Free The Art of Mending by Elizabeth Berg

terrible mother?”
    “Steve,” I said.
    “What?”
    “Let her talk.”
    “She can talk. I’m just asking what this is
about.
”
    Caroline leaned forward, spoke earnestly. “I want to know something, Steve. I wonder if you can tell me about one time when you saw some tenderness in her. Let’s just start there.”
    “In Mom?”
    “Yeah.”
    “Well . . . lots of times.”
    “Such as?”
    He slumped back in his chair and looked around the room, impatient. “I don’t know, like when I got hurt and stuff. Or sick.”
    “What did she do then?”
    “Look, Caroline. I know you’ve got problems with Mom. You always did. But I don’t want to sit around and talk about my relationship with her. I don’t have any problem, okay? So if you want to talk about it, you need to talk about you. But just say it, and don’t make such a big fucking stageplay out of it!”
    “You know what, Steve?” She smiled bitterly, started to speak, then stopped. “Never mind. What a dumb idea, to think I could talk to you. You’re not here. You’ve never been here. You avoid thinking about anything; you just buy big-boy toys and—”
    Steve stood and pushed his chair hard under the table. “I figured when you said you wanted to talk to me and Laura, it’d be some crap like this. You know what I think, Caroline? I think you should grow up. You’re fifty years old, for Christ’s sake.”
    “Fifty-one, thank you. And excuse me,
I
should grow up?”
    “I’m going back upstairs,” he said. “Dad’s in the hospital. That’s why we’re here, remember? Believe it or not, we’re involved in something here that has nothing to do with you.”
    “Steve,” I said, but it was too late. He walked away.
    Caroline watched him disappear out the swinging door. “I don’t know what I was thinking. He’s never cared anything about me.”
    “That’s not true,” I said.
    “It is. I shouldn’t mind, really. I should be used to it.”
    “He does care about you. He doesn’t like to talk about things, that’s all. I mean, you ask him about tenderness . . . he’s not like that. He’s a guy, only worse. And—well, Dad
is
in the hospital.”
    “I know he is, but he’s fine! And I just figured, since we were all here together, now was as good a time as any. I needed something. I really needed something from him, and I thought I’d ask.”
    “Well, ask then. You’ve got to be direct with him.”
    She looked down. “It’s hard.”
    I wanted so much to say, tiredly, Everything is hard for you, Caroline. But I didn’t. I looked out the window, at the birds flying free, and said, “Well, ask me, then. I’m here. Ask me.”
    She nodded, took a deep breath in, blew it out. “One thing I want to know is what I was asking Steve. Really. I want to know if you can remember anything . . . tender that Mom ever did.”
    “Okay, so you mean being hugged and kissed, stuff like that?”
    “No. I know she did that sometimes, but it was always . . . it felt like it was for show. It was always in front of someone else. No, I mean other things. Things she did just for you, without an audience. Like . . . did she ever just sit on your bed and talk to you?”
    I thought back and tried to remember. Truthfully, I couldn’t recall anything like that. And so I said, “No. I don’t think she did. But, see, I don’t think I minded.”
    She pushed her cup aside, leaned in toward me. “All right. Let me ask you this, then. Do you remember her ever being overtly cruel to you?”
    “Oh, Caroline. Weren’t you, as a mother? Weren’t you ever cruel to Eva?”
    “Yes. Yes, I was, I’m sure. But not . . . it wasn’t intentional. It wasn’t dispassionate or calculated.”
    “What does that mean? You think Mom was intentionally cruel to you?” I was beginning to wish I’d walked out with Steve. Given my mother’s background, it was understandable that she wasn’t particularly cuddly, that there was about her a certain dark mystery. But she had