Non-Fiction
She held the newspaper with her right hand and clutched her
lukewarm coffee with the other. A large chip on the lip of her coffee
mug never stopped her from filling it to the brim with her morning
ritual of caffeine. She made a point of showing me she was still drinking
from the dangerously sharp cup, because I made her promise to never
throw it out. I saved for weeks to buy the last coffee mug with
“Mother” painted across it. The first Mother’s Day gift I could afford to
buy myself. And it came close to being the last…
Mother rarely shared her feelings. We never knew how she was
“doing,” no matter how challenging her days became. It must have
been impossible from time to time. Especially when her abusive
husband, our father, was away. Even more so when he would return.
Just the same, I was used to my mother being stoic, and expressionless
through most of her day.
I have seen her long slender fingers shake before. Her hands
trembled violently, and the newspaper was slipping from her grip.
Father was out for the day, and wouldn’t be home for hours, so the fear
on her face seemed un-warranted. What was going on?
I followed her away from the table where she had been sitting
and reading. Mother shuffled across the Livingroom as if in a trance,
never taking her eyes off the paper. When she bumped into the
tattered red couch, she reached for me to help her settle on to the
cushions. Her finger traced the sentences on the page, and her lips
spoke phantom words that only she could hear. At some point the story
was too much to bear, and she let out a sharp gasp.
Mother dropped the paper at my feet but didn’t seem to realize
she had lost her grip. What had she read? Where had she gone? She
seemed so far away. I handed her the paper and urged her to tell me
what news was on the front page.
At first mother just mumbled. I kept repeating “what, what” till
she looked me in the face, and saw I was by her side. She handed me
the paper, pointed to a picture and pulled me close. “Look! Look! See
the car under the bridge!?” I nodded yes and pulled out of her grip. She
was starting to scare me a little. “They’re all dead! All of them! Four of
our best friends! Dead!” I said “I’m so sad for you Mommy” and her
stoicism was traded for a torrent of tears…
It would be over forty years before we would talk about the
article and that day. The headline that shook her world that morning
was “All the occupants of the car under the bridge were found dead.”
As we sat across the table from one another and drank our coffee, hers
from my chipped Mother’s Day mug, the full story of the car accident
was shared. As an adult I was now allowed to know the details behind
her reaction.
Mother always said, “If I can’t see it, it’s not real.” However, this
was one incident she was certain contained an element of telepathy,
intuition, or premonition but not coincidence. She still had the article
and knew just where to find it. After reading it twice, and hearing her
story, I had to agree.
It seems the night of the accident, my parents were supposed to
join their friends for an evening of drinking and fun. My father was
never one to turn down partying and partaking. Mother had dressed up
and was putting the finishing touches to her makeup. She was tired
from chasing us around all-day and was not in the mood. It didn’t
matter how mother felt. If he wanted her to go out, she had to go.
Mother couldn’t explain why, but suddenly she was overcome with
dread. Deep seated dread. Something was wrong, but she didn’t know
what. She started to feel panicky. Her breathing became labored and
she was slightly dizzy. After much pleading and a few tears, she
convinced father to let her stay home. In the past he would have been
physically abusive, spewed obscenities and left. But tonight was
different. Mother knew he had to stay home, she just knew. She
begged him to stay and after several shots of alcohol, he begrudgingly
agreed to continue his binge on his own couch.
We finished our coffee and conversation with several heart felt
hugs and a few heaven sent “thanks.” I was glad that the little five-year-
old who shared that morning paper with her mother, finally knew the
full story. I shudder at how close I came to loosing my beloved mother
that night. Didn’t much care about the other familial passenger though.
That’s why he never got a “Father’s Day” mug…
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