The Mother's Curse

“I couldn’t believe it, Mom,” Ella said. “She's done the all things you expect at her age—picky eating, backtalk, drawing on the walls with crayons—but this was a whole new level. I walked into Charlotte's room, and her clothes were in rags—all of them. She’d got her hands on a pair of scissors and cut holes in all her jeans. She cut the sleeves off her t-shirts and—why are you laughing?”

The breathless laughter through the phone grated on Ella’s nerves. “This isn’t funny. Do you know how much we spend on clothes for her? She outgrows them almost as fast as we can buy them, and most of these were brand new. I’m at wits’ end.”

Hannah managed to get her laughter under control. Mostly.

“I’m sorry, dear,” she said, still giggling a little. “I know exactly how trying that sort of thing is. It sounds like my curse has finally found you.”

“Curse? Mom, don’t be ridiculous. What are you talking about?”

“The mother’s curse, Ella. Every mother says it at least once, when her beloved child drives her to the edge of madness. At some point, you’re bound to say, ‘I hope one day you have a daughter just like you.’ It’s almost guaranteed to come true sooner or later.”

“Oh my goodness, Mom.” Ella ran a hand through her hair, torn between laughing and crying. “That’s exactly what I did say to her.”

“You’ll say it again,” said Hannah. “Daughters are a special challenge, I’ve always found. Not that your brother was any picnic. I remember the last time I said it to you, the night you tried to sneak out to that silly concert—”

Ella cut her off with a sharp laugh. “Well, I suppose the daughter’s curse is one day learning just what she put her mother through.” Or waking one day to find she's become her mother, she thought with a guity twinge.

Ella laughed again, a little forced this time. “Anyway, I’ve got to go. Give my love to Dad, okay?”

Ella spent a few moments breathing deeply, remembering the incident her mom had mentioned. They could laugh about it now, but it was still a sore spot with Ella.

When she thought back to her teens, the ghost of old anger still rose in her, the old frustration and restlessness. She remembered daily battles with her mother over everything: her hair, her clothes, her dates. Nothing was ever good enough.

The worst memory of all was the night of the Spaceman concert. Ella still cringed, thinking back.

On the day of the concert, Ella lay on her bed, listening to music on her headphones and being the happiest girl in the world. She blew a kiss to the Spaceman poster on the wall, imagining that the enigmatic smile he wore was just for her. Tonight, her dreams would all come true.

Last week, as she’d waited for the bus after school in the autumn chill, her best friend Janice had come running to her, screaming and waving two tickets in the air.

Finally, speechless, she had just handed the tickets to Ella, who stared at them in disbelief. “No way,” Ella said. “No way!”

“I won them on the radio,” Janice shouted. “One of those contests where you have to be the seventh caller—Ella, I was the seventh caller. We’re going to see Spaceman!”

“We?” Ella asked, stunned. “You… you want me to come with you?”

“There are two tickets, dummy. You’re my best friend. Who else would I take?” Janice threw an arm around her, her dangly earrings catching in Ella’s hair.

Spaceman was Ella’s idol. She had every one of his albums, even the bad ones, and her room was plastered with posters of his otherworldly face. Now she was going to go to his concert, stand in the crowd, be in the actual same room with him, breathing the same air, and—

“Ella? Earth to Ella,” Janice gave her a little shake and looked into her eyes with concern. “Are you gonna faint?”

“No,” said Ella. She swayed, suddenly lightheaded. “Maybe.” She sat down on a bus bench before her knees could give way. She had never been so excited in all her seventeen years.

“You’ll come, right, Ella?” Janice said.

Ella stared at her. “Are you kidding me? Of course, I will.”

There was just one little problem. There was no way Ella’s parents would ever let her go.

They made a plan, a sneaky one, as Janice’s parents were just as lame as Ella’s. Ella would tell her parents that she was going for a sleepover at Janice’s house, and Janice would tell her parents that she was going for a sleepover at Ella’s, and then they would meet at the bus stop and sneak off to the concert.

“What do we do when it’s time to go home, though?” Ella asked.

“It’ll be really late, Ella,” Janice said. “Your folks will be asleep. Just sneak in and go to bed. If they ask in the morning, say you got sick and my dad drove you home. I’ll say the same.”

It was foolproof.

Ella’s mom readily agreed to the sleepover. Hannah Thompson didn’t like to admit it, but these days it was a relief to have an occasional break from her younger daughter, so long as she knew that Ella would be safe.

It was all settled. Tonight, after dinner, she would be on her way to the concert.

She lay on her bed, singing along with her favorite song, “Starship Journey,” and daydreaming about how Spaceman would look out into the audience and their eyes would meet. He would beckon to her, the crowd would part, and she would walk forward to stand before him under the smoky blue stage lights. He would take her hand, look deep into her eyes, and say—

“Ella! I’ve called you three times. Dinner is ready.”

