Christy's Mom

When you were an infant, your mother decided she had to leave. It could have been even in mid-sentence, when she was talking to your father. She literally walked out of the house one day, with the clothes she happened to be wearing -- not a scrap of luggage, not even a toothbrush or a comb. She never came back. You told me your father was stoic about your mom going, he hardly ever talked about it. If you ever asked him about your mother, he said he wasn't sure why she left or where she was. At first you asked because your dad kept all of your mothers things, he never cleaned or cleared them away. It was like someone was on vacation, or away on business and they'd be coming back any day now. As you grew up, you saw over time how her perfume bottles and erring holders, coils of necklaces, small crystals on her side of the bureau got old and dusty. The jewelery tarnished. When you dad wasn't around, you looked at her dresses, and other clothes still in plastic dry-cleaning bags hung in the closet, with her shoes. Over time the articles of clothing got dead, and deader, which is impossible for inanimate things, but it was still true. Later, when you were 25 and had a little girl of your own and dropped out of college, your sister said mother was married again. Your mom was living in a big expensive house in Burlingame. One afternoon you drove to the house, and spied on her when she parked on the driveway. You watched her walk into the house. She wasn't smiling, she seemed very serious with frown lines on her cheeks, cold. You didn't feel like meeting mother after you saw her face, so you drove away. You never hated her, either, until then.