Tiny Baby No More

Jessica Laurel Kane

My mother is on her way here. Not to visit, but to move in. And to think, I’d just been bragging to someone about how long she’s kept this job.

It’s been almost four years since my mother began managing The Sunrise Inn. That’s the longest she’s had a job since I’ve known her. 

The Sunrise Inn is a motel down in Florida. Well, more like a halfway house. Most people are there long term and many have probation officers.

My mother lives on the property. She cleans, does the laundry, and takes care of the residents, many of whom are on drugs. She has to say things like, “If you must smoke crack, please do so out the window.” (Apparently it stains the walls and is impossible to scrub off.)

There’s always some drama in the middle of the night and my mother is constantly flying out of her room in her Battenberg nightgown to yell at people: “Listen to me, you motherless fuck! Either get yourself together, or I’ll 911 your ass!” 

“I dial 911 like I order a fucking pizza,” she tells me.

But even though my mother always complains about the people, what fuck ups they are etc., etc., she’s constantly on the phone with Catholic Services finding them money for rent and food, or making mega batches of spaghetti which she leaves on her patio to keep their germs from contaminating her home.

But every now and then, when the motel is calm, and when the drama of hurricane season has passed, my mother is left with her own internal hurricanes to contend with. And to avoid dealing with those, she’ll go on one of her poor man vacations and drown it all out with vodka. She’ll disappear for a few days and when the mangy hotel gets mangier I’ll start getting phone calls from Douglas, who owns the place: “Jessy, please call me. Something’s not right.”

My mother has always been creative about her binges. She’ll blame her behavior on too much Clorox or wasp spray. But the drawback of being at the Sunrise Inn so long, is she’s run out of excuses. And Douglas has gotten fed up. 

For several days, he’s been calling non-stop leaving messages about how he’s had it with her drinking. That he doesn’t want to put her out on the street but he doesn’t know what else to do. 

And I can hear in his voice that he is sincere, even if he is the ‘sick fuck’ my mother says he is, or a moron, as she calls him, for his constant misuse of malapropisms. 

To me, he’s more of a benign asshole, in a mustached, pinky ring sort of way.

And really, he’s put up with my mother much longer than most people have over the last decade and a half.  I think, because he loves her. It’s hard not to adore my mother. She’s just, well, she’s funny. And really together when she’s not falling apart. 

Douglas also has no idea that my mother has been touring the country for years with her act. That before him, there was another boss leaving me messages, and before that another one and another one before that. But my mother forbids me to discuss any of this with anybody. So, I don’t. I just pretend I know nothing. It’s my way of being loyal. And of protecting myself from my mother’s wrath.

But the consequence of this is that Douglas thinks I’m a total fucking idiot. He’ll say things to me like, “You know, you’re not a little girl anymore, you have to get a grip and realize your mom has a serious drinking problem.” 

“My mother?? Are you sure??”

Douglas also has no idea that I’ve tried to intervene for years. But my mother doesn’t think she has a problem, so what does she need help for? 

Drinking is simply her way of self-medicating since she doesn’t trust therapists and has no health insurance. 

And every time I have managed to get my mother a spot in the mental health care system of this country, I am reminded that the mental health care system is in much worse shape than my mother. 

The truth is, there isn’t a psychiatrist in the world who gets paid enough to want to help my mother. She’s just way too complicated. And her gift for seeing the bullshit of others is far more powerful than anyone else’s gift for seeing hers. And who wants to sit across from that? Not me.

So, this morning, I get the call from my mother. I was at the botanical gardens. 

Finally, I pried myself out of bed where I spend the better part of each day trying to finish my fucking memoir.

And I was actually having the beginnings of an enjoyable moment, for the first time in god knows how long, literally smelling the roses, when my phone rang. 

“Where are you?” she snapped. 

“At the Bronx Botanical Gardens!”

“I’ve been calling over an hour.”

“You have? I’m sorry. I must have lost reception… I actually got lost in the woods here! I had to climb underneath shrubs just to get back on the path and then I stumbled on a waterfall and…”

“You got lost where?”

“The botanical gardens!”

“Are you out of your damn mind?”

“What do you mean?”

“Do you know how many DB’s they find in those places?”

“DB’s?”

“Dead bodies, Jessica. Jesus fucking Christ... Why are you panting?”

“Why? Because I’m running. You made me so terrified of getting raped and tossed in the thickets, that I’m running to my car!”

My mother laughed. “Well, good. That’s what you should do.”

“And where have you been, Mother?” I asked, still out of breath. “You’ve been missing for three days!”

“I’m sorry,” she said stoically. “I’ve been extremely ill. I had an allergic reaction to black mold.”

