Hi, Mom

I was answering my forty-seventh email of the day as I hurried my way down that bustling NYC street. My Stuart Weitzman knee high boots raised me six inches off the pavement, and I was counting down the seconds until I could get home and kick them off. 

Stopping me mid-hustle, the mirror in the window of the antique shop caught my attention. 

“That would look stunning in the upstairs hallway.”

I’d become somewhat of a shopaholic over the last couple of years, and my tongue pressed against the roof of my mouth once I saw the handwritten price tag: $680. 

John’s gonna kill me. 

I threw my iPhone in my Birkin and walked in.

The shop smelled like old wood, with a subtle texture of dust in the air. Taking the mirror in both my hands, I raised it in front of me. Its oval shape and gold frame made it look like a larger version of a handled mirror that someone might hold up to their face and ask “Who is the fairest one of them all?” I had to have it. 

At the register, I was met by an older gentleman. He stared at me from above his newspaper as I approached. 

“Just this please.”

Setting his paper down, the man hung his glasses on his chest via the silver chain around his neck. He crossed his arms. 

“You know that mirror’s cursed, right?” 

I laughed, but his face didn’t budge. He was reminiscent of Belle’s father in Beauty and the Beast, and judging by his deadpan look, I gathered he wasn’t about to break the silence any time soon.

“Cursed? What….What are you talking about?” 

The man twirled his mustache between his thumb and index finger. 

“It’ll show you things you might not be prepared to see.” 

I placed my hands on the counter. I forced a smile. 

“Can I please just buy the mirror?” 

The man let out an uncomfortably quiet laugh. His shoulders went up and down. My eyes darted left to right.

“You’re more than welcome to buy it. You’ll bring it back, though. Everyone does.” 

My face tightened, as though I had just bitten into a lemon. 

No one tells me what to do. 

I fished my wallet out of my purse. I tapped my Amex Black and high-tailed it out of there, my new mirror in tow. My fingers danced on top of the steering wheel as I glanced at my purchase in the rearview, all the way home. 

“Jessa, come on.” 

John held his forehead. 

“Baby, don’t worry, it’s gonna look great,” I assured. 

I steadied the mirror on what was once an empty space on the wall; or in other words, yet another void in my life that needed filling.

I stepped back by a few feet and examined it, satisfied as I breathed in notes of citrus, vanilla and jasmine. Our house smelled like the lobby at the Ritz Carlton, and deliberately so. 

“We have to watch our spending. It’s getting out of control.” 

Intellectually, I knew John was right. Even more so, I knew the deeper issue. The distance between John and I had been growing wider, and like most conflicts in my life, I couldn’t face it. Instead, I just kept filling the gorge with my addictions. In this case: material things. Cue the mirror. 

John closed his eyes. His face was flush. 

“What?” My voice quavered. 

My husband approached. He took me in for an embrace. The back of my head cradled perfectly in his big hand, like a melon in a bowl. 

“I miss you,” he whispered. 

My heart stopped, somehow not rendering me dead, and I deflected from John’s statement like a fried egg sliding on teflon.

“The guy at the store told me the mirror is cursed.” 

John’s arms were rigid. 

“What? What’s that supposed to mean?” 

I pulled away. 

“I don’t know,” I said, shrugging. 

I kissed him on the lips, but he didn’t reciprocate. I left him there and headed downstairs, my mind racing ahead of my body.

Truth be told, I knew a few things about curses. I had grown in a middle of nowhere town, in a paint-chipped bungalow next to an abandoned bowling alley. My dad drove the school bus and my mom stayed home. She’d never done much with her life—being a mom just didn’t cut it for her, and she loved reminding me of that—and as a result, I became her emotional whipping post. 

“Why? Because you think you’re better than us?” 

That was her response when I told her that, maybe, just maybe, I’d like to go to university. And whether I did so out of spite or out of genuine desire or a combination of the two, the moment I graduated highschool, I got out of that town as fast as I could. 

Yeah, I am better than you. 

I moved to New York and paid my way through university. It’s incredible how much money you can save from four consecutive summers of scooping ice cream when you’re a teen with no bills to pay and an identity to run away from. 

An undergraduate degree under my belt, I landed a work-you-to-the-bone type of internship at a notable public relations firm. I did Starbucks runs and made photocopies like it was nobody’s business. I never knew whether I was coming or going, and when I journeyed from account coordinator, to account executive, to ultimately, vice president of the company, I did so with a feather in my cap. I knew I had earned my success, yet still, my stomach was hollow. I’d chased a golden carrot—one I could never seem to catch—straight up the corporate ladder (and away from my mother), yet a calm nervous system was still foreign to me. 

I met John, a successful investment banker, at a swanky happy hour—”Dirty Grey Goose martini from the gentleman at the high top”—and we fell in love immediately. John was solid, with a clear vision for the future; one that had me as an integral part of it. He wasn’t intimidated by my success, but rather, saw it as complementary to his own. 

