WINTER ' FOURTEEN
“Are we moving?”
“I don’t know, sweetheart.” She tossed her head back, laughing nervously. “It would be the best. But
the best isn’t always fucking practical.”
She grabbed a small pinstriped suitcase from the hall closet, shoving several nightgowns, several pairs
of underwear, a few dresses, and several photos. I glimpsed one of me on her lap, when I was five or six,
the two of us laughing at something. I wondered what it was.
“Turn on the hi-fi,” she said. “You choose the record. You know what I like.”
“You’re fucking leaving, aren’t you,” I shouted. “That’s what this is all about.”
“Play me some Elvis,” she said, giving me a long look. “I can use it now.”
“You’re going to keep on running.” I picked up a small glass paperweight, feeling the weight beneath
my palms, a thickness that weighed me down. “You’re going to keep on running. Maybe Nick was right.
You’re just goddamned stuck. You’re in love with him, aren’t you?”
She stood there, her arms folded. She shook her head, as though she wanted to say somethin g, motioning
for me to pick the record. I wondered what she was thinking, about the world beyond our lives. Something
had changed between us, and it wasn’t something I wanted to think about right now.
“I don’t love him, Mattie,” my mother said, still calm. “For the love of God. Play some Elvis.”
“Is he some important big-shot? Is that it? He can give you some better life, and you leave me in the
middle of nowhere.”
“Play some fucking Elvis.”
I picked Don’t Be Cruel, not because it was appropriate for us, for the way we lived, but because it was
the only thing I could think of. She nodded approvingly.
“I’d like to get away,” Sylvia said. “I’d like to go to a movie. I don’t know. A motel.”
“You’re just going to leave aren’t you?” I said. “For good.”
Sylvia just stood there, waiting, staring at the paperweight in my hand, as if she were expecting me to
do something. She gave me an uncomfortable glance. And I looked down at the floor. It was all I could
do. I set the paperweight down, slowly, with Sylvia’s eyes bearing into me. It felt as though it were resisting
my grip, as though it still wanted a target. The hi-fi or even a window. But that time had passed.
“Get to school in the morning,” Sylvia said. She looked as though she wanted to hug or strike me, I
cannot say which, exactly. Perhaps some mixture. “You’re not a delinquent.”
I wanted to stop her from going, like when I was little. I’d try to follow her out the door when she
went to class or just to the store. For some reason I didn’t, though. Maybe I thought she’d come back, as
naïve as it sounded. In that moment, I think I was torn somewhere between, between wanting to be
suspicious, and wanting to believe her, whatever the cost. Maybe I wanted a mother I couldn’t have.
I walked into my bedroom, a streetlamp breaking through the curtains.My Westclox Big Ben ticked
on the nightstand, each tick piercing me like some machine. My Hardy Boys books were strewn across my
dust-coated shelf, my detectives with their worlds in which everything e magically turned out all right,
worlds without Nicky. I pictured him on a tank, riding toward me with that same wild look he’d worn earlier.
“Get to school in the morning,” Sylvia called again. I turned off the light, pretending to take a nap.
She came in a few minutes later and sat beside me. I don’t know for how long, just that she looked at me.
“You shouldn’t have to see this,” she murmured at one point. “Not at your age. I’m sorry. This is nuts.”
In that moment, I felt an odd closeness, as though she could somehow protect me from the worst, as
though she could give me that illusion of everything being simple and wonderful again. All too soon, she’d
The Linnet's Wings