My mother and the memoir

This summer, I wrote a short memoir about my father. As you can probably guess from the title (Daddy Dearest: Tales of Terror and Glorious Schadenfreude), it's not exactly veneration. I've achieved a kind of acceptance, and something between pity and sympathy, but the fact remains that living with him was miserable and scary for me, and understanding him now doesn't change what I felt as a child.

My mother never understood my anger. I don't think she ever really understood the depths of my fear; I'm not sure anything scares her, and maybe she doesn't believe that anyone else truly feels afraid. I used to try to explain, but when you tell someone you are afraid and they respond, "No, you're not," it kinda ends the conversation. She also doesn't want to hear anything negative about my father in general, or anyone in the family.

When I was home in mid-September, I gave her a copy of the memoir. I wasn't hoping for some miraculous connection with her, for her to suddenly understand me and accept me and unicorns and rainbows. I used to think that if I explained myself well enough, I could get her to understand. Even after I knew it would never happened, I still hoped for it. I've stopped hoping. That sounds sad, but it isn't. She's never going to understand most of me, either because she's incapable, or because she can't bear to without breaking herself. I don't need her to understand anymore. But I still wanted her to hear me, and I wanted to hear her response, even though it was surely going to be unpleasant.

I called her at the end of October, and after we talked about the goings-on in her town and church and family, and I gave her the highlights of my own life that I wanted to share, I asked if she had read the memoir. There was a pause, as there often is on the phone with her. "Yes." After another pause, she continued, "Some fact, some fiction."

This was the point at which I would normally be crushed. Disapproval, disappointment; I could see her pursed lips. But I realized I was smiling. Smirking, actually, trying not to let laughter leak into my voice. "Well, I tried to write it as best I remembered, but nobody's memory is perfect. What are some of the things you remember differently?"

She was silent for several seconds, and then I heard her breathe in. I held my own breath. "Oh, I don't want to get into now. Sometime when we have more time."

I almost said, "Wow" out loud. I was in a Tennessee Williams play, or a political campaign movie. Had she just called me a liar, and then when I asked what I was lying about, had she simultaneously refused to specify and indicated that there were too many untruths to list? "Well," I said again, "I'd love for you to write down your thoughts, and the way you remember it."

And then she changed the subject. My mother never changes the subject. At least twice during any phone call, I ask, "Are you still there?" because she just falls silent when a topic is exhausted. But now she started talking about a neighbor's recent health scare, and the memoir was gone from the conversation. Then the call was over, and I got up and fed the cats and fed myself, pausing occasionally to laugh and say "Wow."

I've been waiting for three weeks now for the other shoe to drop, for the second-guessing and shame and frustration to hit. Still hasn't happened.