Discover the Fall

“I’m so glad we’re doing this,” Mom says just as we hit the highway. 

“Me too, Mom,” I say. 

Good timing says the angel I’ve been ignoring since we got into the car. He leans between the driver's and passenger's seats so that his transparent head bobbles between us. 

“We’re going to have such a good time. I have plans. Look at the binder!” Mom slides a hot pink binder that's been baking on her side of the day over to me like a bartender sliding a shot to a favorite customer.

“Of course, there’s a binder,” my eye roll and sigh are too dramatic not to be affectionate. 

“I know. Sorry, I’m so old-school. You’ll have to teach me how to do it on the computer sometime.” 

No time for that, the angel whispers in my ear. I really wish he would go away.

“Sure,” I say and the waver in my voice gives me away. 

She is silent for a moment and then her hand finds my knee, though her eyes are still on the road. 

“Did I tell you about the summer before my mom died?”

Silence. 

Even the angel is stunned by her boldness. I wonder if perhaps he is shy about his specialty.

“No, tell me,” I say, even though I really just want to ask her to stop being so morbid. Why won’t anyone let me just pretend that nothing is happening? That summer will slip into fall and mom will want to order my school pictures and she’ll be late to pick me up from choir practice like she always is. I pretend to skim through the binder as an excuse for my detachment. 

“We went to Niagara Falls,” she waits for a beat, but when I fail to look up, she goes on, “It rained the whole time and it was so cold. We went in October. Of course, it was still pretty warm back home, but it was freezing there! Anyway, we had the best time together. The leaves were gorgeous and the shops were expensive, but we found the cutest little restaurant to have overpriced tea in with Niagara as a backdrop.”

“I wish I had known Grandma,” I say, and I mean it. Sure, she sounded like a nice lady and all, but really it would have been nice to have family around. What will happen afterward? When it's just me.

“Me too, honey. She was my best friend until you came along.” Her voice is sing-songy and sad and it radiates from her to me.

“Mom,” I say and I choke up. I can’t keep the melancholy at bay any longer. 

“It’s okay, sweetie. I'm not sad. The point is that I’m grateful, ya know? I’m so grateful for the time I spent with her and with you. I know you don't like to talk about my diagnosis, but I just want you to know I'm not scared. I'm not sad."

This is too much. 

Time is what you make of it the angel adds unhelpfully. I wish he was corporeal so I could smack him across his stupidly symmetrical face and see his stupid ethereal hair bounce with the force of it. 

I don’t want to feel sad today, so I grasp what he gives me: anger. 

“What about dad?” My mother is predictable and just as expected, she takes her hand off my knee and smacks it back to the steering wheel.

“Oh, him,” she says and all the sappy nostalgia falls away from her voice and face. Her mouth is rigid and small. I couldn’t make my mouth as small as that if I tried. I assume I got my gigantic lips from the topic of the conversation.

“Come on, he couldn’t have been that bad.” I prompt a diatribe I know will last another ten miles, at least. She'll say he couldn't be trusted and that he had bad habits, that he couldn't hold down a job and was never really the type to settle down. All vaguely negative things without any information at all. She takes a deep breath. Here it comes

“He was,” she pauses and glances at me once and that stupid sappy face is back again. Damn it. “He was actually gorgeous, honestly.” I thought I was picking a fight, but the truth is I have always been curious about him, so I let go of the anger I so righteously wanted to wrap around myself as a shield. 

This is going to get good, the angel looks right into my eyes and winks. Winks! The audacity! I wrinkle my nose at him and turn my attention back to Mom.

“I guess I got his hair and eyes since I definitely didn’t get them from you,” I tease. 

“And his lips,” she adds. "And even his allergies, actually."

“Are you sure I’m really your daughter?” I tease, and she chuckles lightly to show she knows I'm only joking. "Yes, because in addition to your peanut allergy from him, I gave you my watermelon allergy."

"Ah the perfect blend," I say and I'm glad there's levity again. Until she ruins it. 

"You really were though, honey," her voice slips into its wistful alto clef, rather than her normally cheery soprano. “He was there when you were born, did I tell you that?” She says. It's a little weird that she's bringing this up now and it reminds me too much of a deathbed confession. I study the angel. Are we that close to the end, then? Will even make it through this trip. Why can't he just give us a bit more time? This is our last chance. My last chance to spend time with my mom before...

“No,” I say. "You've never told me." 

“He was so happy and scared right after you came out. He watched you like a hawk anytime a nurse or doctor would hold you.”

“Why was he scared?”

Babies are scary says the angel. I'm glad my mom is looking at the road so she doesn't catch the face I give him. I've told him to shut up a thousand times in my head. Apparently, angels don't read minds. Or, he just doesn't care. 

“He’d been a foster kid He’d been adopted, abused, returned to the state, and then the whole thing started over again and again. He was afraid he was going to make a mistake. Hurt you somehow.” 

“But, what happened? Why did he leave?”   

Did he leave? the angel wonders, and his attention is completely on my mother as if he too is interested to hear this story, but his dark brows are furrowed and his significant bottom jaw is jutting forward, almost as in accusation.  

His words shoot into my toes and reverberate back to my mouth. 

“Mom, did he? You always say he left us, but do you mean in the sense that he left to live somewhere else? Or did he-” I swallow, but there's still too much spit in my mouth when I finish "die?" 

Silence stretches. I have my answer, but I want her to say it. 

