The Perfect Mum

In the tiny, antiseptic rest room open to family members, Kathleen locked the door, sat on the toilet and cried until her stomach hurt and she’d run out of tears. The sight of her face in the mirror should have stirred horror, but she stared almost indifferently at the puffy-faced woman gazing dully back. She did splash cold water on her face and brush her hair before facing the world again.

At the nurse’s station, she stopped. “I’m Emma Monroe’s mother.”

Quick compassion showed in the other woman’s expression. “Are you all right?”

Kathleen nodded, although they both knew she wasn’t. “I’m sure my daughter will take out the IV, if she hasn’t already. You’d better check it regularly.”

“We will. Thank you.”

Kathleen explained about Ginny, and the nurse came with her to get the child.

Taking Ginny’s hand, she smiled kindly. “Let’s just go back and say hi to Emma. You can’t stay, because she’s getting ready to go upstairs to be checked into the hospital, but I know she’ll be glad to see you.”

“Thank you,” Helen said, watching her daughter be led away. “She’s really scared.”

Kathleen nodded. Her head felt disconnected to her body. Huge, and yet, eerily, weightless, as if it were a hot air balloon and she were the tiny wicker basket, dangling beneath, swaying in space.

Jo’s arm came firmly around her. “You look awful,” she said frankly. “Is Emma mad?”

Kathleen nodded again. Her head kept bobbing, as if it didn’t know how to stop. “I told her.” Her voice sounded far away, too, perhaps because it was being drowned out by the roar of the burners that kept the balloon inflated.

“That she’s going into treatment?”

Kathleen was still nodding. A dull throbbing suggested that a headache was building, a storm threatening her sense of unreality.

Jo turned her so that Kathleen had to meet her eyes. “You’re doing the right thing. You know you are.”

“Do I?”

Once, she had been a confident woman who believed, the vast majority of the time, that she was doing the right thing. She had a perfect life, didn’t she? A handsome husband, a smart daughter, a beautiful home, and she worked hard for several charities, doing her share of good. She had glided serenely through life—the life she had chosen, had craved from the time she was a small child and could see the wretchedness of her parents’ crummy jobs and shabby house.

Now, Kathleen could see how smug she had been. Pride goeth before the fall, she thought bleakly. Perhaps, pride caused the fall. With her nose so high in the air, it was easy to trip over an uneven bit of sidewalk, something that should have been right before her eyes.

“I need to make phone calls.” She looked vaguely around. “I didn’t bring my cell phone.”

“I have mine,” Jo offered.

Returning, Ginny raced to her mother. Voice shrill, she said, “There was blood all over! Emma took out that needle in her hand, but they put it back.” Her fingers gripped her mother’s slacks and she gazed up in appeal. “Why does she have to have it in, Mommy?”

Helen knelt and took her daughter by the shoulder. “You know why, don’t you? Daddy had an IV, too, remember?”

Ginny’s lip trembled and she nodded hard.

“It doesn’t mean Emma is dying like Daddy. All it means is that the doctors want to get medicine or just water into someone’s body. Daddy hurt so much, it was the best way to give him painkillers.” Her voice wobbled only a little. “But Emma isn’t even getting medicine. She’s getting water and maybe some vitamins and sugar, because she doesn’t eat enough. That’s why she’s mad. You know how she gets when someone tries to make her eat.”

The six-year-old nodded, her expression relaxing. “She yells at Auntie Kath.”

“Uh-huh. Well—” Helen glanced up wryly at Kathleen “—this is her way of yelling at the nurses. Right now, she can’t stamp her foot or race to her bedroom and slam the door, can she?”

“No-o.”

“So she took out the needle and said, ‘You can’t make me!’”

Creases formed on Ginny’s high, arching forehead. “Only, they can. Can’t they, Mommy?”

“Yep. They’re going to help her get better by making her eat. This is the first step.”

“Oh,” the child said solemnly.

Helen rose. “Kathleen, why don’t you make your calls from home? You can come back later. Emma will be fine. It might be just as well to give her time to get over her tantrum.”

Yes. Home sounded good.

Kathleen nodded and let her friends lead her to the nurse’s station where she explained, then to the business office where she gave all the information on insurance, and finally to Jo’s car.

“See you at home,” Helen said, and started across the parking lot with her hand on Ginny’s shoulder. Poor Ginny, Kathleen saw, still wore the baggy T-shirt she slept in along with a pair of jeans and sneakers with no socks and the laces dragging. Her unbrushed hair was lank and tangled.

Jo looked better, not because she’d spent more time on grooming, but because her thick, glossy hair seemed destined to fall into place. She wore little makeup at any time, and her sweater and jeans were pretty much what she threw on every day.

Even through her dullness, which she thought must be nature’s form of anesthesia, Kathleen remembered uneasily what she had looked like in the mirror. Yes, going home was a good idea.

As Jo drove out of the parking lot, Kathleen said, “Thank you.”

Jo shot her a startled, even annoyed glance. “You mean, for coming? For Pete’s sake, Kathleen! What did you think we’d all do? Head off to school and work as if nothing had happened?”

“Well, no, but…”

“Then let it rest.”

Exhaustion and worry weighing her down, Kathleen gazed unseeing at the passing streets. She wanted to go home and crawl into bed and pretend none of this had happened, that it was Sunday and she could sleep as late as she wanted.

Instead, she should shower and make herself presentable, then start a formidable list of calls. Work, to explain why she wasn’t coming. Someone else would have to cover the front desk at the chiropractor’s office. The insurance company, Emma’s doctor, the therapist, the treatment program…

Her mind skipped. Please, God, let there be room.

Ian. She should at least let him know, although chances were she wouldn’t actually have to talk to him. She’d leave a message on his voice mail or with his secretary. He probably wouldn’t even call back. Never mind phone his daughter and express concern.

After all, Emma could eat if she wanted. She was just being stubborn. Melodramatic. Ridiculous. Taking her to doctors and therapists was playing her game, pampering her.

He could not, would not, admit that his daughter had a real problem and was thus flawed in any way. After all, he’d had the perfect life, the perfect wife, hadn’t he? Kathleen thought bitterly. Why shouldn’t he have the perfect daughter, too?

She’d like to believe it was because he wasn’t perfect. In his rage and intolerance, Ian had made it easy for her to believe he was at fault: his demands, his expectations, his irritation with the tiniest mistake or flaw in appearance or failure in school or on the tennis court or at a dinner party.

What was becoming slowly, painfully apparent was that her expectations, her smugness, had hurt Emma as much if not more. Jo had once tried to convince Kathleen that Emma felt free to lash out at her mother not because she was angrier at her than she was at her father, but because she felt safer with her, knew Kathleen loved her. Kathleen hoped it was true.

But she couldn’t absolve herself. If she were warm, supportive and accepting, why hadn’t Emma been able to shrug off her father’s unreasonable criticism? Why hadn’t she recovered, after Kathleen left Ian and she’d no longer had to face his sharp, impatient assessment daily?

Would she be lying in the hospital, so perilously close to death, if her mother hadn’t failed her, too?