The Storm

As the rain poured out of the cool mist and spattered in the parking lot she exhaled the smoke of her unfiltered Camel and looked sideways at her mother who was bracing herself weakly against the rough cedar wall, looking plaintively into her daughter’s face. “Are you just going to give up the rest of your life—all you’ve worked for, all you’ve struggled and sacrificed for—all you’ve ever said you wanted since you were just a little girl,” now choking on her tears, “all you fucking DESERVE—to take care of him and his self-centered demands? Is he going to be your child? Because you won’t be able to have one of your own, you know—he’ll be jealous!”

Her daughter shifted her weight forward and flicked ashes from her cigarette into the rain wishing she could as easily cast away the tension that had grown unbearable during the harrowing drive down from the summit of the mountain on whose midway shelf this small town stood. The rain had beat down on them unmercifully as she had driven, hands clinched upon the steering wheel, winding down the steep, unpaved road, barely more than a hiking trail, occasionally sliding towards the edge in the slippery clay and gravel. Her body had been frozen, spine incredibly straight as she leaned forward, eyes fixed on the road ahead. Her mother had been oblivious to the extent of her tension with the drive itself as their intense conversation had continued uninterrupted, and apparently, she’d been impervious as well to the percussion of the storm enveloping them, and their precarious position in it because of the heightened storm that had been going on inside them both.

“You deserve more than this,” the words came from a deep place in her she’d never touched into with her daughter before, maybe never touched into at all. They tore through a carefully grown membrane of separation strengthened through years of loving detachment into this intimate and painful place of empathy with the terrible dilemma in which her daughter struggled, a dilemma with which she was all too familiar. Recognizing this, she felt a pang of guilt in knowing her daughter had been a first hand witness to her own crippling ambivalence in a situation unarguably similar. Still, the mothering place that had opened up in her forced her with a fierceness to continue to engage in her daughter’s defense; as if, this time she might save them both from the ominous, inevitable outcome.

“It breaks my heart to see this happen to you. You know I’ve never tried to tell you what to do—I’ve always been able to depend on you for making good decisions. But this is something that is going to affect you for the rest of your life—it’s going to change the course of your life—and our relationship forever! I have to say this now to you, or I’ll never be able to forgive myself in the future. I would be remiss in my responsibility towards you as a mother and as someone who has loved you more than anyone could,” she choked back the tears, “if I didn’t entreat you to give to this decision all that incredible intelligence you have, Caitlin!” She had given her first daughter a name that came from the Irish roots she would carry in her bearing alongside the more dominant Italian ones expressed in her usually warm brown eyes, now looking bleached and tired.

The rainwater splashed up from the pavement onto their heavy hiking boots as they huddled for shelter under the eave of the roadside coffee house where they remained even as the temperature dropped so that the younger woman could continue to draw nicotine from the sweet smelling Camel to medicate the outbreak of anxiety she was no longer able to conceal. Her already pale face becoming thin and angular, the ridge of her jaw prominent, she turned to look at her mother with a plea for understanding in her eyes, “Mom, I’m trying to consider everything we’ve been through in the last year that could be a factor in the way he’s acting. I know I can’t go on with things the way they are, but I also feel like I need to give it a chance.”

“Oh, my god,” the mother said, as she thought of her own twisted experience so long ago and how it must have impressed upon her daughter the potential of repeating the same wounded response. With a gravity she hadn’t felt in years, she bore out the words that burdened her chest and burned as they pressed through her throat, while shaking her head in deep recognition of accountability, “I’m so sorry, Caitlyn—I can’t help but feel my relationship with Bill, and your being made so aware of it must have set you up for this!”

“Oh, Mom, let’s don’t go there please—I can’t talk about this anymore today!” She flicked the remains of her Camel from between her first two fingers using the cleanly clipped thumbnail that in her youth had been kept long and sharply pointed for digging into her sister’s arm when all else failed. These agile, quick fingers with cleanly clipped nails were joined to rosy, rough-skinned hands scrubbed frequently—hands of a surgeon which had gained strength and precision, her mother knew, and confidence in working with daily situations of life and death. The thirty hour days of intense demand for perfection in performance without food or sleep during her residency had conditioned her for living in this current turbulence. But how long could she continue at this pace? “Let’s go, said Caitlyn, it’s getting cold, and we need to get back.”

The older woman, feeling the weight of her sixty years in this moment, peeled herself from the cedar wall where her twenty year old Gortex rain jacket had adhered under pressure, pulled the hood over her head and stepped out into the rain. Her daughter pressed the lock release, got into her small, sporty Saab, and reached for the button to unlock the passenger door. They were quiet now, as it seemed there was no more they could say. The rain had slacked up and the state highway they pulled onto was smooth and well banked. The way ahead was clear, and around the curve bordered on the left by towering layers of rock, they could see Denver in the plain below.