She closes her eyes and shakes her head hard enough to make her cheeks ripple like two red Jell-O molds experiencing a small earthquake. Then she looks up at the porch ceiling. “I guess your father liked the name.”
Liar!
“Why?” I say.
Her eyes grow huge. “How would I know that?”
“Didn’t you talk about what my name should be when you were pregnant?”
“I’m sure we did. We must have.”
“Well, then?”
“Too long ago. Too, too long. I can hardly remember what I did yesterday, and you want me to talk about all of the old things. Your father was a good—”
“And kind man,” I say. “Yeah, I know. I would have loved him.”
“The accident—”
“The accident,” I echo, cutting her off, because it’s all just bullshit and we both know it. A nameless coworker took advantage of her simplemindedness and knocked her up. She made up the story of a nice and kind man without ever bothering to report the rapist, let alone hold him responsible for child support. I’m okay with her lying about all that in the past, because I let go a long time ago, but the never-ending ongoing lies are inconvenient when you want answers—real answers. You can get lost in Mom’s madness. It’s like a maze of tall bushes, all thorns and no roses. And she insists I navigate while blindfolded. “So you really have no idea why you named me Portia?”
“It suits you, doesn’t it? It’s a pretty name. I love the name Portia. It was the best I could think of. The best we could think of. The best.”
My name sounds like the type of sports car middle-aged men buy while fantasizing about fucking girls half their age, the type of car Ken will buy now that he is free and clear of me. I see him and Khaleesi riding around with the top down, her golden mane trailing like a comet over the hand-sewn leather interior and a candy-apple-red paint job.
“Did you like Ken?” I ask. “You can tell the truth now. He’s gone. Finished. Not coming back.”
“He’s very handsome, but I only met him one time! And for only ten minutes!”
Mom’s smile is childlike, and I feel a wave of guilt overtake me.
Has it really been three years since I’ve seen her? And did she really only meet Ken that one time?
Are those things possible?
Absolutely.
Portia, you are cruel in addition to being stupid.
“What’s the state of the house?” I ask.
“You’re not throwing anything away!”
“Easy, Mom. Do you have any orange juice? Coffee? Basics?”
“Sure. Sure. Come on in. We’ll both catch our deaths out here.”
“One can dream.”
“What?”
“Nothing. Let’s go inside.”
“Welcome home, Portia,” she says, and then kisses both of my cheeks once more. “I’ve missed you. Thank you for visiting me.”
“Is the house that bad?”
“I just—it’s that . . . well, I . . . I have Diet Coke for you! With lime inside!”
“I bet you do.”
I mentally prepare myself as Mom and I stand.
She looks like she may have become even more rotund—Grimace, kids used to call her when I was in elementary school, referring to the fat purple McDonald’s monster, and I never stood up for her, even though she would have happily flayed off her flesh with a blunt butter knife if I had asked her to.
She’s looking at me, blocking the door. She outweighs me by at least a hundred pounds, and she’s shaking.
“It’s really good to see you, Portia. So good,” she says, squeezing my arm until it hurts.
“Good to see you too, Mom.”
“I didn’t know you were coming.”
“It wouldn’t have mattered. We both know that.”
“I would have straightened up for you at least.”
“You would have worried and obsessed, but you wouldn’t have gotten rid of a thing.”
“I have Diet Coke for you. With lime inside!”
“I know, Mom.”
“Portia, this is my home.”
“I promise I won’t throw anything away. You have my word.”
She lights up like a plastic lawn Santa on Christmas Eve. “Promise?”
I draw an X across my heart with my forefinger and say, “Swear to God.”
“I love you,” she says. “I love having you home!”
She opens the back door, and when I step inside I see the cans of Diet Coke with Lime stacked three feet high, twelve or so deep, on the counter, and I want to cry. Boxes of cereal and rice and bags of flour and crackers are all piled around the cabinets so you couldn’t reach them if you tried, let alone open any. Not one square inch of counter space is uncovered.
“Would you like a Diet Coke with Lime?” she says.
“Okay, Mom. But it’s, what”—I look at the timepiece hanging above the sink, a black cat turned gray by dust with the face of a clock in its belly; its tail acts as a pendulum; its eyes insanely darting in the opposite direction of the tail . . . right, left, right, left, right—“almost eight a.m. Yep, just about time for a Diet Coke with Lime.”
She opens the refrigerator. The bottom three shelves are stocked wall to wall with silver soda cans.
Mom doesn’t drink Diet Coke with Lime—ever.
These are all for me, on the off chance I might come home thirsty enough to drink seven hundred or so cans in a single visit. I’m sure most are at least five years old.
“Mom,” I say, and wipe tears from my eyes, because I have almost allowed myself to forget how my mother’s life is even more fucked up than mine.