“Black mold? That’s not what Douglas told me. He called to tell me you’ve been drinking again. That the residents said you’ve been staggering around the property in your bathrobe slurring at people.”

“First of all, Douglas is a fucking moron. And it isn’t a bathrobe. It’s an overcoat. But more importantly, Jess… I’m in a rather desperate situation. And I need your help.”

I knew what was coming next and I held my breath.

“Jess, are you there???”

“Yes,” I said. “I’m here.”

“I need you to listen very carefully. I’m probably going to be fired and homeless by the end of the day.”

“Douglas would never fire you!”

“Of course he would. Because he refuses to get rid of the copious amount of black mold from my apartment and as a result, I am extremely ill, and cannot possibly do my job, and Douglas, that sick fuck, could care less.”

“And you’re positive it’s black mold?”

“Of course I’m positive. And just as soon as I get the hell out of here, I will be contacting an attorney.”

“Are you sure the black mold didn’t get you so upset, that you had to have a drink, to take the edge off?”

“No, Jessica,” she said through clenched teeth. “I don’t have an edge that needs taking off.”

“If you say so.”

“Darling…”

“Yes…”

“I’m going to need to come stay with you for awhile…” 

The sentence reverberated in my mind like in an old horror movie. My mother? In my tiny one-bedroom apartment? With me and my cat with worms? With me and my marriage problems? With me, who’s probably going to get decubitus from lying in bed day after day trying to write this fucking memoir so that I can maybe understand what the fuck’s happened to me?

On second thought, maybe she should come. Maybe she’d give my life a more noble purpose. I could try to solve her problems instead of my own. 

“Jess, are you there???”

“Yes, I’m here.”

“It’s just until I figure out a better plan.” 

“Of course you can come.” 

“Thank you so much, darling. You have no idea how much it kills me to intrude.” 

“It’s ok… but there will have to be ground rules this time.” 

“Of course there will, darling.” 

“Was that condescending?”

“No, it was not condescending.”

“I heard you snort…” 

“I was inhaling my ciggie.” 

“Well, I mean it, Mother. There will be no drinking.”

“I do not drink.”

“If you say so. And absolutely no smoking.” 

“I’ll smoke outside. How’s that.”

“That’s fine. But mother… I really cannot have any interruptions for another three weeks. Not until I hand in my thesis… Are you listening?”

“Yes, darling. Of course I am.”

“So that I can graduate.”

“I understand. I bet I could help you. Like I helped you in high school! Remember that paper I wrote on The Castle? Your teacher, if I recall, said it was the best paper he’d ever read.” 

“That would be wonderful.” 

My mother began hacking up something from her lungs. 

“When was the last time you ate anything? You sound like shit.”

“One of my residents just went across the street to get me something from MacDonald’s.”

“That’ll probably kill you faster than black mold.”

“It’s important for me to have something like that right now,” she said donning her doctor’s voice. 

“What’d you get? A Big Mac?”

She giggled. “And a fish sandwich and large fry.” 

“Sickening.”

“Alright darling, I’d better start packing. But… I will see you bright and early tomorrow morning!”

“Tomorrow morning?”

“I really don’t have a choice, Jess.”

“But how are you getting here?”

“I’ll be taking a taxi.”

“What? A taxi?”

“It’s already booked.”

“You’re taking a taxi from Florida to New York?” 

“That’s right.”

“And how much is this going to cost?”

“2200 bucks.” 

“Mother! That’s crazy! Please be reasonable. Take the bus for god’s sake!”

“I can’t get on a bus, Jess.”

“Why?”

“Because I just can’t. God forbid I should need medical attention. I refuse to be at the mercy of the Armpits of America.” 

“But it took you years to save that money!”

My mother sighed. “I understand your reasoning darling, but you’ll have to understand that I’m using impeccable judgment. I know what I’m doing. I really wish you’d believe in me.” Her voice cracked. “Because I’m not doing well. I can barely fucking walk, Ok? Can you please believe in me?”

“I do believe in you, Mother. But if you are for some reason having a lapse in judgment, what kind of daughter would I be allowing you to go through with something as seemingly irrational as this without any checks and balances?”

“I appreciate it, darling.”

So, my mother snuck off in the middle of the night, leaving most of her things as she usually does when making a getaway. But one of her idiots, as she calls them, saw her staggering into this taxi, so now I’m getting these ridiculous messages from Doug: “Jessy, I’m worried about your mom. One of the residents says she got in a taxi last night with a bunch of Mexicans and no one’s seen her since. Something’s not right. Please call me.” 

Thankfully, at 3am, my mother called from a gas station in Pennsylvania. 

