The Mother That Could Have Been

“Carefully use the scissors to curve your way around the paper, and then—voila!” Lily finished the leaf cutout and put it on the table for her daughter to see.

“Whoa,” Alyssa whispered, her eyes widening, as if it was the coolest thing she had ever seen. “How did you do that?”

Lily couldn’t help but find her daughter’s amazement amusing. Lily laughed. “Do you want me to show you again?” Alyssa nodded, and Lily pulled out another piece of paper. As she was folding the paper over and over, she thought back to when Alyssa was first born. It hadn’t been planned, but Tim was thrilled. ‘Our little nugget,’ he had whispered, while holding her stomach, kissing her gently on the head. She had told Tim that she wasn’t sure she wasn’t ready to be a mother. She didn’t have the natural instincts to be a mother. She wasn’t caring enough. ‘You are going to be an amazing mother,’ he whispered in her ear, pushing all bad thoughts away.

“Ow!” Alyssa’s screams brought Lily back to the present. While she had let her thoughts drift, she had Alyssa had taken control of the scissors. She had cut herself on her right index finger, the blood quickly dropping off her hand, and sliding in big droplets onto the table. Lily didn’t know what to do. Should she take her to the hospital? No, the hospital wasn’t for cuts. But what if it didn’t stop bleeding? Tim was going to be upset with her. ‘You shouldn’t have been using scissors around her,’ he would say. ‘You should have been paying more attention,’ he would scold. She tried to think quickly. She grabbed a kitchen towel, wrapping it around her daughter’s bloody hands. “It hurts Mommy!” she yelled.

“I know, sweetie,” Lily said, trying to comfort her daughter, but she could barely comfort herself. She tightened the towel’s grip around Alyssa’s bleeding hands, but the blood just kept coming and wouldn’t stop. “I’m going to make it better.” How? How would she make it better? As she was mulling over what to do in her head, Tim walked in the door. Alyssa heard the door open and wrenched her hands free from Lily.

“Daddy!” she screamed, jumping into his arms. “It hurts.” Tim’s eyes widened as he saw the situation.

“Don’t worry, honey, I’ll make it better.” Tim reassured Alyssa, giving her a quick kiss on her head. He picked his daughter up, gave a look of disapproval to Lily, and walked out the door, saying nothing to his wife.

Tim watched his daughter as she used her pudgy hands to cut out a leaf shape from the paper. She turned toward him, her eyes shining bright, “Look, Daddy!” she exclaimed, so proud of herself it was as if she had cured cancer or been the first to land on the moon.

“I see, honey,” Tim responded, trying to mirror her smile, but failing.

“It’s just like Mommy’s!” Alyssa continued, her smile not faltering a bit.

“Yes, it is,” Tim said, attempting to stay positive, but not being very successful.

Lily opened the door, revealing a beautiful sunny June day. It was just beginning to get warmer out, a ‘late summer’ as they called it. She shut the door louder than she meant to and made her way into the house and toward the stairs. She passed by Alyssa in the family room as she walked. Her daughter appeared to be in a good mood, playing with her dolls and singing to herself. Instead of saying hello and giving her a kiss, she walked up the steps loudly and took a deep breath. Tim was already in their room, working on his computer.

“I can’t do it anymore, Tim,” Lily sighed, grabbing her stuff and messily packing it into her small bag.

“Do what?” Tim asked, confused about what was going on, barely looking up from his computer.

“This. Us. Our life.” She took a deep breath. “It’s not what I wanted. It’s not what you wanted either, but somehow, you seem okay with it.” She met his gaze. “I’m leaving.”

Tim’s heart leapt out of his chest. “Leaving? What? Why?” He moved his computer to the side, jumped up from the bed, and started walking around with her, as she walked from the dresser to her bag, then to the bathroom and back to her bag, grabbing things along the way that she would need.

“I can’t be a mother. It’s not who I am meant to be. I’m bad at it.” She grabbed her packed bag and walked down the stairs.

“Bad at it?” Tim asked, as if that was the most ridiculous thing he ever heard. “No one is bad at it. You’ll get better, I promise.” He was near tears now, begging Lily to stay.

Alyssa was still in the spot she had been in before, looking just as happy with herself as earlier. Lily hoped that her daughter would forgive her one day. That one day, they could be friends or get along. For now, though, Alyssa was better off without her. She wasn’t meant to be a mother, no matter what anyone told her. She could feel it, the lack of motherly instinct that she had. She took one more look at her daughter, apologizing to her in her head. Lily turned toward her husband who she had loved once, so deeply. She gave him a look of despair. “No, I won’t,” she said, and walked out the door.

