Like Mother

Layla Montgomery walked slowly, meticulously, watching every step as she went, careful not to step on a crack. Step on a crack, break your mother’s back. She thought of that now, of all things. How she used to play that game as a girl walking home from school. She knew what she should be thinking about was the funeral, the visitation. How her mother lay there, hands folded across her chest, eyes closed, sleeping her final sleep. “The Big Sleep,” her dad had called it before he closed his eyes for the last time.

****

She hadn’t seen her mother since that night in the hospital a year ago. Claire Montgomery had fallen drunk down the basement stairs, broken her leg in two places, and fractured her skull. Mom’s brother, Tim, found her the next day at the bottom of the stairs, unconscious. He called 9-1-1 and she was rushed to Wayne Memorial ER where she awaited surgery. The doctors fixed her up, but she had to stay while the swelling in her head subsided. Layla went to visit her mother every day, though she didn’t know why, as the two were not very close. They hadn’t been close since her mother lost her job at Wolcott Foods and started hitting the bottle even harder.

****

Layla dropped out of high school her senior year, the year her mother lost her job. Someone had to work to pay the bills. Wolcott Foods hired Layla full time for line work, stacking boxes of grape jelly on skids ten hours a day. The job was tedious to say the least, but it got the bills paid and kept a roof over their heads. Her mother collected unemployment, sure, but that all went to drink. Layla was on her own, caring for herself and her inebriated mother.

The two fought every day, mostly about Claire’s drinking and the stress on Layla to keep them afloat.

“You think you’re better than me,” Claire would slur.

“You’re being ridiculous,” Layla would reply. “You know I am doing everything I can to keep the roof over our heads without your help.”

“Well, how’s it feel, little lady? Now you know what I went through, raising you on my own after your father died. Keeping you in clothes and food. Shelter. I get no appreciation for all I’ve done for you.”

“What have you done, Mom? You were drunk most of the time. I grew up having to make my own dinners, for God’s sake. You couldn’t be bothered.”

“You were a big girl; you could take care of yourself.”

“I was ten, Mom, when dad died. You were working and then coming home and drinking. I needed a parent, someone to care for me.”

“Like I said, I kept you sheltered, and there was always food. What more could you have needed?”

There was much more Layla wanted to say about how she grew up not having a mother figure, no one to teach her about boys and their wants, no one to be there when she had her first time of the month. She was lost then, and she was lost now, now that she had to care for this woman who should have cared for her. There was not the connection between them that a mother and daughter should share. They should have been close after Dad died, but they were farther apart than ever.

Layla worked for Wolcott Foods three years, taking care of her mother and herself, then she just couldn’t do it anymore. She left home one night while her mother was passed out on the couch. Just left. No note. No good-bye.

She went to the hospital immediately when she heard her mother had fallen. Layla was not surprised at what happened; it had been a long time coming. Walking into post-op, she saw her mother lying there, an IV in her arm, a cast on her leg, and a tube running from her head. Claire blinked awake and saw her daughter for the first time in six months. She smiled slightly. Layla smiled back but said nothing; there was nothing she could say. In the visitor’s chair beside her mother’s bed, Layla sat, and held her mother’s hand. The one without the IV. While they hadn’t been close, Layla thought holding her mother’s hand was the right move, considering the situation.

After about an hour, Layla’s uncle Tim came into the room. Tim had moved in with Claire shortly after Layla left without saying good-bye, and had picked up where Layla left off, caring for Claire. Layla stood and hugged her uncle, and she thought she smelled alcohol on his breath.. “How have you been?” he asked.

“Picking up the pieces.” She sat back in the visitor’s chair and once again held her mother’s hand.

“Where’re you staying?”

“With some friends over in Summerville.” She looked at her mother and noted that Claire had fallen asleep again. Layla just stared at her uncle, saying nothing, as a tear streamed down her left cheek. Tim broke the silence.

“It’s been hard on everyone. Your mother has had this problem for years, even before you came into the world. She and your dad used to hit the bottle pretty hard, always partying. I guess she liked it more than he did because he quit and she kept right on drinking. After you were born, she slowed down a bit, only drank on the weekends when your dad was home from business.