“Darling? Time to wake up! We’re almost there!!!”

She had that start-over timbre to her voice, the kind where there’s hope and nobody can show you evidence to the contrary. Yet.

“Douglas keeps calling,” I said. “He said you got into a taxi with a bunch of Mexicans.” 

My mother laughed dryly. “Ugh. What a reprehensible creature he is. First of all, darling, it’s a limo, not a taxi. And my driver happens to be Cuban. And we have been having so much fun, Jessica. I have been speaking Spanish the entire drive.

“I didn’t realize you spoke Spanish, Mother.”

“Of course, I do, Verdad, José?”

Poor José. 24 hours in a taxi with my mother… speaking Spanish no less. 

At 6am, my mother called from around the corner.

“Get up darling! We’re here! You didn’t tell me you live in the projects!”

“I don’t live in the projects.”

“Well, it looks like the projects!”

It’s been almost three years since I last saw my mother, and I was terrified. I threw on some sweat pants, pulled my hair in a ponytail, and waited by the window watching the early morning fog.

A moment later, a blue town car inched its way up my street and stopped in front of my building. José’s Car Service was written in italics on the sides.

A thick balding man got out. I could hear the door slam all the way up on the fifth floor. He looked exhausted, like he’d just completed the longest ride of his career. Then, the back door opened, and a foot appeared. And then, the owner of the foot. My mother.

She leaned against the car and lit a ciggie. The only color in that early morning fog was from my mother’s red nails. 

I took a deep breath and ran down the five flights, my hands still shaking, and as soon as my mother saw me, she threw down her ciggie.

“My baby!!”

She wrapped her wiry arms around me and kissed the air next to my cheek. The last couple times I’ve seen her, she’s become quite the hugger. Her real hugs feel awkward though. I am much more comfortable when she loves me through language like she always used to, when she’d squat down to let me know at least three times a day that I was the most special little girl to ever walk planet earth. I guess when one’s life has been run over a few times, you need to hold onto people more tightly. 

She looked me over once or twice. “You look beautiful, darling.”

“Thank you.”

“I look like shit,” she said. “Go on, you can say it.”

“You don’t look like shit.”

“You can tell the truth. Go ahead. I look like an empty worn out wallet.”

“Mother, you’ve been in a car for 24 hours.” 

“I knew it.”

“I only meant that you probably look a little tired, like anyone would. But that you’re still beautiful.”

“We shall broach this subject later… In the meantime, honey, I want you to meet my driver. This is José! He’s wonderful.”

I shook José’s hand. “Thank you for driving my mother all the way here.”

José was smiling, but he looked depleted in every possible way. God only knows what karma is responsible for the two of them having to share those 24-hours together.

José’s car was packed with my mother’s shit, mostly shoved in black garbage bags.

I remember when I was little, when she used to pack all our things in boxes whenever we started over. I became an expert packer by the time I was 6. I could wrap glasses carefully in newspapers, fold clothes still on the hanger, lug everything up and down stairs (which my mother used to find quite amusing. I used to catch glimpses of her chuckling behind clouds of cigarette smoke.) It wasn’t until I settled into college that my mother ditched the boxes and switched to big trash bags. She’d still wrap some things in newspaper, but mostly things were wrapped in clothes. Now, a decade later, she just packs a few essentials in bags and leaves everything else —all the treasures she’s collected from thrift shops and house sales and garbage dumps—the same blue Le Creuset pots that she keeps managing to find at Salvation Armies all over the country, the wicker furniture, cooking books, vases, rugs—all of it gets abandoned, like a museum of someone’s life after the end of their world came and obliterated them. 

José and I began hauling all of her crap up the tiny marble stairs, while my mother waited by the car, watching us work.

She could hardly move, except for what it took to smoke her ciggies.

After the car was empty, we helped my mother up the stairs until the three of us stood in front of my apartment door and said our goodbyes. José and I were both sweating. “You must be so thirsty, José. Are you sure you wouldn’t like to come in for a bit?”

José glanced over at my mother’s syrupy smile. “No thank you, Mama.”

Then the door closed and it was just me and this person I somehow owe my existence to, and all her stuff which reeks like ciggies, Clorox, and the scented candles she’s forever melting in pots.

She tiptoed deeper into my apartment and looked around. It still smelled like flowers from the hours I spent cleaning, removing everything I thought might leave room for criticism.

“So, what do you think?” I asked.

She put her finger to her lips, taking her time to answer. “It’s Early Filth,” she announced.

“What?”

“You know, Early Renaissance… Early Filth.”

I felt a pinprick to my heart and sucked back the tears. “I tried to make it nice for you.”

