Janet Fisher, janetfi@hotmail.com
My mother’s fingers rest insecurely on the steering wheel, as if to hold its shape
rather than use it to guide a vehicle that’s roughly the mass of a Clydesdale. I wonder if she would hold horse’s reigns
the same way. No horse would obey insecurity
like that. I stare at her nails. Her choice of clear nail polish always
seems to yellow like antique furniture varnish and chip into lacquer potholes.
“You’re going to be late for dance class,” she says.
“I know that,” I scold her. Like she’s
dirt. “Your fingernails are gross,
Mom.”
She looks away. She avoids talking
altogether as we pick up speed on the freeway, approaching a long underpass flanked
by rising concrete walls. She doesn’t
want to experience any more of my mood.
She only asks me questions these days, or she provides a running commentary, by
way of conversation, and I respond in a scalding impatient tone as if she should
already know the answer. It makes her
nervous and cautious, and I don’t know how to stop.
Only once did she dare whisper, “Am I supposed to be able to read your mind?” I remember the sting of truth, but I
feel like I’m beyond the point of no return.
Like, if I soften now, I’ll be denying that I had the right to make the choice to
be strong. Or something.
I don’t remember the last time we hugged.
The woman who never once missed reading me a bedtime story is now unhappy in my
presence, and, as I cast a casual thought to myself about possible guilt and the
impossibility of reparation, I wonder if the pretty sight in front of us was choreographed. Rows and rows of glowing red brake lights
have come on at once, and some ancient-sounding beast screams.