Lipstick on the Wall

When you forgot my name, I wanted to hate you, as if it were easier than accepting the truth of your condition. “Why don’t you care?!” I wanted to scream because it seemed so unfair that my friends went to brunch with their moms when mine had been gone for months on a bender with some stranger she met at the park.

I remember your smirk when you jumped on the back of his motorcycle, that untamed curiosity in your soul. You didn’t even know where you were, did you? When you came back, married, divorced, pregnant, I welcomed you with hesitant arms. I didn’t want to say it then, but I think about it too often. Why wasn’t I enough to keep you home?

I wish you could tell me the dreams you had when you were young. I wish you remembered. You were always determined to be something new — teacher, painter, professional clown. I wonder why mother never made the cut. Somedays, I just wanted you to hold me and tell me that you would stay. I thought maybe I could do something differently to keep you in place.

When you tried to kill yourself, I thought it was my fault. I thought I bored you.

I still have the letters that you sent from the institute when they played chemistry on your brain, trying to conjure some sort of elixir that would make you right, as if right was actually in your cards. It hurt more to read that after abandoning me, you were ready to come home but couldn’t, and because I was desperate for affection, I believed you then.

When you escaped the hospital and attempted to steal me from school, I wish I had gone with you just to taste the adventure that was better than home. Years later, after your sober confessions and epiphanies, I thank my gut for telling me to stay, realizing I may have ended up on a milk carton one day.

I wanted to be angry that you left me with a sister who would never really know what it was like to be held by her mother. Although I tried, I wondered if she would have been happier living in a home where she’d never ask, “Who is Mom?” Maybe, I’m bitter because I knew, more than ever, that deep down, you wanted to be around.

When you tried to die, I thought you were eating candy. Now, I’m terrified of Skittles.

After Grandma was gone, I waited for you to mourn so that I could see if you knew what motherhood meant, but you drew pictures on the wall with lipstick instead and then left. You always left, and the only reason I never grew tired of cleaning your mess was because I hoped one day you would find yourself again and remember that you actually did want to be a mother.

I was furious when you came to my wedding uninvited, dressed in a ball gown and pretended you were Belle looking for her Beast. I wanted to be carefree, surrounded by love and family, but you ruined that, like you did with most things, by throwing cake at the maid of honor and getting stuck in the bathroom stall.

Most of all, I’m sad that I never understood you, the real you, not the shell of the woman who was left. I’m still haunted by how you slept with your eyes open like you were expecting someone to take you in the night. Honestly, Mom, you were the most interesting person I knew. I wish I could have been happier with us, before it was all said and done.

When you were dying, doped up on morphine and fantasies, fingers dancing like you were playing the harp, you smiled. I hoped you were seeing God.

My kids don’t really know who you were to me, and neither do I. Having spent my adult life struggling to keep you happy, I felt more like the mother I really wanted. I hope you found it, whatever treasure that always took you away from home. As I sort through your things, knick-knacks and mementos, I’ll try to find remnants of it, buried. When you forgot my name, I wanted to hate you, but I always knew that whatever we had was better than nothing.