By Nick DeRiso
The truth is, she never really left me.
We would ride around, listening to eight-track tapes—or else pull a stereo speaker outside and swing on the back porch—then sing. We listened to Elton John, me and Mom.
“They say Spain is pretty," I can hear her echoing, in a high voice, one summer day, “though I've never been."
For too long, I felt the pain of scars that wouldn't heal. And, to be honest, very old Elton sometimes helps, even still.
It will remind me of this birthday party we had when I was about 10. Each was inevitably a costume party, since I was born only days before Halloween. Mom was in charge of disguise, and Dad took care of the creepy special effects. We watched movies—but these were actual films, from the library: “Abbott and Costello meet the Mummy," “Abbott and Costello meet Frankenstein." They also tangled with the Werewolf.
My mother and I talked and talked. We decided that ice cream cake was best. We decided Kenny couldn't come, because of The Watch Incident:
Me to Dad: I don't know where my watch is. Dad to me: You lost the watch.
Me to Dad: No, no way I lost my watch. Dad to me: You lost the watch.
Days later, the doorbell rings. It's Kenny, with his father.
“My son," Kenny's dad says, “has something to say."
Kenny to me: Here's your watch. (Me and mom laughing, to Dad's stony silence.)
Mom to me, later: I never liked that kid. (Me and mom laughing, to Dad's stony silence.)
Mom to Dad: Jimmy, I told you Nicky didn't lose his watch. (Me and mom laughing, to Dad's stony silence.)
So, Mom dressed me as a girl for that birthday party. This is one of the pictures. It's all there: Dress. Hat. Heels. Makeup.
I must admit, though I'm not happy to, that I made a pretty terrific looking young lady. In fact, the night of the party, one my best friends—Vinnie, that's him as the far-more-sensible football-playing skeleton—met me in the courtyard of the house and asked me if my big brother was home.
Mission accomplished for mom, a lady who squeezes her eyes shut and laughs with a ferocity that forces participation. We giggled for days. Dad, meanwhile, would have nothing to do with this. He was busy grossing out my buddies. He made a fun house of the box that our new dryer had arrived in. When you reached in the secret, magical hatch, Dad had live exhibits—including brains (a steaming bowl of spaghetti) and, best of all, eyeballs (really, unpitted olives). My friends were absolutely thrilled.
I loved my parents for that night. I remember even then thinking that this was something worth remembering, for always.
They were that kind of couple—funny and spontaneous, silly and open—kids who met when she was 17 and he was 23. Everyone wanted to spend the night with me. But my mother was a woman who tended to lead when they danced. She knew what she wanted from the start. So it might not have been a surprise that she left us. I always saw them as people who loved each other like they were in a sequence from a movie, or else part of a guitar solo.
That kind of thing never stays.
Time passed. While mom wasn't the fiercely adventurous girl she once was, I still saw flashes—the pretty eyes, the pirate smile—and recognize these things even now in myself: Parents are like prisms in a kaleidoscope soul. Bits and pieces they may be, but each constitutes a part of the sharp-edged thing that you now are.
The year I was to turn 13—after what could only be called a lengthy time for such a torrid and deeply felt affair—my parents took a vacation to Mexico, a last-ditch effort to repair something that detail and fate and billowing outside forces had worn threadbare. The home movies bear out how miserably that trip turned out. I always wanted to reach in and push them together, to fix something.
Then, she was gone, a puff of exhaust leaving our cul-de-sac in the middle of the night. My brother Dustin stood at a window in Mom and Dad's bedroom, watching as she and a new man drive off—while I slept one door down. Soon enough, I awoke—and “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road" would hit me like a gutshot.
Getting to know her again, then, was like discovering another part of my heart. It was a good bit later, after a lot of years. But it happened. We were too old, really, to resume where we left off, but we made our peace. What I found out: You notice things, as you map the way back into a lost relationship.
When something was obvious, she would say, “Yup." So do I.
Searching myself, I see that kind of simple reflection more often now than I could've imagined in the 1970s, when circumstance separated us.
Was it possible, even after all that time away—after so long counting headlights on the highway, wondering if one of them was my mother—that she had never really left me?
