Lisa Owens - Not Working

“Things are brilliant! Better than ever!”

“Good! I thought…No, that’s great.”

“What?”

“I didn’t say anything!” She throws her eyes upward, tutting. “That’s always been your problem, Claire — you see everything, even things that aren’t there.” She stirs her coffee, takes a dainty slurp of foam. “I was only going to say, I thought you two had decided to take a step back.”

“What does that mean? Where did you get that idea?”

“Oh,” she says lightly, “I thought there was something about deciding not to get married, but perhaps I’m mistaken.”

“Was this from Grandma ?”

Her lips and brows gather in exaggerated thought. “I suppose…yes, it must have been. So is it true?”

“No! Not at all. Well, only in the sense that it’s always been true: we’re not married and have no current plans to be.”

“No plans, or plan not to? I’m allowed to ask! I’m your mother — you can be honest with me.”

“Apparently only when it suits you.”

She jerks back in her seat, offended. “That’s not nice. Don’t I have a right to know whether to expect a wedding from my only child? Or if I’m ever going to get to be a grandmother?”

“Honestly? I’m not really sure you do.” I stare at my hands. The nails I’ve spent months not biting are raggedy edges now.

“Are you taking folic acid? You should take folic acid if you’re even thinking about thinking about having children. You’re lucky to have the benefit of my experience. I didn’t know I was having you until it was too late.”

“Too late. Wow.” I compress my lips and stare wide-eyed at the sugar pot.

“Oh, you know what I mean. Stop being difficult. Too late to take the folic acid .”

“Mum, you haven’t spoken to me for months! I could have almost had a baby in that time and you wouldn’t even know.”

She looks briefly, guiltily hopeful; tries to cover her tracks with a wounded frown. “Your father and grandmother have kept me up to date. I’m not inhuman: I’ve been thinking about you.”

I study the wood grain; try a wobbly smile.

“It’s been hard for me too,” she continues. “I’ve been working through things, trying to come to terms with my own grief and…” She closes her eyes, tosses her head and begins again, placing her fingers carefully on the tabletop. “I wanted to see you today because I’ve been doing a lot of soul-searching and I feel I now might understand.”

“Understand what?”

“All this…unpleasantness. I’ve been doing some reading around it.” She reaches into her bag and takes out a sheaf of pages, rolls it tightly into a baton and hands it to me. “I found these articles on the computer. You don’t need to read them now, but I think you’ll find it all very interesting.”

I loosen my grip and the pages spring open. The first is a printout from a psychology website in a questionable font. I read the headline aloud: “ ‘False Memory Syndrome.’ ”

“It’s a very well-documented phenomenon.” She leans forward, prodding at a paragraph halfway down the page, flanked by handwritten black asterisks like spidery henchmen. “Read that and tell me that doesn’t fit.”

It begins, “Sufferers may fixate on the imagined memory in order to distarct from problems in real life.” In the margin she’s put YES, underlined three times.

I look up.

“Well? What do you think?” she asks.

“They’ve spelled ‘distract’ wrong.”

She tuts. “You would pick up on that of all things. It makes sense, though, doesn’t it, the timing, if you think about it? You’d just left your job, and would have been feeling a lot of uncertainty about the future, and then there’s whatever might be going on with Luke.” She holds up a hand, preempting objection. “That’s your business, I know. I’m saying nothing. And of course, Daddy — Gum — had just passed away. Grief does funny things to a person.” She puts her hand over mine. “I hadn’t realized the pressure you’d been under, and”—she laughs—“oddly enough, I wanted to apologize to you, to say I’m sorry for not being there. Obviously this isn’t the way I’d choose for it all to come out, but I want you to know: I understand . It’s okay.” She grips my hand harder, beaming with compassion, or at her own magnanimity.

I take a deep breath. “Mum. I’m so glad you’re ready to talk to me again, and I really appreciate what you’re trying to do, honestly, but this isn’t…” I take my hand back and leaf through the pages. “Look, some of this stuff is completely bananas! There’s a whole section here about alien abduction.”

Her eyes widen. “That’s actually a very interesting parallel — there’s a book I got on Amazon. I’ll lend it to you.”

“Mum.”

“What! Don’t tell me you believe in that UFO stuff, Claire. I thought you were a bit brighter than that.”

“Of course I don’t! That’s the whole point! Do you really think alien abduction is an appropriate comparison?”

Her fingers seek out her necklace and worry at the pendant. “So what exactly are you saying? That Daddy — your grandfather — was some kind of—” She stops, looks over one shoulder, then the other, and slowly, distinctly mouths, “Pervert.”

“No. No! We’ve been over this. I’m saying what I’ve said right from the beginning: I made a badly timed, lighthearted remark that has been blown out of all proportion.”

“So it was a joke, then? He didn’t actually”—she gestures downward—“you know, show himself to you.”

“No, I mean, he did, but not…‘Show’ isn’t right; it was always more like a flash.” The word choice is unfortunate; I quickly move on. “It wasn’t that he necessarily intended to, or if he did, it was just…”

“Just what? I’m sorry, you’re going to have to help me out here.”

“I don’t know!” I flick away sudden tears with my knuckles. Passersby peer at us, then avert their gazes. “You’d need to ask him!”

A bitter laugh escapes. “Well. I’m afraid it’s a bit late for that.”

“Maybe…maybe it was some kind of…weird impulse he didn’t understand. Something from his own childhood. Maybe.”

“You just said it was a lighthearted remark! Now it’s some deep-seated trauma from his past. Which is it?” I open my mouth, but nothing comes. “What about this: wait, hear me out.” She taps urgently on the pages. “Could you have walked in on him in the bathroom? Mightn’t the shock of that have confused you at a young age, made you misinterpret what was happening?”

I swallow. “I understand why this isn’t a comfortable conversation. I’m sorry if it’s complicated your view of him. But I don’t think me pretending it didn’t happen is helpful or…right, and maybe part of me feels a little let down that as your daughter—”

“ Why won’t you at least consider this? I thought you wanted to work things out. You’re the one who’s been calling me and begging my — Thank you so much . That was lovely .” She turns on the charm with bewildering speed for the waitress who’s appeared to clear her coffee cup. “Begging my forgiveness. And now here I am, making an effort to understand what possessed you to make these frankly bizarre accusations out of nowhere at the poor man’s funeral ! All I’m asking is for you to take and read this. Then tell me if you don’t agree, but please don’t dismiss it out of hand…” She presses a fist to her lips. Her entire irises are visible: blue, bright and hard against the whites. I feel so exhausted, trapped by her desperation, and by the relentless stream of travelers, churning back and forth, that all I can muster is a single deep shrug. She gathers up the printouts, shunts the edges flush, hands the sheaf to me.