“That lasted about ten years, until your dad passed. Then, she started right back to drinking every day, hitting the bottle even harder than she had in the past. Of course, you know this last part. The rest you know too. She has never hurt herself before, though. When she came to the ER, she promised me that she would quit for good, and I believed her. I think she was scared, scared she might die next time and lose you for good if she kept on drinking that way.”

Two weeks later, Layla drove the fifteen minutes from Summerville to the hospital. Walking into the hospital, she saw one of her mother’s old friends from Wolcott foods, but the woman didn’t recognize Layla. Going past the woman, Layla pushed the call button for the elevator and the door opened immediately. That woman must have just come from Mom’s room, she thought to herself as she entered the elevator. She pushed the button for the third floor and stood thinking about what she would say when she got to her mother’s room. When the elevator doors opened again, she was on three. She took a deep breath and stepped out into the hall, still thinking of what she would say when she walked into room 307. She could think of nothing. What if her mother asked her why she had left without so much as a note? Would she tell her mother that she just couldn’t take it anymore? Tell her she had reached the end of her rope? No. She had nothing to say. In fact, she thought, if her mother thought about it long enough, she would be able to answer her own question.

When Layla entered 307, she saw her mother angled up in her bed, watching the television. Claire still had the IV in her arm and the cast on her leg, but the tube was gone from her head. Looking away from the television, Claire noticed her daughter standing by the door. “Come in,” she said with a smile. “Sit next to me.”

Layla walked over to the visitor’s chair and sat, never taking her eyes off her mother. She noticed that her mother’s skin had regained some color, and her eyes were a bit brighter than they had been two weeks ago. “Hi, Mom,” Layla said.

The conversation they’d had that day in 307 had been mostly about Layla’s return to school to get her high school diploma and her aspirations to go on to college. Child Psychology, she’d said, would be her focus. Claire smiled at this, understanding the reasoning behind such a focus. Neither woman brought up the past and, it seemed, neither wanted to even broach the subject. Once visiting hours were over, Layla stood from the visitor’s chair, leaned in and kissed her mom on the forehead, saying good-bye.

Claire Montgomery went home two weeks later and started drinking again, despite warnings from her brother that she could end up back in the hospital or even worse this time. Claire ignored the warnings and began drinking more heavily than before. Then, exactly one year to the day after being released from the hospital, she was particularly drunk and, having run out of drink, got behind the wheel of her Ford Focus to go out and get some more. Oasis Party Store was just a half mile down Seventh Street from her house, but she never made it that far. As she got up to speed, she began to swerve into the opposite lane. Coming toward her was a large, brown UPS truck. This was her final swerve. She collided head on with the truck, dying on impact.

****

As Layla walked from the cemetery, she felt a sense of relief wash over her. Relieved of a duty that she’d had for so long. Relieved that she would no longer worry. She thought of the phone conversations she and her mother had had over the past year, and she knew her mother couldn’t quit. Wouldn’t quit until it was all over. Those conversations never went deeper than the day to day, her mother slurring words into the receiver. Layla worried daily, but now that was over. Relief. She had one more job, however, and that was to go to her mother’s house and tie up some loose ends.

On her way down Seventh Street, she walked past Oasis Party Store on her left. She stopped and looked ahead to where she knew she had to be and turned around. When she entered the store, the clerk looked at her strangely, and she could sense that the look was one of vague recognition. Before she knew what she was saying and before she’d even reached the counter, Layla said, “I’ll take a pint of Jim Beam.” At that moment she’d heard her mother’s voice issue from her lips. The clerk bagged the pint, Layla paid and turned toward the door, thanking him on her way out.

When she got to her mother’s house, she sat at the kitchen table and began paging through a photo album. She saw herself on her father’s lap, reading from a children’s book. She saw her mother in the kitchen smiling, almost laughing, to the camera. There were pictures of Layla in her bathing suit at the beach they used to frequent. Pictures of Layla in a dress with her father at someone’s wedding when she was ten. There were no more pictures of her father after that and only one of her and her mother, the day of Dad’s funeral. After that, the pages were empty. She closed the album and walked to the cupboard for a glass.

Sitting back down at the table, she pulled the bottle from the brown paper bag and untwisted its cap. She poured a tall drink, replaced the cap, and sat staring at the glass in front of her. Memories of the past came flooding back at once. She took up the glass, took three large gulps and began to sob. She knew that would be her first of many.