Page 49 - WTP Vol. VIII#2

the narrow hallway to the reception area. Her mother stood beside a desk. She must have just hung up the phone because her hand was still on the receiver. Jim stood close behind her. He stepped in even closer and wrapped his arms around her waist. His right hand slid under her sweatshirt. Macy canted back against him and closed her eyes.
“Mary Ann,” he said. “I’ve missed you.”
“She’s Macy,” said Claudia loudly.
The two adults were startled apart.
“Claudia,” Macy said, making the name sound like a plea. “I’ll wait in the car,” said Jim. “Take your time.”
He turned at the door. “You know how to lock up,” he said to Macy, and she nodded.
“Claudia,” Macy said again, after Jim had shut the door behind him. This time there was resignation in her voice. She leaned shakily against the desk be- hind her. She seemed to be waiting for Claudia to say something. But Claudia couldn’t think of anything, not even one question. She needed her mother to take charge, to instruct her in what would happen next, in what she should do.
“What are you thinking?” Macy finally said.
Claudia didn’t answer. She bent her head down and watched her big toe wiggle through a hole in her canvas sneaker. She heard Macy move, but she didn’t look up until her mother was standing directly in front of her.
“Let’s go sit down,” Macy said, gesturing to the wait- ing room.
Claudia slumped back against the cushions of the leather couch. It gave off a pleasantly bitter aroma, and it creaked when she shifted her position. Macy sat primly on the forward edge of the couch, as if she were a bird alighted only briefly on the tip of a branch, ready to fly from any disturbance.
“You know, you’re getting to be more grown up every day,” Macy began. “But there are still a lot of things about being grown up that you don’t understand yet.”
Claudia kept her gaze steadfastly on the magazines fanned out on the glass-topped coffee table. She wasn’t sure she wanted to understand all the things being grown up meant.
“What you just saw,” Macy continued, “is one of those things.”
“Does he love you?” Claudia demanded, looking squarely at her mother.
“Oh, darling, it’s not as simple as that. It never is.” “Do you still love Dad?”
“Of course I do. Very much. And I hate the thought of hurting him. I think you know enough to know that this would hurt him, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
Macy looked fixedly across the room as if a movie were being shown on the opposite wall. Claudia realized that her mother wasn’t going to offer any more infor- mation, nor any guidance. She felt a great weight settle upon her. She suddenly believed herself responsible not only for the restoration of her own sense of peace but also for the safety of her entire family. Though she felt infused with power and importance, her power frightened her, and her importance lacked joy.
Macy began to cry. Claudia had only seen her mother cry two or three other times, and it always alarmed her. Her mother’s crying isolated her from Claudia.
Claudia scrambled forward on the couch. She wrapped her arms around her mother’s neck and lay her cheek on top of her head. Macy returned the embrace.
“It’s all right,” Claudia insisted. “It will be all right.”
They stayed like that for several minutes. Then Macy disengaged herself from Claudia and stood up. She reached out to the girl, and hand-in-hand they walked to the bathroom in the inner office, where Macy rinsed her face with cold water.
~
When they went outside, Jim was reclining against the car smoking a cigarette. He calculated them as he might have done accident victims in triage, but he said nothing. It seemed to Claudia that Jim drove more slowly than he had earlier, despite lighter traf- fic. Whenever he shifted gears, his knuckles bumped Claudia’s leg. After the first time, Macy shielded the spot with her hand. Then Claudia felt the little jolts less sharply. But she was still aware of everyone, all the way home.
Sickels is the author of the memoir-biography, Searching for Armando, and the historical novels Walking West, The Shopkeeper’s Wife, The Medium, and Out of Love, all set in different eras.
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