“Why would you ask that?” she asks instead. The angel huffs at her obvious deflection.

“He’s dead? Why didn’t you ever say anything?” my voice is loud and high. It’s obnoxious, frankly.

“Oh honey,” her knuckles are white on the steering wheel. I feel awful, but I have to know. So I wait. Eventually, she goes on, “He made a decision. I didn’t know how to tell you that he, well, he-” She looks at me with desperation and I can see a grief in her face I’ve never seen before. Not even when she talks about my grandmother. 

Ask if it was suicide suggests the angel.

“He took his own life?” I ask and I'm immediately annoyed. Do angels have the power to coerce a person to say things or am I just this susceptible to suggestion?

“He had a hard life. I think he did try. I think he did love us, but…” her explanation fades away. 

“It was because of me? He killed himself because I was too much of a burden, wasn’t I?” I ask. My voice is flat. Angry. I don’t know why. I don’t remember my father. I don’t even know what he looks like unless I look at myself and try to take away the features I inherited from my mother. 

“It’s not that simple,” she says and she’s crying, so of course I feel guilty and disgusted with myself for making her talk about this. Especially now. 

“I’m sorry,” I say, “I-”

“No! I’m sorry,” she interrupts. “It wasn’t your fault. He had so much trauma. He just wasn’t well.” 

Why is she so angry with him the angel asks. 

“Why do you always get so angry when you talk about him, Mom?” 

“Because I was angry. I know I’m defending him now, but I did feel abandoned. My mom died the year before I got pregnant with you. We were only twenty. So young. And after he died I had to do everything myself. I needed somewhere to put my frustration and he was an easy scapegoat.” 

“Okay,” I say. I don’t really want to hear this. I want to just be with her, but I can’t deny her this either. 

“I told myself that by not talking about him, by blaming him, I was protecting you, but I think it was really to protect myself. That wasn’t fair to either of you.”

“So, talk about him,” I say. “How did you meet him?”

 She smiles and her eyes travel decades away. 

“We met when we were fifteen. He was a lifeguard at the pool and I was babysitting these two little girls. One of them had to go to the bathroom, so I took both of them, but as I was helping one of them, the other one ran out of the bathroom ahead of me. She jumped into the pool forgetting her arm floats and immediately started drowning. He jumped in and saved her before she even swallowed any water, but he gave me hell for it. He made me feel so ashamed that I cried, but he was so gentle with the little girls. ( mean," she gestured in the air, "here he was, this perfect specimen of a teenage boy and he was bending down on his knees so he could comfort Annie. He was so protective of her and I knew then that I wanted him to protect me like that too. I started coming to the pool every day. I learned his schedule. At first, he sort of hated me, but I didn't care. I pushed until he finally relented." 

"Romantic," I say and laugh a little because the story is awkward and honestly doesn't paint my mother in the best light. I don't like this. I want her memory to be pristine. I don't want to know how she bumbled through seducing my father with sheer obstinance and obsession. 

"Anyway," she rolled her eyes at me as if was being a typical overdramatic teenager, which, I guess I was, "he was attentive and kind. Always a little somber, but when he did find something humorous he had this gigantic laugh. I think I fell in love with him the first time I saw his smile. Just like you. He had a wide mouth and perfect teeth. Most of the time, though, he always kind of looked like he was scowling,” 

“He had a resting jerk face like me?” I ask and she smiles.

“Kinda," her elbow comes out to knock into my arm and she gets way too close to the angel for comfort. I don't want her to touch him. I don't want him to touch her.

The angel scowls at me and I scowl back. 

She falls silent and I don't know what to say. I wanted this trip to be about us, but now there's this new person in our family I have to consider even though he's long gone. Isn't it enough to have the angel as a stowaway? Isn't it enough that I'm grappling with losing my mother? Do I need to also process the grief of losing the father I never knew?

Dark thoughts like these called for food. 

The GPS talks and I dig into the bag at my feet, pulling out the sandwiches she made for us before we left. The GPS says something else, we must be getting close because we've taken an exit and now a turn down a road with far too many stop signs for the lack of traffic in this nothing town. My sandwich is gone too quickly and I turn to Mom again, but my voice catches in my throat. The angel is hovering in front of my mother, half in the window and have out. He's studying her as I study him. He reaches out as if to cradle her face and my stomach flips over. Is it happening, then? Is this it?

“We’re here!” Mom says as we pull into the state park. I want to say something else, but I can't seem to find my voice. My mom parks by the ranger station and walks in to buy our pass and windshield sticker for the week we’ll be staying. The car is stuffy. I wish she'd left the car on. I cough, but it doesn't help. 

I turn to the angel while we have a moment to ourselves. 

I shake my head at him and tears come to my eyes. Not yet. I'm not ready I say in my head, but he seems to understand.

“Nobody ever is,” he says aloud. 

At least let me tell her goodbye, I plead. 

He smiles sadly and offers me his hand. An agreement then. Good. We can work something out. I take his hand and am surprised to feel he is flesh and bone. I look up at his face and it’s like he’s been colored in. His eyes are as blue as mine. His brows are thick and his lips are full. His misty hair has turned blond and curly. 

“Dad?” I say, my voice is new and fresh and clear. I shudder but my body doesn't move. 

“I’ve got you,” he says. His voice is deep but soft. I let him lead me away, but I hear my mother’s words as we walk away together. 

“Guess what, Molly, they have falls here! It’s not Niagara, but - Molly? Molly?”