Intrusive mother is a problem. Too many visits, too many phone calls, too much concern about her daughter's pregnancy. Happy ending when daughter gives birth but has a secret.
Beth felt her anger level soaring as she sipped her inky black coffee. It was lukewarm, and tasted like a lab specimen of some kind. She had just spilled it on her new granite counter and was mopping it up. Hunched up on the stool next to the wall phone, she fiddled with the long chord and listened to her mother. She couldn’t get a word in and groaned inwardly, even while she tortured herself with guilty feelings.
“Yes Mom, I know…..I…”
Beth was mouthing something else more colorful, but she would never, ever say what she had in mind. The thought of saying it was far from her mind She wanted to tear her hair out but she’d just been to her favorite spa to have it streaked and was feeling really good about herself, for a change. And then the phone rang. She had had her nails done in an interesting shade of blue and her left index finger was already chipped. Her mother talked on and on until she felt like dying. She tapped incessantly on the kitchen counter, making the chipped nail worse.
“Mm-hm…….Yes Mom……….You’re right Mom……..”
“Lynne said she was going shopping today to get some baby clothes. She’s pregnant again. Did she or I tell you?”
Her mother was like a piece of bubble gum stuck on her shoe that she couldn’t remove. Beth had to be at home to receive her mother’s call every day. Her mother even called on the weekends and sometimes had to speak to Wendell, who was less than friendly. That didn’t bother her, however. Lately there was no small talk with Wendell. She just launched into, “Is Beth there?”
One morsel of personal information was enough to activate everything that was gossipy and insinuating about her. When Beth yawned, it became, “Are you feeling all right?” When Beth said, “I’m going shopping today,” her casual remark inspired, “Are you pregnant again?” Her mother had various, extremely skillful ways of extracting information from Beth, from the direct request to the more subtle suggestion that she might tell her, if she felt like it.. Whatever approach she used, Beth could not resist. Her life was her mother’s open book.
But Beth had to admit, she owed everything to her mother. She had bailed her out of hot water when Beth was a difficult teenager. As a single parent, her mother had put Beth through college, at great effort and expense. “I gave up everything for you, but I was glad to do it,” she never tired of reminding her. “You had such a lot of ability. I told you you could be anything you wanted to be.” She helped her get her first car, ten years old, but it was in good condition. The thought of putting her in her place, as all Beth’s friends suggested, filled her with intense guilt feelings, so much so that every time she talked to her mother on the phone, her psoriasis, or whatever it was, became inflamed. Right now it was creeping up her right arm in front of her very eyes in nasty little itchy bumps, threatening to encircle her throat.
In her 30 years Beth hadn’t yet found a way of keeping her mother at arms length. She was shameless in her personal inquiries. Immediately after her last miscarriage her mother had asked, “How are you feeling, Dear? Are you having any cramping yet? You know how it’s been before.” Beth didn’t want to ruin their relationship but just needed to be her own person.
Beth felt forced to tell her that she’d had another miscarriage, her fourth. She was moving her mouth, not even aware of it and felt herself apologizing as if the miscarriage was her fault.
“It happened again, Mom. I was meaning to tell you. I was careful, but….”
“Oh you poor thing. Your sister will be so upset. Of course you must be upset, too. Tell me all about it. Every last detail.”
She imagined her mother’s facial expression at this moment, as she uttered what to Beth was insincere regret. She didn’t even ask me how I felt, she thought. There would be an almost imperceptible tightening around the lips, a wrinkling of her brow, the eyelids lowering and her skin darkening. Then the mouth would open, almost disembodied from the face, and above all a quasi-sympathetic smile without any participation from her eyes. What Beth experienced now was the result, a non-stop nag.
“Now Dear, I can tell you’re getting angry. Calm down. I know you better than you know yourself. I told you not to lift anything. I bet you didn’t listen to me. Another miscarriage isn’t the end of the world. Just because your sister never had one doesn’t mean you’re defective. She always listened to me. You’re just upset. Try again. I’m sure Wendell will want to…won’t he? Don’t feel that you have to have a baby just for me. Your sister Lynne’s boys are plenty for me at my age. They run me ragged whenever I babysit. Did I tell you what they did last week?”
She prattled on and on, non-stop, her voice acquiring a messy, disjointed quality, like breakfast cereal spilled on the floor. The more she talked, the more inadequate Beth felt. She was having murderous thoughts and waves of guilt flooded over her. She fingered the wooden knife holder. It was worn where the biggest knife goes in.
“Mom, I’m just upset, OK? I’ll call you tomorrow.”
In her heart of hearts, she wanted to slam the phone down so hard that it would slide off the wall holder, but instead she hung up gently, almost noiselessly, placing it pillow-like in its cradle. As she did, she watched with amazement as her arm muscles bulged with tension, like a weight-lifter’s. Tears of anger, frustration and grief fell fast in her lap. She rehearsed what the conversation might have been if she had been more forceful. “Shut up! Mind your own business! It’s my life, my miscarriage. Stay out of it. Wendell is just as upset as I am.” This was so unlike her. She was angry at herself for even thinking such things. After all, she was a big girl now and had just had her 30th birthday last month. Her mother had never been any different. She was always prying into things that didn’t concern her. She couldn’t take a hint. She didn’t “get it”. Beth cradled her head in her hands. After one of these so-called “chats” with her mother, she always felt like a five year old and got a headache.