Yup.
The truth is, she never really left me.
We would ride around, listening to eight-track tapes—or else pull a stereo speaker outside and swing on the back porch—then sing. We listened to Elton John, me and Mom.
“They say Spain is pretty," I can hear her echoing, in a high voice, one summer day, “though I've never been."
For too long, I felt the pain of scars that wouldn't heal. And, to be honest, very old Elton sometimes helps, even still.
It will remind me of this birthday party we had when I was about 10. Each was inevitably a costume party, since I was born only days before Halloween. Mom was in charge of disguise, and Dad took care of the creepy special effects. We watched movies—but these were actual films, from the library: “Abbott and Costello meet the Mummy," “Abbott and Costello meet Frankenstein." They also tangled with the Werewolf.
My mother and I talked and talked. We decided that ice cream cake was best. We decided Kenny couldn't come, because of The Watch Incident:
Me to Dad: I don't know where my watch is. Dad to me: You lost the watch.
Me to Dad: No, no way I lost my watch. Dad to me: You lost the watch.
Days later, the doorbell rings. It's Kenny, with his father.
“My son," Kenny's dad says, “has something to say."
Kenny to me: Here's your watch. (Me and mom laughing, to Dad's stony silence.)
Mom to me, later: I never liked that kid. (Me and mom laughing, to Dad's stony silence.)
Mom to Dad: Jimmy, I told you Nicky didn't lose his watch. (Me and mom laughing, to Dad's stony silence.)
So, Mom dressed me as a girl for that birthday party. This is one of the pictures. It's all there: Dress. Hat. Heels. Makeup.
I must admit, though I'm not happy to, that I made a pretty terrific looking young lady. In fact, the night of the party, one my best friends—Vinnie, that's him as the far-more-sensible football-playing skeleton—met me in the courtyard of the house and asked me if my big brother was home.
Mission accomplished for mom, a lady who squeezes her eyes shut and laughs with a ferocity that forces participation. We giggled for days. Dad, meanwhile, would have nothing to do with this. He was busy grossing out my buddies. He made a fun house of the box that our new dryer had arrived in. When you reached in the secret, magical hatch, Dad had live exhibits—including brains (a steaming bowl of spaghetti) and, best of all, eyeballs (really, unpitted olives). My friends were absolutely thrilled.
I loved my parents for that night. I remember even then thinking that this was something worth remembering, for always.
They were that kind of couple—funny and spontaneous, silly and open—kids who met when she was 17 and he was 23. Everyone wanted to spend the night with me. But my mother was a woman who tended to lead when they danced. She knew what she wanted from the start. So it might not have been a surprise that she left us. I always saw them as people who loved each other like they were in a sequence from a movie, or else part of a guitar solo.
That kind of thing never stays.
Time passed. While mom wasn't the fiercely adventurous girl she once was, I still saw flashes—the pretty eyes, the pirate smile—and recognize these things even now in myself: Parents are like prisms in a kaleidoscope soul. Bits and pieces they may be, but each constitutes a part of the sharp-edged thing that you now are.
The year I was to turn 13—after what could only be called a lengthy time for such a torrid and deeply felt affair—my parents took a vacation to Mexico, a last-ditch effort to repair something that detail and fate and billowing outside forces had worn threadbare. The home movies bear out how miserably that trip turned out. I always wanted to reach in and push them together, to fix something.
Then, she was gone, a puff of exhaust leaving our cul-de-sac in the middle of the night. My brother Dustin stood at a window in Mom and Dad's bedroom, watching as she and a new man drive off—while I slept one door down. Soon enough, I awoke—and “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road" would hit me like a gutshot.
Getting to know her again, then, was like discovering another part of my heart. It was a good bit later, after a lot of years. But it happened. We were too old, really, to resume where we left off, but we made our peace. What I found out: You notice things, as you map the way back into a lost relationship.
When something was obvious, she would say, “Yup." So do I.
Searching myself, I see that kind of simple reflection more often now than I could've imagined in the 1970s, when circumstance separated us.
Was it possible, even after all that time away—after so long counting headlights on the highway, wondering if one of them was my mother—that she had never really left me?
Yup.
