When Women Were Dragons(15)

“Mother has to go,” she said, in between kisses. “But I am coming back. This is important for you to remember. Your mother will always come back. No matter what.” I felt the corners of my mouth begin to twitch and the skin of my forehead bunching up, but wouldn’t let myself frown, even as I felt that familiar, prickly sensation tangle in my belly and move slowly toward my chest. It became noticeably harder to breathe. No one ever talked about the time when my mother vanished from the house and then came back sick and small. Not even Auntie Marla, who talked about everything. The memory of her vanishing felt both unpleasant to encounter and dangerous to hold, but I had no place to put it, no ordered shelf in my mind where it belonged. It remained unmentionable and therefore unclassifiable, which meant I had to carry it, every day, no matter how much it hurt.

“Okay,” I said. I folded my hands in my lap, and tried very hard not to move. I wanted my mother to think I was a good girl, even though I wasn’t entirely sure.

She affixed her hat with a shiny pin and buttoned her coat, her fingers fumbling slightly. Before leaving, she sat down next to me. “Give me your hand,” my mother said. I did so without hesitation. My mother’s eyes were wide and bright. Gold again. I told myself that they had always been gold. I told myself that they never had been grey. My skin pricked strangely, and I did not know why. My mother reached into her apron pocket and pulled out a string. She wound it around my wrist and began to tie a knot. I tilted my head.

“Is this a bracelet?” I asked.

My mother smiled. Her smile glittered, just a little bit. “In a sense. Look, I have one too,” she pointed to her own wrist. A string, wound around three times, had been secured with a complicated knot.

“That’s a pretty knot,” I said, because I always wanted to admire my mother’s work.

“I agree,” she said. “Knots are special. Mathematicians spend their lives studying them. A good knot requires presence of mind to make, and can act as an unshakable force in a shaky, unstable world. Don’t take this one off, please.”

I already wanted to take it off.

My mother’s gaze narrowed into something sharp, something I knew better than to defy. “I mean it. Do not take it off.”

She told me to do my homework, and she also handed me a stack of paper and some pencils and told me to draw pictures until she returned. She kissed my forehead one more time, grabbed her purse, hurried away, her body involuntarily shuddering twice before she closed the door behind her. I had already finished my homework at school, and I didn’t particularly care for drawing anymore, so I invented mathematical word problems instead—planes taking off and trains leaving stations and schools of fish combining and separating and altering their proportions. I tried to make the problems hard enough to be interesting, but clear enough to be solvable. I didn’t look at the clock. I didn’t look out the window to see if anyone was coming. I kept my eyes on my paper.

Finally, as the sun started sinking low, my mother returned to the house. She had Beatrice on her hip. Beatrice’s hair was covered in ashes. Her eyes were wide and somber and she clung to my mother, the fabric of my mother’s dress gripped in her fists.

“Beatrice!” I squealed, abandoning my papers and lifting my arms to my favorite person. My mother handed me my cousin, who resisted, but complied. I peered past my mother.

“Where’s Auntie Marla?” I asked.

My mother’s face became blank. “I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

I shook my head reflexively. “Auntie Marla. Where is—”

“There’s no such person,” my mother said. “Now take your sister into the living room and play. I have things to do.”

“But Beatrice isn’t—”

My mother held up one hand. She took a slow breath through her nose. “Take your sister,” she said slowly, with measured emphasis, “into the living room to play.” She closed her eyes for a moment, and took a long breath through her nose. “Please,” she added. Another pause. “I won’t explain it again.”

And she didn’t. She turned her back to me, tied an apron around her waist, and began cooking dinner. Beatrice kicked and waved her hand. She blew a raspberry on my neck.

“Mama?” she said, pointing to the door.

“Yes, love,” my mother said absently as she started washing the potatoes.

“Mama?” Beatrice said again, pointing at the window.

“Your mama’s right here. I’ve always been right here.” She gave me a pointed look. “Go play,” she said. “Keep your sister quiet. I feel a headache coming on.” My mother pressed her lips into a thin, tight line. A small silence fell, like a single pebble dropped onto a hard tile floor—delicate, distinct, and final. There would be no more words on the subject.

And from that moment on, Beatrice was my sister. It was as though my mother could simply will it so. She was my sister. She had only ever been my sister. Any notion to the contrary was clearly ridiculous, and worse: insubordinate. There was no discussion and no explanation. My questions were interrupted or ignored or punished. Photographs of my aunt disappeared from the house. My mother set up a crib and changing table in my room and informed me that it had always been there. And that was that.

The Mass Dragoning of 1955 happened when I was eight years old. Between that time and the day my mother died, six years later, she didn’t answer a single one of my questions; she remained tight-lipped to the end. When my mother got it in her head to simply not speak of something, she knew how to go the distance.