“I know you did, darling. I’m only kidding.”

Then Sealips walked a slow circle around one of my mother’s legs. 

“And this… must be Sealips.”

My mother looked down at my cat, unimpressed. “Hello,” she waved.

From the moment I adopted Sealips, my mother was not a fan. “Any creature who poos in a box is disgusting,” is what she said. “You should return him immediately.” She is however the one who named him. He came with the name Felix but my mother forbid me to allow another Felix the Cat into the world, so she suggested Sealips, since they answer phonetically and he is, after all, just a fish eating pussy.

“Be nice to him, Mother,” I said. “He’s your grand kitty.”

“He’s no relative of mine.”

On the pillow in her bedroom, the new towel and washcloth I bought for her yesterday at TJ Maxx were folded neatly, and resting on top was a gourmet candy bar. 

“Oh honey,” she said. “Just like The Plaza!” 

I felt my face flush. “I wanted it to be special for you. And I knew you wouldn't want to use my towels, so I bought you your own.”

“Oh honey. It is very special. Thank you.”

My mother sat on the bed, well, the air mattress, and tried to take off her shoe. Her hands were shaking and at some point, I could see that her leg had stopped working and she broke out in a cry, a blurt of a cry that quickly went away. 

“Are you ok?”

Her head hung down in an exaggerated unhinged manner, and she shook her head neither yes nor no and then looked back up at me. “I’ll be fine,” she said, doing her usual stoic routine, which is finally starting to sound less like a routine and more like a serious situation. 

Something is definitely wrong with her, this is obvious. 

“I’ve brought treasures,” she said, trying to be sing-songy.

She unzipped her suitcase and rummaged around, her hands still shaky and moving so slowly. Everything looked shoved in there in a hurry. “So many things I’ve been collecting for you from Jeannie’s!” she said.

My mother loves second hand merchandise. Even with no car, she would walk the mile to the Good Will run by this lady named Jeannie, who used to live at the Sunrise Inn until she went to jail for making copies of movies and selling them from her apartment. But now Jeannie does her community service at Good Will and gives my mother enormous discounts. 

I spread out on the mattress slumber-party style, trying to be cozy while she reached armpit deep into one of the lawn-sized trash bags. But I didn't feel cozy. Not because of the air mattress, but because I could hardly recognize this woman as my mother. She looks so thin. Her hair brown, with slight gray wisps in it. Never have I seen my mother’s hair natural. “I darkened it last night before I left,” she said. 

The last time I saw my mother, when I visited the Sunrise Inn a few years ago, she’d been wearing a thick platinum blonde wig that barely budged in the breeze. But somehow that was less alarming then this. Now, she just looks real in a way that frightens me.

She pulled out a pelt, like a giant kombucha starter, patch-worked from various animal hides. “This, is to die for,” she said.

“What on earth is it?”

She looked at me condescendingly. “It is an objet d'art.”

“Oh.”

“Use it in your car, Jessica, for god’s sake.”

Then came the bustierre that someone attacked with a bedazzler. “Very Fransh,” she said.

I nodded.

Then some cashmere sweaters that actually weren’t so bad. And finally, a beautifully painted Russian nesting doll. 

“Oh, I love these!”

“I know you do. Aren’t you going to open it up?”

So, there I sat, opening each doll, laughing privately at the ridiculousness of all these layers of people, one inside the other, spread across the blow up bed. But when I opened the tiniest one, the baby was missing.

“What do you mean it’s missing!?” my mother gasped.

“Look!” I said, holding the empty shell.

“What sick fuck would kidnap an innocent helpless Russian baby?”

“I can’t even imagine.”

“Don’t you worry, Jessica... I will find that baby!”

And with that, my mother hobbled to her feet, stretched out her arms and began belting her own words to the Man of La Mancha:

This is my quest, 

For the rest of my life. 

Until the day that I die! 

Whichever comes first!!! 

“Bravo!” I clapped.

I was so glad to see my mother in full drama mode. But it ended as quickly as it started. And she looked down at the ground for a minute trying to compose herself.

I kept my mother company while she unpacked the rest of her things and hung them in her new closet. And now, she’s in the shower. And I’m lying on my bed in the living room. 

Everything feels so very unfamiliar. This place is no longer mine, that’s for sure. I keep wanting to reach for the telephone, to tell someone about how my mother has taken over my life so that maybe they’ll feel badly for me and want to adopt me. But this time, I realize I am no longer adoptable. I am a grown woman now. Yes, I still have many layers of smaller people within me, but really, I can’t be that tiny helpless baby anymore. It’s time for me to take care of myself and solve my own problems.

End.