Eileen Stern had gasped when she saw Abby for the first time. She’d pressed her hands to her heart, beaming, saying, “Abby, you look beautiful!” She had smiled for the entirety of the three-hour drive back to Philadelphia, asking Abby once every ten minutes how she felt, and if she was proud, and didn’t she agree that Camp Golden Hills was the best thing she could have done with her summer. At home, Abby found a party dress—pink lace with a tulle skirt, its bodice covered with glittering silver paillettes—hanging on the back of her bedroom door. “Come on, let’s see how it looks,” Eileen instructed. Abby had complied, and Eileen threw her arms around her daughter, laughing triumphantly after she’d pulled up the zipper. “Look at yourself,” she said, her hands on Abby’s shoulders, turning her daughter toward the mirror. “You’re gorgeous.” Abby hadn’t wanted to smile, to give Eileen that satisfaction, but she’d been pleased with what she’d seen, in spite of herself.
Eileen’s delight had felt bittersweet, and Abby’s memory of the moment had only soured as time had gone by. The less of Abby there was, the more Eileen liked it. The more Eileen liked her. And, the older Abby got, the more she read and learned and saw how the world worked, the more disappointed she felt. Eileen wanted her daughter to shrink herself to fit into the space the world allotted, instead of fighting to change the systems and institutions that wanted women to keep themselves small. She treated Abby like a problem in need of solving instead of asking, even once, whether it was the world, not her daughter, that might have been wrong.
* * *
“I know you don’t think that I made the best decisions,” Eileen was saying, breaking the silence as she and her daughter pedaled along the paved path, with the Hudson River on their left and the West Side Highway on their right. “I know that now.”
Please stop talking, Abby mentally begged, feeling desperate to prevent her mother from stumbling around the minefield of Abby’s teenage years. If Eileen shut up, she’d be able to tell herself that her mother had apologized, or tried to apologize. They could end this horrible conversation and move on.
Of course, though, Eileen kept going. “But you should know that everything I did was because I wanted the best for you.”
“Sure,” Abby said, in what she hoped was a neutral tone.
“It’s true,” said Eileen, and lifted her chin.
This was an old argument, well rehearsed, but Abby couldn’t refrain from making her case again. “I understand you believe it. But, just for the record, you did not want what was best for me. You wanted me to be thinner. Those things are not the same.” Abby could feel herself flushing, her heart beating faster, the anger that lived inside her waking up, uncoiling and stretching, sharpening its claws. “You wouldn’t have cared if I’d come home from that place with an eating disorder. You know, a lot of girls did.”
Eileen sounded horrified. “That’s not true!”
“Yes, it is. Remember my bunkmate Kara? She ended up needing in-patient treatment for anorexia when she was in high school.”
“No,” said Eileen. “I’m not saying that girls didn’t come home with”—she paused—“with problems. I’m saying I would have cared if you’d come home with one.”
Abby didn’t answer. She was wondering, not for the first time, if Eileen would have actually preferred an anorexic daughter to a fat one.
“And I meant what I said,” Eileen said, her voice fractionally softer. “I’m here because I want to spend time with you while I can.”
“What do you mean, ‘while you can’？” Abby asked. She turned her head, taking her eyes off the path to look at her mother. “Are you dying?” A cold finger pressed itself against Abby’s heart.
Eileen sounded impatient when she said, “No, Abby. I’m not dying. I’m not sick. Nothing is wrong. It’s just that people’s lives change. And you and I might not get this kind of time together anytime soon.”
The cold finger was back, pressing harder, because, surely, something other than whim, or memories of Grandma Rina, the passage of time, was responsible for Eileen showing up on a two-week bike ride through unglamorous Upstate New York. Abby wondered if Mark had talked to her parents; if Mark had—God forbid—asked her father for Abby’s hand. Did people still do that? Would Mark have done that?
“So you just… decided to come?”