Ella yanked her headphones off and jumped up. Her mom was standing in the doorway, red in the face from shouting. Ella wanted to yell at her for barging in without knocking but forced herself to smile instead.

“Sorry, Mom,” Ella said as meekly as she could, brushing past her into the hallway. “What’s for dinner?”

“Never mind that.” Hannah put her hands on her hips and looked Ella up and down disdainfully. “What on earth have you done to your clothes? You look disgraceful.”

Ella looked down at herself. Her jeans were fashionably torn and frayed. She had cut the collar off her shirt so that it hung attractively off one shoulder like the girls in music videos wore.

“I look cool, Mom. You wouldn’t understand.” She tried to keep her tone light, but she could feel an argument brewing.

“Oh, I understand plenty. I understand that you have chosen to destroy the very expensive jeans that you insisted I buy you, and now—”

“Blah, blah, blah,” Ella said, flapping her fingers and thumb together. “They’re my jeans, so what’s the big deal, anyway? I like them this way.”

Hannah’s nostrils flared. “The neighbors will think our family is so poor you have to walk around in rags. You look trashy, and I won’t stand for it. You turn right around and put on something decent this minute, Ella Thompson.”

“You wouldn’t know style if it jumped up and bit you, with those frumpy dresses you always wear. One day I’m going to get away from you and those awful dresses! I’ll move to New York or Los Angeles and be a famous fashion designer, and then you’ll see…”

Ella trailed off. Her mother’s eyes had narrowed dangerously, and she knew she had gone too far.

“All I see,” Hannah said in a low, steely voice, “is a bratty, disrespectful little girl who isn’t going anywhere tonight. You can forget about your sleepover. You’re grounded.”

Everything Ella said after that only made it worse. She begged and pleaded. When that didn’t work, she showered her mother with compliments, swearing she hadn’t meant what she said about her being frumpy and uncool, all to no avail. Her mother simply looked at her in disappointment, shook her head, and said, “Why can’t you be more like your sister?”

Ella could have screamed. She did scream, in fact. She screamed, ran into her room, slammed the door, and threw herself on the bed in a storm of tears. She refused to believe that she was going to miss the concert. Meeting Spaceman was her destiny.

She phoned Janice and explained the situation, sobbing and raging. Janice listened sympathetically and then made a daring suggestion.

“You’ll just have to sneak out.”

Ella sat in shocked silence. Could she sneak out? There was a tree next to her window. All she had to do was climb out, balance on the windowsill, and grab a branch. It wasn’t even that high up.

She had been prepared for a certain level of dishonesty, but that was too far.

“I can’t do that.”

“That sucks, Ella, but I get it. Would you still cover for me if I go without you?” Janice asked.

Go without her?

Ella was silent for a long moment, seeing Spaceman once again holding his hand out to her under the smoky blue light. His strange eyes gazed deeply into hers. I need you, Ella, he said. Come explore the stars with me.

Ella sat up and wiped her eyes. “Meet me at the bus stop in thirty minutes,” she said and hung up.

Climbing out the window was easy, and the tree was a sturdy one with closely spaced branches. Ella couldn’t believe she’d never tried sneaking out before. She dropped to the ground and headed to the bus stop, glancing over her shoulder to make sure she wasn’t followed.

She waited there for a long time, growing more nervous by the minute. What if her parents decided to go for a nighttime drive and caught her? She knew how unlikely that was, but she couldn’t shake the thought.

Ella looked up the street, watching for Janice. It was well past the time they’d agreed to meet. She could see her breath, and the air was icy on the patches of skin exposed by the meticulously frayed rips in her jeans.

The bus came around the corner and pulled to a stop in front of her. The door opened, and Ella waved awkwardly and stood still until it closed again. The bus drove away, leaving her feeling colder and more nervous than before.

Janice wasn’t coming, she realized, disappointed and a tiny bit relieved. She had no choice but to go home.

As she walked back toward her house, she started to worry about a new problem. How would she get in without being seen? Her mom was probably already asleep, but her dad liked to stay up late watching TV on weekends. If he was sitting in his favorite chair in the living room, there was no way she’d be able to go in through the front door.

She wasn’t confident that she could climb back in through the window, but she’d try it if she had to.

It was really cold now. Ella shivered and shoved her hands deeper into her pockets, wishing she’d dressed more warmly.

When she got to her house, she silently crept up and peeked through the window. The lights were on, but she didn’t see anyone, and her dad’s car wasn’t in the driveway. Where was he?

It didn’t matter. Now was her chance to slip in. She patted the pockets of the thin, stylish denim jacket she wore, looking for her house key, only to realize that she’d left it in the pocket of her warm coat that still hung in the hall closet. The window was the only way.

She ran over to the tree and climbed. Balancing carefully on a sturdy limb, she leaned out and reached for the window.

A sudden brightness made her turn quickly. Her dad’s car was pulling into the driveway. Ella panicked. Her foot slipped, and she lost her grip and plummeted toward the leaf-strewn grass.

