Wire Mesh Mothers

39

She remembered.

A cold Christmas. Their first Christmas in Pippins.

Kate, Donald, and Donnie had moved to the brick manor house in September, two weeks after Kate had finished her final master’s of education course at Georgetown University and had presented her thesis, “A Study on an Apparent Relationship Between Certain Religious Persuasions and Developmental Delay.” The title had scared the shit out of some of the university administration and had brought a chuckle from Donald. The paper explored a connection between off-shoot fundamentalist denominations and the higher rate of children in the public school programs who showed symptoms of developmental delay and the emotionally disturbance. Kate had been discrete and careful; her intent was to get her degree and be done with it, not stir up any major academic dust. She concluded that it was more the home life and the economic status of the children in these single-church denominations as opposed to the religious teachings. Kate didn’t believe that was the total truth but a politically correct paper was more in line with what she needed to have to get her degree, and she did win the degree. Signed, sealed, delivered. Put into a nice, oak frame. Now, Donald would look at her and see two degrees instead of one. Something she could look at and feel a little pride.

Christmas at the McDolen estate was celebrated with a holly wreath on the door, white candles in every window of the sixteen-room house, a small Douglas fir with white lights in the living room with a porcelain nativity scene beneath, and a large blue spruce in the family room. The holly wreath, white candles, Douglas fir and nativity were there because that was the way Donald’s mother had always done it. The citizens of Southampton County expected to see that wreath and those lights as they drove up and down Route 58 on their merry holiday ways. The spruce in the family room was multi-colored, more of jumble than show piece, covered in lights that twinkled and some that didn’t, expensive glass balls, plastic Disney figures, and strands of painted popcorn that Donnie had sewn together when he was four. That was the way Kate had always done it. She was determined to keep something of her own in that blasted house.

It was during this festive season that Kate was introduced to the wealthier citizens of Southampton County. Donald and Kate hosted a “Winter Banquet” to which a select many flocked — Donald’s new business friends, old money who had socialized with the McDolens since the 1920s, assorted local politicians and state legislators. It was pleasant enough, but Kate was tired with it after the first two hours. Cocktails and small talk were interesting for only so long, and soon she found herself wanting to retire to the family room to watch the blinking and unblinking rainbow of lights on the spruce tree and curl up under a blanket. Donnie had already disappeared from the scene in his sport coat and tie, up to his room to listen to his CDs.

Kate and Donald had had elegant parties back in Richmond and Alexandria, but nothing to the scale of this bash. At one given time Kate counted seventy-two guests. There were scads of new names for Kate to remember, family connections to digest, gossip to promise to keep secret, private little Southampton in-jokes she tucked away mentally to ask for an explanation of Donald later on.

As Kate tried to keep attention on a one woman’s rambling, White Shoulders-scented discourse on the history of her father’s tobacco growing endeavors in Southampton, she found her thoughts wandering to Alice and Bill, up in Canada with their pets and their children, in their hippie shirts and hippie beads and myriad causes. For the first time in years, she missed them greatly.

The Southampton School Board superintendent, Stuart Gordonson, arrived a bit late to the McDolen Christmas party; as soon as Donald introduced him to Kate and mentioned her new degree, the man pulled her aside and promised her a job if and when she might ever want one.

“We would be thrilled to have a McDolen on our team,” Mr. Gordonson had grinned beneath his well-trimmed mustache. “What a feather in our cap, eh?” Kate thanked him and said she’d let him know.

When everyone had at last left, somewhere around two-thirty in the morning, and Kate and Donald were stacking punch cups on the kitchen counter for the maid to take care of when she arrived in a few hours, Kate mentioned the job offer to Donald. He’d smiled his vague smile and said, “I only introduced you as a courtesy, don’t be silly. Stuart would have chastised me if I hadn’t. But you aren’t seriously considering teaching, are you? There are plenty of other people in this county for that.”

He’d stepped up to Kate to put his arms around her, but she’d moved back. “What do you mean?”

Donald chuckled, shook his handsome and prematurely graying head, and said, “Honey, I’m glad you finished your degree. I know you’ve worked hard. But you weren’t seriously considering going into education, were you? I mean…honey, Donnie needs you at home. I need you at home. Please don’t make me say things that will sound like an old fashioned chauvinist, but there really is no need for you to teach.”

So it would look bad to you, would it? she thought. Your wife getting minimum pay as a first year teacher, lugging books to and fro, calling parents to set up conferences, wiping other people’s kids snotty noses. Much too comfy with the regular Joes, Donald?

“Well,” Kate said. “I wouldn’t think there would be an opening, anyway. It’s the middle of the year.”

Donald had kissed her forehead. “True, true.” He smiled. “And wasn’t tonight just grand? I’m so glad to be home. It will be good for all of us, settled once and for all.”

Christmas Day galloped in, and with it a spattering of snow, a emerald ring for Kate, and a rifle for Donnie with a big red bow and a promise from Donald that they would go turkey hunting on New Year’s Eve. Donnie, still small for a seventh-grader but solid in shoulder and arm, had gawked at the weapon. Donald had patted his son on the shoulder and said all McDolen boys hunted turkey and game on their land.

Donnie was thrilled. So was Kate. Up until now, Donald had had little time for Donnie. Now, at last, they could try to recapture the father-son bond.

But the connection was a sharp and double-edged one, when all was said and done. Donald, comfortable now in his element, his territory, had done “what my father did for me.” He let Donnie get by with things Kate would never have allowed on her own. He introduced Donnie to cigars, a “McDolen tradition, Kate, only the best blends, of course.” Then, of course, the McDolen’s favorite beers and wines over dinner and after dinner. Donnie, once more like Kate in his cautious, shy demeanor, began to embrace his McDolen heritage with gusto. Donald’s attention with Donnie was hit and miss, with his work and his own stable of local buddies, but Donnie discovered quickly that the McDolen name had incredible pull in Southampton. He discovered that when he decided something was in style, the other middle school boys followed suit. They could smell the money on him like dogs to a ham bone, and Donnie loved it.

The rifle that first Christmas had been the beginning of the changes in Kate’s son, the beginning of his loss to her. Kate hadn’t known on that first Christmas morning as she’d stood outside the sun room door wiping the cold, wet snow out of her face and laughing as Donnie and Donald had test-fired it against the trunks of the barren trees of the apple orchard, that Donnie wouldn’t be living at home much longer. That her shy child would find power and clout as intoxicating as his father’s fine wines.

She remembered the cold of the snow. The wet pattering on her cheeks and neck. Donald’s shouts, “Yes, that’s right, just a bit higher! Pull!” The crack of the discharge. The splintered apple bark.

She remembered.

There was a loud slam. Kate started. Her head whipped toward the bathroom door and she saw a shadow pass over the surface of the dresser. The girl was back.

Freezing water was pouring from the shower spigot and down Kate’s naked body.

The girl had returned.

Oh, bring her on, Kate thought, her breath picking up again and her arms tightening. She found herself smiling. Let’s have it out.