Covert Mom: Hearts and Bones

Mariah Mottley

 

My wedding anniversary is coming up. It is exactly one year and a day before my oldest daughter’s birthday. She will be thirteen this year. The only thing I really remember about my wedding day, aside from the crushing stress, is the movie “Troy.”

On June 4, 2004, I was 24 and did things the way you are supposed to. Matching bridesmaid dresses, photographer, reception. We held the wedding during the day, so my mother could attend. She was wheelchair-bound by then, had about four months to live. Afterward, a bunch of us escaped to the movies, leaving the relatives who were visiting from out of town and the home health nurses to fend for themselves. The world disappeared — the cocktail napkins, the place settings, the brunch, all gone — and it was just men in sandals with highlights in their hair, hiding inside a wooden horse with murder on their minds. It was the most relaxing afternoon ever.

My friend Melody was there, pregnant for the second time. We were so young that it was still an exotic condition. She had to wear Spanx to zip her bridesmaid dress and was green with nausea the whole weekend. She had a moment of mother’s intuition in the movie theatre that day. She took one look at Brad Pitt, blonde and tan, hurting other men, and knew she was looking at her future: the baby she was carrying would be first of three blonde boys worthy of roles in “The Iliad.” Several times a year, Zephyr or one of his brothers incurs a battle-related injury: falling out a second-story window, shattering a leg, or, just the other day, tripping on cement and breaking a hand.

I did not see my future clanking toward me across the Greek beaches on the screen. I didn’t know that exactly one year after watching “Troy,” I’d be in hard labor, on my hands and knees in an inflatable wading pool with Disney characters dancing around the edge, retching on myself.

Melody’s pregnancy was my future, too. My daughter, born four months after Zephyr, the boy Melody was carrying in the movie theatre, was a surprise plot twist because of her gender. She was gray-eyed steel to his brute force. They played rougher than I have ever seen toddlers play. He was bigger and stronger, always bellowing and swinging heavy things. She never backed down, and when they grappled over toys or snacks she always made him cry. I have a distinct physical memory of carrying one of them under each arm, my daughter’s face dry but marked red with a toy or palm print, Zephyr’s tear-streaked from the revenge she had exacted. They both feel like mine.

I was in between work gigs when I got a text message from Melody. “At hospital. Zeph needs surgery. Bone set wrong. Happening now.”
He’d broken his hand earlier in the week.

I canceled the business thing I was headed to and asked Melody what she needed to eat, knowing that she would be hungry and scared.

Most of our face time occurs in waiting rooms, tending to our relatives who are either being born, injured or dying. I found her in the same room where we had waited out my father’s biopsy. I handed her sushi from Asia Cuisine.

“You’re here,” she said. “They just took him away.” She slid the X-ray across the table, worry showing around her mouth. It doesn’t ever get easier. “Poor guy,” she said. “He was super nervous. And hungry. I didn’t want to eat in front of him.”

One day, when he was a toddler, Zephyr pulled another Evil Knievel riding a tricycle down some stone steps. I had another baby on my back but my hand was in just the right place, and I caught the handlebars as he passed me, holding him airborne, safe. I once dreamt he got eaten by an orca.

Melody and I passed the time in the waiting room in the usual way, telling each other everything and trying on clothes. She had brought me a dress she’d found at the thrift shop. She could not believe the size of the scallion pancake I’d brought with the sushi. I shrugged, thinking of the room full of people breaking her son’s bones and driving pins into them. Couldn’t see the point of ordering a small one.

The surgeon showed up, saying it went well, fielding questions from both of us, respectfully acknowledging our possible marriage. They always think we are married.
Finally, we could see Zephyr. Mop of thick blonde hair. 13 years old and 190 pounds, he can carry me across a parking lot. His eyes were pink from the anesthesia, his wrist wrapped.

We watched as the whites of eyes turned normal and laughed with relief when we asked him how he was and he growled, “Hungry.”
He will be recovered enough to come to my daughter’s birthday party. I’m thinking of watching “Troy,” for old time’s sake.