The back of her jacket caught on a branch, yanking her to a stop just above the ground. She dangled there helplessly as her dad approached.

“I think you kids would call this ‘getting busted,’” her dad said, lifting her down.

For the next hour, her parents took turns berating her. Ella hunched down in a chair, angry and ashamed but grateful to be warm, as the story gradually unfolded.

Her mom had called Janice’s mom to explain that Ella was grounded and wouldn’t be able to sleep over that night. Janice’s mom, puzzled, had asked if she meant Janice couldn’t come to the Thompsons’ house as planned.

Hannah had told Janice’s mom that she must be confused. It was Ella who was supposed to visit Janice. Janice’s mom had said that she certainly was confused, as Janice was getting ready to go to Ella’s house at that very moment.

“Janice is grounded until college for this little trick,” Hannah told Ella, wagging a finger at her, “and so are you. Of all the selfish, sneaky, underhanded—”

Ella couldn’t take it anymore. “Whatever, Mom. Are you going to lecture me all night?”

“Don’t you dare take that tone with me after I caught you trying to sneak out, young lady!”

“Actually,” Ella could not resist saying, though she knew it would only get her in deeper trouble, “you caught me trying to sneak in.”

Ella expected an explosion of anger at this, but instead, to her horror, Hannah’s shoulders slumped. She seemed suddenly old and fragile.

She looked at Ella, and in a trembling, bitter voice, she said, “I hope one day you have a daughter just like you.”

Ella had never felt so awful in her life.

There had been little more to say. Ella had been grounded for a long time, though not quite until college. Her friendship with Janice never recovered. There was too much anger and distrust on both sides after that.

Gradually, though, she and her mom became friends. Ella started to realize how much of Hannah’s behavior came from deep love and anxiety for Ella’s well-being, and she cut her mom some slack.

Hannah began to understand Ella’s restlessness and need for freedom. They both learned to give each other some room to breathe.

Years later, when she and Dan were newly married, they went to a Spaceman concert together. Ella was excited and the show was amazing, but it wasn’t the thrill of a lifetime anymore. She was over her infatuation with Spaceman.

Ella sat at her kitchen counter, the phone still in her hand, as the memories washed over her. She tried to picture Charlotte as a sulky, impossible teenager and hoped that she could handle it.

She looked at her watch. Speaking of Charlotte, it was time to go and pick her up from school. She shook her head to clear it, grabbed her car keys, and left.

“How was school, honey?” Ella asked as they left the school grounds.

“It was okay,” said Charlotte. “Can I go to Jessie’s for a sleepover this weekend?”

Ella looked sharply at her in the rearview mirror. She’s only six, Ella. It’s fine, she thought.

“Sure, sweetie,” she said, then paused for a long moment. "I like your outfit today."

Charlotte's eyes widened. "Really, Mom? Thanks. When I grow up, I want to be a fashion designer like you."

Ella's heart turned over. "You'll be a great one. You have a good eye." She reached over to turn on the radio as Chalotte grinned with delight and struck poses in her the back seat.

As they were pulling into the driveway, the radio DJ said, “Sad news today in the world of music. Rock legend Spaceman has passed away from cancer at the age of forty-nine. The world has lost a great artist. He will never be forgotten.”

The opening chords of “Starship Journey” began to play as Ella sat stunned.

“Mom?” Charlotte said when Ella made no move to get out of the van.

Ella snapped out of it, shut off the engine, and went around the side to help Charlotte out of her seat. By the time they got into the house, Dan was already calling her cell phone. She threw herself down on the couch and answered.

“I just heard about Spaceman, Ella. I’m so sorry, hon. Are you okay?”

“Oh, Dan. Of course I’m okay.”

Then she burst into tears. “I guess I’m not really,” she sobbed. “I feel so silly. We never even met, but somehow I feel like I’ve lost a dear friend. I feel like, I don’t know, like—”

“Like part of your youth is gone forever,” Dan said. “Like when he died, he took that young, starry-eyed girl with him.”

Ella let out a sad chuckle. “Yes. Though I remember that girl wanted so much for Spaceman to take her with him, away into the stars.”

“I’m glad she stayed here on the ground with me,” Dan said softly. “I love you, Ella. I’ll be home as soon as I can.”

She ended the call and rubbed her face, wondering what she would tell Charlotte about her outburst. Then she felt a soft little hand resting on hers and something fuzzy pressed against her face. She opened her eyes as Charlotte silently climbed onto the couch and hugged her.

“I brought Captain Cuddles to help you feel better. She’s the best teddy bear when you’re sad. I’m sorry about your friend, Mom,” Charlotte said, looking up at her with wide, worried eyes, “but you still have me.”

Ella pulled her daughter and Captain Cuddles into her arms and held them both tight. “Oh, Charlotte,” she said, “I hope one day you have a daughter just like you.”