I wanted to go up to the empty house alone and meditate.
We climbed the grassy hill together, Jem taking manly strides to keep up. He was breathing fast with exhilaration at my having actually asked him first. “Want to hear the joke Mott told me?”
“Sure.” I could not imagine what kind of joke steady, serious Mr. Mott would tell.
“Why did the robber take a
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