How My Mother Loves Me
by Lance Nally
“Did you hear that?” my mother asked.
She was watching the evening news, but I wasn’t paying any attention. I was engrossed in the book I had just borrowed from the library on my way home from school that afternoon.
“What’d they say?” I asked.
“Just listen”, she replied.
The man on the screen was talking about a tornado or maybe a typhoon; I’m not sure which. But, it didn’t seem to have anything to do with us. We were experiencing a nice Fall day in Southern California. There were no thunder clouds in sight.
“Did you hear it that time?” she asked wide eyed.
She turned her attention back to the television without waiting for my response. She was sitting, leaning forward on the little hassock, only five or six feet from the screen; knees together under her peach colored dress, and her hands wringing a dry dish towel in her lap.
“He just said the FBI is looking for Rose Schuster”, she exclaimed.
She was looking at me now, and what I saw in her eyes could only be described as terror. Her eyes were wide and she bit her lip as the fear I could not comprehend at the time enveloped her mind. She looked from side to side without ever really seeing anything in front of her, only the delusions in her head. She was thinking; thinking what to do next. How could she escape? Where should she go?
Rose Shuster was my mother’s name. But the man on the TV screen had never said it. He had talked about Oklahoma or Texas, or someplace like that. He had talked about hundred mile an hour winds and houses blown apart.
“He never said anything about you or the FBI”, I said as I began to fear what I knew was coming; again.
The tension in her face subsided just a little, for just a moment. She wanted to believe me, but after that brief moment of hope the fear returned to her face. I could see it in her eyes; they were the eyes of a child lost in the grocery store searching and calling for her mother amidst a crowd of strangers looming over her.
“Yes he did! I heard it. I heard it! We have to get out of here”.
“No Momma. The man didn’t say that”.
She looked around, eyes darting from side to side as the delusions in her head fought with the will to believe what she was hearing from me. I had been there with her many times during the last twelve years as she yo-yoed back and forth, up and down from sanity to insanity and back again. It seemed she was always either coming away from or moving toward another psychotic break. She was stable somewhere in between, but the right balance of ingredients needed to maintain that balance eluded definition.
“Momma, please listen to me. The man did not say that. You are hearing voices again. You know, like you did before when you had to go to the hospital, remember?”
She looked at me, still with the fear in her eyes, licked her lips and opened her mouth to say something, but didn’t. Instead, she stood up abruptly and walked into the kitchen. I could hear her opening drawers and rummaging around in them, and then I heard the unmistakable sound of the big vegetable chopping knife dropping to the floor. The sound of that knife landing on the tile floor remains as clear in my memory today as it was then: clunk, ting, ting.
I wanted to run to her. I knew she was afraid. I knew the pain she was experiencing, not first hand, but I had seen her experience it enough to empathize. I knew what I was likely to find in the kitchen too, but I also knew there was a possibility she might surprise me this time.
My mother had never tried to hurt me. She had scared me plenty of times with her irrational behavior, but she had never aimed any of her insanity at me. Sometimes she thought she was a CIA agent. Other times she thought she was on the run from some unnamed foe. But even when she thought she was someone with the power to enforce the law she was still terrorized by paranoia. The bad guys were around every corner and they were waiting to do unspeakable evil to her. Or the aliens were going to beam her to their spaceship and suck her brains out through her ears. She was so convinced of these things that she would sometimes run for blocks screaming in terror as neighbors ran into the street to see what was happening. These were the times she would be locked up, to protect herself and others from her irrationality.
Today she was sinking back into the persecuted victim of government conspiracy delusion. She had been here before too, and it was bad; just as bad as being a CIA agent with communists lurking around every corner waiting to slit her throat and cut out her tongue.
I had learned in my twelve short years what many people never seem to figure out. Irrational people do irrational things. Logic is illogical, and reason is unreasonable to the insane. You cannot predict what they will do. Their minds do not exist in the world the rest of us live in. It lives in a world where the laws of science do not apply, and where common sense is just a trick intended to fool them into doing something that may cause them unspeakable pain.
So, I didn’t run to my mother, I walked very slowly and carefully to the kitchen door and peeked in, hoping she would not see me. She was sitting on the floor, her head in her hands, crying quietly. The big vegetable chopping knife lay next to her on the floor. Suddenly she saw me out of the corner of her eye and jumped as if she had been poked with an upholstery needle. Immediately, she grabbed the knife and pointed it at me.
“Get away from me”, she screamed as tears streamed down her cheeks. “Get away from me or I’ll stick you with this”.
She did not move. She didn’t even attempt to stand. She just sat there, her feet splayed out in front of her. Big black streams of tear soaked mascara stained her cheeks, and stray strands of her dark hair hung in her face. She looked at me as if I was a wild beast intent upon devouring her. She looked at me with fear that broke my heart. I loved her; I would not hurt her even if she did stick me with that big knife. She was sick; she was very sick and I only wanted to help her.
“Mom”, I said, trying very hard not to let my own fear overwhelm me and send me running for the front door. “It’s me, Jenny”.
“No you aren’t, you lying bastard. You aren’t my daughter. You just stay away from me or I’ll hurt you. I swear I will”.
The hand holding the big knife seemed to be losing strength as she spoke and it slowly lowered to the floor. Her other hand moved to her face and covered her eyes as she began to sob. Her body shook as she sobbed. Her lips tightened over her teeth, and her mouth opened with the sound of agony as saliva and snot dripped onto her lap.
“Mom”, I had to make her listen to me. If she would not listen to me, I would have to call 911 and the ambulance would take her to the hospital. I couldn’t see her while she was in that hospital, kids were not allowed. And, she might be gone for weeks.
“Mom”, I screamed at her now. She had to hear me. “Mom!”
“What, god damn it! What do you want from me?” She was still sobbing with the big knife in her hand as it rested on the floor beside her.
“It is me. You know it’s me. Remember the code word? Remember the code word you told me a long time ago? The word I should use so you would know it was me.”
She said nothing she just kept sobbing with her hand over her eyes.
“Falling leaves. Falling leaves. You love the beautiful leaves as they turn red and gold and fall to the ground in the Fall. You were looking out the window and you said, ‘Falling leaves’. And, you told me always to remember, falling leaves”.
She stopped sobbing and closed her mouth. Her hand was still over her eyes and she had not moved, but at least she was no longer sobbing. Then she picked up the knife and threw it hard through the door into the pantry on the other side of the kitchen from me. It crashed into the wall with a clang and then fell to the floor. Her hand fell to her lap and then she turned to me, taking the other hand from her eyes.
She extended her arms toward me and said, “Come here, baby”.
August 8th, 2007 at 3:47 pm
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