***********************************************************

“Dad, why are we still doing this?” Alyssa asked, watching her father carefully cut the leaf shape out of the construction paper.

“Because. We do this every year. We can’t just stop.” He smiled, knowing that Alyssa was going to complain that she was too old to be cutting out fall decorations with her father. But she couldn’t resist. It reminded him of Lily, and how things were before she left.

“I’m too old to do this, Dad. I’m thirteen. No thirteen-year-olds cut out fall decorations with their Dad. No one.” She looked dead serious as she stared at her Dad, who was expecting exactly what she had said.

“You know, your Mom used to do these with you every year, and you loved it.” He turned to look at her, noticing the dimple in her cheek and the light brown hair that she shared with her mother.

“Every year until she left, you mean? Seriously? She left us, Dad. She left me. I don’t want to do anything that reminds me of her. I hate her.” Alyssa walked away from her father, tears begging to fall down her cheeks. Alyssa was getting increasingly harder to deal with. Had he raised her right? He eventually convinced himself that his daughter didn’t need a mother, he could be both for her. But as she was starting to get older, becoming teenager, he just didn’t know anymore. Should he have fought harder for Lily to stay?

There was a loud knock at the door. “Dad! Get the door!” Then three more knocks. “Dad!” Alyssa screamed from her spot on the couch in family room.

“I’m coming, I’m coming,” Tim said, as he rushed down the stairs to answer the door. “Are you expecting anyone?” He asked Alyssa from the other room. “No,” she answered. Tim opened the door, curious to know who was stopping over.

He couldn’t breathe. She was here. In their house. Looking exactly the same as she had when she had left five years ago. “Lily,” he whispered, not able to say anything else. She smiled, and Tim felt his heart burst, just like it used to when she smiled.

“Hi,” she breathed. “Can I come in?” She asked, ready to walk into the house as if she still lived there, as if she hadn’t been gone for the last five years. Taking Tim’s silence as a welcome into the house, she started stepping into the house.

“No,” Tim simply said, blocking her entrance into the house.

“Who is it?” Alyssa yelled, from the other room. Lily opened her mouth to say that it was her. That her daughter didn’t have to miss her anymore. She was here. But Tim answered first.

“No one! Just a delivery. I’m going to step outside for a sec.”

“Okay, whatever,” Alyssa responded, uninterested.

Tim grabbed Lily’s arm, brought her onto the small porch, and closed the door behind them.

“What the hell?” Lily asked. “Are you seriously going to keep me from my daughter?”

“You’re not going to see your daughter. She’s not yours to just toss around anymore.”

Lily didn’t seem to care about Tim’s unwillingness to let her see her daughter. “Tim you don’t understand,” she said, “eyes brightening, “I’m ready. I’m ready to be a mom. I’m here now. For my daughter.” But Tim didn’t seem to share her excitement. He looked at her with a frown.

“No. That’s not how it works. You can’t just decide when you’re ready. You can’t just leave, live your own life, and then come back. You don’t choose when you want to be a mother, if you already have a child. It is already chosen for you.” Tim explained. Lily looked upset.

“Seriously? You’re going to tell me I can’t see my daughter? But I’m ready,” Lily whispered the end of her sentence.

Tim looked at her with a fierce look in his eyes, his voice getting louder, almost shouting. “Well she was ready for you five years ago, and you left.” Before Lily could say another word, he turned on his heel, went inside and shut the door in her face.

*********************************************************

“Dad! We’re going to be late!”

“I’m coming!” Tim yelled from his bedroom. He walked out into the hallway. “Okay, I’m ready.” He grabbed his suitcase. “I can’t believe you’re starting college,” he whispered to Alyssa, but more to himself.

Alyssa rolled her eyes. “Ugh. Don’t cry Dad, it’s weird.” He laughed and they both headed to the car. There were so many times over the past 15 years that he doubted himself. Would he fail his daughter as both a mother and a father? Could he really pull it off? But it had all been okay in the end, since he clearly raised his daughter to become a beautiful, kind and caring young adult, who was now going off to college. Tim opened the car door and slipped into the driver seat, just as Alyssa hopped into the passenger side. Tim looked into the rearview mirror, checking to make sure nothing was behind him as he backed out of the driveway. He started thinking about Lily again, as he often did, in times like these. But he pushed her out of his mind, successfully this time. He pulled out of the driveway and out of town, leaving Lily and the mother she could have been behind him.