Some time during the Mad Men era, my mother began to drift away. By then, all 5 of us had survived early childhood and my parents had installed a German au pair, based on their notion that, given the Aryan bent for music, murder and cleaning, Greta would either seduce or intimidate us into compliance while keeping us presentable, none of which turned out not to be the case. Though sweet and pliable, she was a hard-core introvert; could barely eke out a hug, much less the maternal warmth I, for one, needed.
In those days, when I came home from school, my first question would be, “Where’s my Mom?” Greta’s answer always seemed to be the same: “Manhattan,” otherwise known to those in the outer boroughs as “the city.”
At some point before dinner, I’d hear the front door open and would fly down the stairs. My mother was home. “Mom, I won the spelling bee today!” “Mom, I got a hundred on my social studies test.”
But often my rivals had bested me and were already flocking around her with upturned, open mouths: “Mom, Jessica’s hogging the dog all day! Make her share.” “Mommy, Buzzy hit me!” “I did not; you hit me first.” “Mom, Karla ate tootsie rolls before dinner. I saw her.”
“Jessica, let Nancy play with Maggie til dinner.” “But Mom. . . “ “Now, I said! Give the dog to Nancy! Buzzy, go do your homework and leave Karla alone. Nancy, stop tattling. Nobody likes a tattler. Karla stay out of the pantry. Do you know how fattening those are?” She’d yell over her shoulder as she grabbed her shopping bags, ran up the stairs and into her room, shutting the door.
I’d wait ‘til things died down then meekly slip into my mother's room, often to find her unwrapping a new dress, pair of shoes, a cashmere sweater from this or that fashionable store in the city.
My heart would sink a bit at the sight though my mother seemed happy, often singing to herself, trying things on in her full mirror, as though confirming that whatever she’d overspent on looked as good in Brooklyn as it had in Manhattan where the dressing room lights and those of her yeasty imagination may have been too flattering.
“Mom, I won the spelling bee today.”
“That’s great Rob,” not taking her eyes off the mirror.
I had the vague sense that it pained her to look at me—in 4th grade and about 5’ and 135 pounds with the frizziest hair a white girl ever had. Instead, she looked at herself in the full mirror, sometimes dancing in her new clothes and accompanying herself “Blame it on the Bossa Nova. . . ” She was a sexy dancer though always kept her elbows pressed to her sides which looked a little like the doggy paddle we learned in camp. “. . . with its magic spell.” She was then in her late 30s and early 40s at the height of her adult beauty.
What I understood was that whatever her hunger, I could no longer satisfy it as I had as a child. I started to get the idea that growing up was a lonely business.