“Let’s run this town, baby,” he’d say. 

His ambition and enthusiasm for life was sizzling hot. We’d have sex on the kitchen counter, and it was all the more salacious, knowing neither of us wanted kids as a result. The mere thought of repeating the dynamic between my mother and I just about brought me to my knees. 

I had gone from country bumpkin to successful, big time city girl with a hot man on my arm. I couldn’t have been more of a Hallmark movie cliche, even if I tried. I rarely talked about my life back home. I talked to my parents even less. And so when my mother passed away suddenly—two and half years prior to my cursed mirror purchase—without me being able to say goodbye, forgive her, tell her off, or better yet, say “I love you”, the ghost of who I once was had nowhere left to hide. Perhaps that’s why when the kooky antique store clerk suggested the word “curse”, stomach acid burned in my esophagus.

I laid in bed with John that same night following my cursed mirror purchase. I tossed and turned. I bit down on my molars, wondering what time it was. I knew it. 3:00 am, on the dot. I’d been waking up at that hour, on the hour, ever since my mother died. 

I got up and walked towards the bathroom. I sat on the toilet, my elbows resting on my thighs. My feet were nice and toasty against the heated, checkered tiles. Ripping off a few plies from the roll, I heard something tapping in the hallway. I froze. The blue night light tone illuminated the bathroom. I heard it again. Tap, tap, tap. My spine was an iron rod. 

“John?” 

Nothing. I finished my business and headed towards the hallway. 

Once I saw my reflection in the mirror, my whole body jumped. It looked like a scene from “The Shining”. My eyes squinted as I drew the mirror in. 

“What the?” 

I didn’t have my contacts in, but something looked… off. Step by step, I walked closer to the mirror, one floorboard creak after another. The hallway was pale and moonlit. It narrowed as I approached. When I was about ten feet away from the mirror—when my 20/80 vision could finally make things out—-my palms started to sweat. I was shaking. My breathing couldn’t go any deeper than my chest. I would have tried to slap myself awake, had I been able to move. It wasn’t my reflection in the mirror. It was my mother’s, and she wasn’t smiling. 

“Hello, Jessa.” 

As though someone had a grip on my voice box, no audible sounds came out as my mouth opened wide. I slammed into the wall as I whipped around. I ran to the bedroom, hurling my body onto John’s. 

“Whoa. Hey… what’s.. Jess… what’s wrong.” 

I shook him by the shoulders. 

“It’s… it’s my mom… in the mirror. The mirror. My mom’s in the mirror!!!” 

John sat up, rubbing his face from chin to forehead. 

“What? Your mom’s in the mirror?” 

Sweat beaded on my brow as I nodded frantically. John’s eyes drooped. 

“Jessa….” 

Tears filled my eyes, like water rising in a lock. 

“John! Please! Can you go see? Please, please, please.” 

I needed a paper bag to breathe in. 

“Okay. Okay.” 

He got up. I followed him to the doorway, gripping it for dear life. John had his face right in the mirror. He knocked on it. I knew he thought I was crazy; and perhaps, rightfully so. He pivoted towards me. 

“Babe. Are you ever going to be ready to talk about this? It’s affecting everything. You. Me. Us.” 

My bottom lip quivered. I couldn’t hold it in anymore. I sobbed. 

“Hey,” said John. 

He came to me and held me close. My tears soaked his shirt sleeve as I fell off a cliff. I had nothing to hang on to, and it was the same loss of control I felt the day my dad called me, two and a half years prior on January 6th. 

I was arriving at a press junket with about fifty-eight media lanyards hanging on my arm. My phone vibrated in my pocket. The blood rushed to my cheeks when I saw the name “Dad” on my caller ID. I cleared my throat and tightened the wrap on my Diane von Fürstenberg dress. 

I don’t have time for this. 

I answered regardless. 

“Hey, Dad.” 

I immediately softened when I heard the crack in his speech. His vocal cords were like cello strings. 

“Your mother passed away, dear. She had a heart attack. It was really sudden.” 

I don’t know what came crashing to the ground first—my iPhone, the lanyards, or me—but the woman who I, for so long, had tried to write off… couldn’t wait to get away from….desperately wanted to prove wrong, yet even more so…the woman whose love and validation I had thirsted for so badly…. the woman who I had not ever given myself the opportunity to reconcile with or get to know….was gone.

My mother was gone. 

I had always compartmentalized my past, but when my mother died, I locked all my emotions in a box and threw away the key. My grief came out in unsavory ways. I projected a lot onto others; just like my mother had done to me. I was a true chip off the old block. 

Convinced I could buy my happiness, I’d sneak in the back door of the house with a dozen shopping bags, meticulously hiding as many purchases as I could. Good sleep became a thing of the past (hello, three in the morning). And the worst is, I kept chasing that golden carrot—I’m going to be president of the agency, mark my word—further and further away from John. 