Robbie, her hairdresser and best male friend often offered advice. She spent almost as much time on the phone with him as she spent talking to her mother. He kept telling her to stand up to her mother. Like to a best girlfriend, Beth could tell him anything. One time she had even told him about a problem she was having with Wendell. As soon as she mentioned it she regretted it, though, because she knew it would be broadcast, without her name being mentioned, of course, to his other customers. “You can tell me. I’m the soul of discretion,” he always said. She knew that meant that he would tell everyone he could, even if she became, “someone I know.”
When Wendell came home at six PM, she told him about the conversation she had had with her mother. When she had finished rambling on, Wendell said, “Well that sounds like the usual to me. Why did you even tell her about your miscarriage?”
“Oh you don’t understand. You think everything’s so simple. She just sucked it out of me like she always does.”
“One of these days you’re going to have to tell her to shut up.”
“After everything she’s done for me? I couldn’t. You know that.”
These exchanges always led to disagreements but this evening they had a real fight. Wendell was tired and Beth was frustrated and tearful from fielding her mother’s questions. Their spleen spread like wildfire to other delicate areas of their life.
They dredged up every hurtful thing they could say, from Wendell’s selfish, alcoholic parents to financial problems they were facing. Wendell was in danger of losing his lucrative job with a local airplane manufacturer. They had just bought a new Porsche for cash and now constantly worried about their future. And then there was the miscarriage. And then there was Beth’s mother. Wendell went to bed early and Beth stormed off to the guest bedroom. They both hardly slept.
Time passed. After exhaustive testing, Beth’s Ob/Gyn discovered that she had a genetic defect that caused her miscarriages, a fact that she thought it better not to share with her mother, hard as it was to avoid. Since the odds of her producing a non-defective egg were very small, he recommended that she use someone else’s egg, have it fertilized with Wendell’s sperm in a petri dish and implanted in her uterus. The whole procedure seemed pretty cold and bloodless but, after much emotional pain and much discussion with Wendell, they began browsing through catalogues of egg-bearing donors, scrutinizing the possible candidate’s physical and mental characteristics. She decided to become a mother with a donated egg. After all, she didn’t have to tell her mother if she didn’t want to. They picked someone who was college-educated, with blonde hair and blue eyes, their coloring. The very costly procedure was done. After a crucial ultra-sound, her doctor, the terminally cheerful Dr. Ian Masters- Baron, announced she was pregnant. With great effort, she managed to keep this monumentally important fact from her mother. It threatened to burst out of her, though. This was the second time she’s kept something from her mother. To conceal this information became sort of a sport, fun, like I’ve Got a Secret or Let’s Pretend, a game she’d played as a child.
“How are you feeling. Dear?”
“Fine.”
“Is that all?”
“Yep.” Beth’s lip was bloody from biting. She was dying to tell her she was pregnant.
Her mother’s frustration at her one-word answers was palpable. For the first time, it gave Beth satisfaction. Finally, one day as they were having one of their “chats,” she couldn’t keep the news to herself any longer.
“Mom, I’m pregnant again. I’ve passed the three months period. The doctor told me everything’s going to be OK. I’ll be able to follow through this time.”
“I knew it! I knew you were holding something back from me. I could tell. That’s wonderful, Dear. Now be careful. Don’t lift anything heavy. Listen to me, this time.”
What would her mother think if she knew the real truth, the defective gene and the in vitro part? And someone else’s egg! She and Lynne would be on the phone for hours about the disgrace to the family.
She could hear it now. “A test tube baby? No daughter of mine……”
.
“Robbie, you’re terrible! I don’t believe you. Sue? You’re kidding”
“It’s true . I swear it. She’s got a new boyfriend. He’s a funeral director. How do you like that juicy piece of gossip?”
“Is that the same Sue I met at your place? She was so mousey.”
“That was before she discovered that she had a morbid interest in death. Of course, it goes without saying that he does. Do you know they stroll through the funeral home and admire the coffins when no one’s around? It’s a match made in heaven. By the way, how are things with you and your mother?”
“Oh all right. I told her I was pregnant but I left out all the good parts, all the parts she would really like to know, you know, about the egg donor and everything.”
“But I mean, when are you going to tell her to mind her own business?”
“It doesn’t seem so important now. Can I call you back? My mother’s at the door…Hi Mom. Is that Lynne’s baby stuff? Sure I can use it. Just set it down on the table. Come on in.”
After nine months of non-stop shopping and constant showers, the baby, a girl was born. Lynne, Beth’s mother and Robbie were there at the birth. Robbie wanted to bring his video camera but Beth drew the line at this. Wendell was working. Only Robbie knew the truth.
“She’s so sweet. Looks exactly like Aunt Ida! Don’t you think so, said her mother. “She has her smile.”
“Yes, doesn’t she,” said Beth, as she exchanged a knowing glance with Robbie.
When they left and the nurse had taken the baby away, Beth said to herself, Mom, I hope you’re satisfied, now. Everything will be different, from now on, I promise you.
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