It sounded almost Italian, the craziness of it.
“Why did you think Daddy would help me with the money to get here?” She asked her mother this as she sat on the bed and toweled her hair dry.
“He’s your father. I stand by what I said.” Mary gave one nod.
“Why would he help me come see his ex-wife who left him in the middle of brain cancer?”
Inside her head, Mary felt the kind of electrical twang that meant she was suddenly very angry. She sat up straight, her back against the bed’s headboard. “I did not leave him when he had his brain cancer. That was the whole point. Good God, did you kids not know that? I stayed and took care of him, and when he got better I went on with my life.” She thought: I’m going to have another stroke, young lady, if you don’t stop this nonsense. But Angelina was not a young lady, she had two children almost ready to leave home, and she’d be sensitive because of whatever was happening to her— But Mary was very angry. She had never liked being angry; she didn’t know what to do with it. “What’s the story with Jack?” she asked. “You haven’t mentioned him once.”
Angelina looked at the floor. After a moment she said, “We’ve had a hard time. We’re working on things. We never learned how to fight.” She glanced unpleasantly at her mother, then looked at the floor again. “You and Daddy never fought. Well, Daddy yelled and you let him. But I wouldn’t call that constructive fighting.”
Mary waited. Her anger did not leave her; it had sharpened her wits. She felt coherent, strong. “Constructive fighting,” she said. “Your father and I did not fight constructively. I see, go on.”
“I don’t want to talk about it.” Angelina was still looking at the floor, absolutely moping. The child could have been twelve years old, sulking, yet Angelina had never been a sulker.
“Angelina.” Mary felt her voice shake with anger. “You listen to me. I have not seen you in four years. The other kids have all come to see me, and you have not. Tammy even came here twice. Now, I know you’re angry with me. I don’t blame you.” Mary sat up so her feet were on the floor. “Wait. I do blame you.”
With alarm, Angelina looked up at her mother.
“I blame you because you’re an adult. I didn’t leave you when you were a child. I did everything I could, and then—I fell in love. So go ahead and be angry, but I wish, I wish—” And then Mary’s anger left her; she felt terrible. She felt absolutely awful at how Angelina looked. “Say something, honey,” Mary said. “Say anything.”
Angelina said nothing. It did not occur to Mary that her daughter did not know what to say. For many minutes they were silent, Angelina staring at the floor, Mary staring at her child. Finally Mary spoke. She said quietly, “Did I ever tell you that when the doctor handed you to me, I recognized you?”
Angelina looked at her then. She shook her head slightly.
“It didn’t happen with the others. Oh, I loved them immediately, of course. But it was different with you. When the doctor said, ‘Take your daughter, Mary,’ I took you and I looked at you, and it was the strangest thing, Angelina, because I thought, Oh, it’s you. It didn’t even seem surprising. It felt like the most natural thing in the world, but I recognized you, honey. I don’t understand why I recognized you, but I did.”
Angelina walked to her mother’s side of the bed and sat next to her. Angelina said, “Tell me what you mean.”
“Well, I looked at you and I thought—this is exactly what I thought, honey—Oh, it’s you, of course it’s you. That’s what I thought. I just knew you, but it was more that I recognized you.” Mary touched her daughter’s hair, still damp and smelling of shampoo. “And when I was carrying you, I knew I was carrying—”
“A little angel.” Angelina spoke the words with her mother. They were quiet for a while, sitting on the edge of the bed, holding hands. Mary eventually said, “Do you remember how you loved those books about that girl on the prairie? And then we saw it on television too?”
“I remember.” Angelina turned to her. “Mostly, though, I remember how you put me to bed. Every night. I couldn’t bear you to leave. Every night I’d say, Not yet!”
Mary said, “Sometimes I’d be so tired I’d lie down right next to you, and if my head went below yours you couldn’t stand it. Do you remember that?”
Angelina said, “It was like you became the child. I needed you to be the grown-up.”