“Jessa, why won’t you talk to me?” 

“What do you mean? I’m under so much pressure at work. What do you want me to say?”

He’d take my hand with the same care a new parent would have, holding their child.

“Your mom died.”

Biting the inside of my cheek, I’d dive my nose right back into my sea of emails. 

Which brings us to the day after my ghostly mirror encounter. I left work early, around two o’clock.

“I think I’m coming down with something.” 

I lied. 

I walked in the house, took off my heels, unzipped my high waisted pants, and untucked my blouse. I tied my hair up and cracked my knuckles. 

Here we go. 

I held onto the banister as I walked up the staircase. On the second floor, there it was: the mirror. It was illuminated by a sparkly, cone-shaped sunbeam. I stood in front of it. Nothing. I tapped the glass. Nothing. My shoulders slouched, skeptical as I attempted to talk to my dead mother through a mirror. 

“Mom?” 

Nothing. I wagged out my hands. 

“Jesus Christ, Jessa.”

As I walked away, that’s when I heard her. 

“Hello, Jessa.” 

My feet planted firmly into the floor. My almond shaped nails dug into my forearms as I headed towards the mirror. Approaching, my mother’s reflection appeared before me, like a theater piece being rolled onto a stage. 

Her brown bob framed those pinewood forest eyes of hers. I tilted my head. She did the same. She looked tired, and so was I. I exhaled through pursed lips, as though I was breathing through a straw. My heart rate slowed down. 

She’s not as scary in the daylight. 

My hand trembled as I extended it towards her. She mirrored the gesture. Our fingers touched, if only through glass. I clocked her usual dusting of flour on her green t-shirt and navy slacks. Baking was her solace. Meanwhile, I was draped in a fifteen hundred dollar outfit that I couldn’t stand. I choked up. She did too. 

“Mom,” I said, “I…I had to leave home. But..I should have called more.” 

She raised a finger to her lips. 

“Shhhhhh.” 

My toes fidgeted. My mom lowered her hand from her face. Her glow looked like that of a satisfied Jedi master, knowing their student was about to have an important realization.

“Jessa. You were never meant to stay.” 

I was startled as I heard the front door shut. I looked back at the mirror. She was gone. 

I tucked my blouse in my pants and tousled my hair. I ran downstairs. It was John. He was untying his oxfords as he addressed me.

“I stopped by your office. Was in the neighborhood. They said you weren’t well.” 

“Ya, about that-”

John interrupted me. 

“I thought, why not? I’ll play hooky too.” He winked, revealing a bottle of chianti. 

“Boozy matinee?”

His offering felt like spring rain. I nodded.

“I’d love that.”

We went to the theater room and pressed play on “Titanic”, the movie that always turned me into a puddle. We drank the wine. We’d earned it. 

The following month I took a road trip, a few states over.

“I have to do this alone,” I said. 

“Go do what you have to do. I’ll be waiting for you.”

After a couple of days on the road with interludes of hotel room pizza, the gravel crunched beneath my wheels. The smell of fresh cut grass came through my window. I was at the cemetery. A bouquet of yellow tulips in my hand, my mother’s tombstone revealed itself through a parting in the trees. 

The birds chirped in the breeze. My hands and feet tingled when I read her name engraved at the top: Marion Roberts. She was once a person on Earth, and now she was gone. The venom that had long poisoned my veins dissipated. Maybe that’s what the path to forgiveness feels like. 

I laid her bouquet on the grass. I chuckled. 

She would have hated these yellow flowers. 

For a woman who never left our middle of nowhere town, she still had a snobby taste for certain things. I suppose I got that from her. I put my hand on her stone. It was cold like a marble countertop. 

“Hi, mom.” 

The sky was a lavender dream as I drove back to the city I called home. I’d come to New York, in a lot of ways, to run away, and had my mother been anyone other than herself—for better or for worse—maybe I never would have made it there. I would have never become a powerful business woman. I would have never met John. I had always yearned to have a best friend for a mother, but that path wasn’t meant for me. Maybe my throat would always feel heavy about that. Maybe all of that was perfectly okay. 

I approached the antique shop and pulled over. I got the mirror from the trunk and returned it to the strange store clerk, just as he had predicted. 

John poured me a glass of wine at home. He massaged my shoulders. 

“Tell me all about it.”

And at long last, I did. 

Upstairs, the space the mirror had briefly occupied was once again vacant. I was that I’d be trying to fill it with something shiny and new, soon enough. At least now, I’d uncovered glimmers of gratitude and acceptance, knowing that I may never, ever catch that elusive golden carrot. 

A corner of my mouth lifted. 

I could hang a photo of my mom where the mirror was! 

I laughed. 

One thing at a time, Jessa. 

I went to bed and drifted to sleep beside John. I never saw three in the morning again, but I swore that sometimes, I’d catch a glimpse of my mother’s pinewood forest eyes, whenever I walked past a mirror.