Free Pieces of My Mother by Melissa Cistaro Page B

to stay until December and then come home for Christmas. There is a possibility of J. taking the babies to NY then. Well, I refuse to spend Christmas without my tads. Gran, I can hardly wait to see the Parthenon by moonlight. And Knossos will rebloom with the Minoan culture while we are there. Be prepared for adventure!
    I am aware that my mom traveled to Greece sometime after she left us. I have gathered that from things my dad said in passing and photographs I glimpsed of her on the Aegean Sea with her roommate Karen, whom she mentions here in the letter. But I don’t think she ever made it back to us “tads” that Christmas.
    I remember my mom once telling me about her Gran and how close they were. I wonder why she never sent off this letter—and why she’s kept it all these years.
    I pull out another letter, addressed to her sister.
    Dearest Joanna,
    I am in limbo rather. Can’t quite get it together. I’m floating between Novato and Stuart’s and the city and feeling pretty lost. Fuck, I’m so uncertain—school? Teepee? Nepal with Stuart for three magic months? Back with the kids? Help! Too many choices. I want to escape to the woods most of all but I am so unsure of making it. The woods, the woods, the wonderful woods—woulds? Tomorrow I’m back, wonder if I should. No permanence is necessary, however—dear Obadiah. Are we children caught in the universal turmoil, or is the wood just wet and low? To have the good fortune to have so many opportunities is misfortune for me. I wish I had my sweet blue Car to help me decide—him being my best friend and all.
    I close my eyes and watch my mom drive away in her “sweet blue Car.” Where did she flee to when she left? And if she wanted opportunity so much, why did she call it a misfortune? The chronology of her life after abandoning us has always been unclear to me. Even my father was uncertain as to her whereabouts much of the time—especially during the first few years after she disappeared and left him trying to pin her down for answers.
    I continue reading.
    Off to the wild, blue yonder. Canada can’t be so cold in September. I’m not deserting and shirking all responsibility. I’ll probably go to Florida actually—if I bus it, then I will have lots of time for thought and call my Gran at the same time.
    I’m not sure how to react to my mom’s carefree musings about “where to go next” that blithely disregard her responsibilities. Maybe I should be outraged, but I’m not. I’m fascinated. Maybe I’m even jealous. Somewhere deep inside me, I can relate to my mother’s irrepressible desire to be free of everyone, everything. Maybe I have inherited this fleeting nature too. Though I love my children passionately, I leap at opportunities for time away from them.
    It’s not a lack of love but a fierce desire to be alone. I need it often, this solitude, this time to think and figure things out. And it never feels like enough. At other times I wish I could disappear and come back as a new and improved mother—a top-of-the-line, high-efficiency model. Maybe that was my mom’s intention at one point, but it never materialized. Or maybe she feared she would never be anything more than a mother in life.
    When I was standing in line at the dreaded dollar store several years ago, with an armful of cleaning supplies and cheap plastic containers, my daughter Bella blurted out a statement that caught me off guard and silenced me. She said, “Mama, how come you never wanted to be anything when you grew up?”
    I was crushed by her perception of me. Was I just a mother and nothing else in her eyes?
    The truth is, I never imagined being a mother. Growing up, I didn’t have it on my list of dreams. For a long time, I wanted to be an actress. Later, I dreamed of traveling as a photographer for National Geographic or going on archaeological digs where I