Metamorphosis

“I’ll come back for you,” she says, hugging me tightly. I bury my face into her neck, trying to memorize the feel of her hair tickling my cheek, the scratchy sweater that she’s worn holes into, the smell of the cheap perfume she swears is just as good as “the fancy stuff.” I try to believe her, but we’ve been here before.

For as long as I can remember, she’s been making that promise. For as long as I can remember, she’s been breaking it.

Releasing me, she holds me at arm’s length. Her pale blue eyes are red and watery, her thin brown hair pulled into a bumpy ponytail. We used to look so similar, but that was Before. Before she was prescribed the painkillers for the car accident that killed dad, Before she lost her job for nonperformance, Before the collection agencies took our home, Before I was sent to live with my grandmother when mom was arrested for possession and intent to sell. Before, we were a family. Now, everything has changed, and she’s going away again.

When I was younger, I used to make up stories about where mom went during her long absences. She had been recruited by the CIA to investigate a ring of traffickers targeting young girls in our hometown. She had discovered an old treasure map and was going on a harrowing journey to find it. She was actually a queen and had been called away to resolve tensions in the Court. Grandmother always humored me, doing her best to keep me from learning the truth. Now that I’m older, I know where mom really goes. As blissful as ignorance was, it’s hard to ignore the police car in the driveway every time she has to leave again. Her absence has become as familiar to me as my right arm.

It’s stranger to have her around than it is to have her gone. When she’s here, we’re all walking on eggshells, waiting for the moment the policeman comes to retrieve her for violating her parole. Tensions run high between her and grandmother, the latter angry that the former can’t seem to pull it together for the sake of her child. I stopped taking her addiction personally years ago, but grandmother will never forgive mom for dumping a five year-old on her porch before hiding out from the cops at her seedy boyfriend’s house. I’ve forgiven her, though. She can’t help it. It’s who she is.

No one ever really talks about the moment your parent becomes a person, a human with flaws and imperfections. It’s a strange metamorphosis, like a reverse butterfly. They start out so beautiful, and you feel lucky when they focus on you. Then they start to molt, their wings falling off and their colors fading. Most of the time, they come out of their cocoons eventually. Not always, though. Mom was still in her cocoon, unable to face the world again and unwilling to transform.

My grandmother stands behind me, her arms crossed and looking at my mother derisively. She has no patience for mom’s habits anymore, and she’s talked about adopting me more than once so she can keep mom away from us indefinitely. So far, she hasn’t made good on her threats.

“Last chance, Rebecca,” grandmother says to mom. “After this, I’ll be suing for adoption.”

Mom doesn’t acknowledge her. If she believes grandmother, she doesn’t show it. They used to have screaming matches over my custody. Either mom doesn’t believe her, or she’s conceded defeat. I don’t which possibility bothers me more. Mom studies my face, like she’s afraid she’ll forget what I look like while she’s gone. She’ll be forced to detox once she’s in jail. It’ll be a rough time for her, and when she comes back, she’ll talk about how great she feels and how she wants to take me to the mountains or the beach or Disney World, how things are going to get better. They never do, but a small part of me always hopes she means it this time. As much as she’s disappointed me, I haven’t lost all my faith in her yet.

If I think really hard, I can remember how she used to be. She was so full of life, so happy and so in love with dad. They were always holding hands or hugging, sneaking kisses when they thought I wasn’t watching. I loved to see their affection, though. It reminded me of their love, and that love created me, so that must mean they really, really love me. One summer – the last summer, though I didn’t know it at the time – we went to an amusement park. I was afraid of the rollercoasters, and dad and I made a deal. If I rode the tallest rollercoaster with him, he’d buy me the biggest cotton candy the park sold. It was a massive ball of sugary goodness, as big as my head, and my parents had never let me get it before. Reluctantly, I agreed, and he held my hand as I screamed Bloody Mary over those hills and twists and turns. When it was over, I got my cotton candy, and it promptly made me violently ill, but it was so worth it. For a long time, I thought that rollercoaster ride was the scariest thing I had ever done. Then the car accident took dad and changed mom, and I was afraid of new things. I figured that, at some point, the fear would fade and I’d get my reward. I’m still afraid, and I’m still waiting for my cotton candy prize.

The squad car drives off, mom in the back, and I imagine I can see her looking back at me, watching me even after she can’t see me anymore. My grandmother’s hands rest on my shoulders, keeping me tethered. Without her, I think I might just float away and wait for the day mom joins me in the sky, where we’d soar over the clouds and fly far, far away. Wishful thinking.

I stand at the door for a long time, well after mom has been driven away and dusk has started to fall. It’s not that I expect to see her coming back down the street. It’s just that I’ve always believed that if I look after her hard enough, if I stare long enough, she’ll feel my gaze on her and she’ll know I’m not mad at her for leaving again. It’s important to me that she knows that.

Eventually, I turn around and go back into the house. Grandmother is in the living room, watching reruns of old detective shows and embroidering a pillow. I walk past her to the kitchen to get some dinner and she follows me in.

“How are you feeling?” she asks me.

How am I feeling? I didn’t know. For so long, my mother was my mirror. I felt how she felt. If she was mad at dad, I was mad, too. If she was sad that he was gone, I would sit and cry with her. She wondered who she was without him. I wondered who I was without her. More recently, though, there’s been a separation between us, a wall that neither of us knew we were building. Is it just that I’m getting older and changing, or is it that she’s staying the same? I don’t know what emotion this is, so I shrug in response. Grandmother studies me for a long moment before turning to the refrigerator and pulling out a container of leftovers.

“I’ll heat this up for you. Go and sit down.”

I amble to the dining table and trace the grains in the wood with my fingertip, following their paths up and down and around the table’s surface. I try to make sense of the patterns, but just when I think I’ve figured it out, I see a new swirl that changes my trajectory, making everything look different and erasing whatever path I had been following before. Sometimes I got sick of starting over, of the patterns of my life resetting and pushing me back to the starting line. Grandmother sets a plate in front of me and sits with me while I eat, neither of us speaking. It’s a comfortable silence, but the weight of my mother’s absence always blankets us on the day she leaves. It comforts me with its familiarity.

I go to bed early, though I’m not tired. The window in my room is small and looks out over the field behind the house. There are no other houses on our street and only one streetlight on the corner, so my view of the stars is always unfettered. Mom used to tell me to find the brightest star and make a wish. She said no matter where she was, she’d be making a wish on it, too.

“I always make a wish for you,” she’d tell me, “that you’re happy and healthy.”

I never told her I made the same wish for her. Even now, years later, I make that same wish on the brightest star I can find. I wonder if she can see it, too, if her cell has a window. Probably not. But I like to believe that somewhere out there is the version of my mother who loved to jump in rain puddles, who laughed easily and hugged hard, who sang loudly and off-key and never for a second would have left me behind.

I like to believe that that version of my mother still exists, and that she’s making a wish for me right now.