Lauren walked around the bed, took her chair, flopped an arm on her daughter’s bed and leaned toward her. “I thought your dad was a jock, okay? For whatever reason. He was on a scholarship and I just assumed it was a baseball scholarship. He had that kind of look, that’s what I thought right away, when we met. You know, stringy looking.” She laughed, looked at her daughter, smiling. “He was a string bean,” she said. “Still is. So, anyhow, somehow I find out he’s on an academic scholarship. I don’t know who told me. Maybe him. And for some reason, when we were introduced, he started talking to me. Like, a lot. I thought it was because I was a Phys Ed major. I don’t know, somehow that just made sense to me.”
Vanessa … was she flagging? She had days like that. Days and more days. Her mother watched closely. She didn’t say it, but Vanessa looked resigned, too. Her mother flashed, remembering when Vanessa would come home from a stay in the hospital. She’d be fighting back, walking around, just a little hyper, and there were those times she made it back to school and her mother would watch her go off in the morning and she’d worry all day, and when Vanessa came home she’d be tired, but it was great to see her daughter dressed for school and come home from school, flopping on the couch, turning the TV on, staring, turning it off, and complaining about what wasn’t in the refrigerator.
“He asked me out on a date,” Lauren said.
Her daughter revived, lifted her head, furrowed her brow, dropped her chin and looked up at her mother. “The Grand March,” she said.
Lauren reached over, grabbed her daughter by the ear and held it. Pinched it. “I know you’ve heard this before, but you asked.” Blank expression. Vanessa tweaked out a weak smile and nodded. This is what she wanted. Her mother with her, talking about anything other than. She forced another weak smile and her mother saw it and tapped her forehead. “It was a cheap date, okay? He didn’t have a nickel, and I didn’t either. We were students. No money. But it worked out, didn’t it?”
On their first date Paul Hoffman took Lauren Piatkowski to a campus restaurant and bought her what she asked for: a salad. She figured he could afford that, and he could. Bread sticks were free. He had a little pasta dish of some sort. What they ate didn’t matter. They talked through dinner and warmed up to each other. After dinner they talked as they walked the main streets of Galesburg, where she was going to school, and then they walked the back streets and neighborhoods, passed through a couple alleys and through a couple parks, and when they found themselves near the campus again, she asked if maybe he’d like to meet up with some of her friends, at a campus bar.
“Well,” he answered, embarrassed, “I don’t really drink.”
She frowned. A religious thing? Something else? She didn’t drink much, either, did she?
“Is that okay?”
She almost laughed. “Yeah,” she said, “sure, it’s okay with me.”
He walked her back to her dormitory, shoved his hands into his pockets, looked away, looked back and leaned toward her. “I’d like to call you again. That okay?”
“Yeah,” she said. “Sure. Do. I mean it.”
He stepped closer and she figured a kiss was coming in and that was okay with her, but he kept going and he put his head right next to hers, so his mouth was right at her ear. She wondered what to do with her hands.
“You are,” he whispered, “really, really pretty.” Her head started buzzing. “You are the kind of girl who will only get prettier and prettier, I can tell. And you’re smart, too. Very smart.”
He pulled his head back, stared right into her eyes, her thinking: Kiss me. One time. Go for it! But he didn’t. He smiled and said he’d call her again and he did.
She always thought he’d planned that little seductive thing he did, and throughout their marriage, whenever she brought it up, he put his head next to hers so she could feel his breath and her neck and said nothing.
“Your father,” she said, “is the best. I hope you know that.”
Vanessa Hoffman’s eyes were closed. Her mother knew she wasn’t sleeping and so she waited. The waiting wasn’t uncomfortable. Lauren Hoffman understood that her daughter’s internal clock was a bit cautious. Whatever. Whenever. It was okay. Sitting beside her daughter, watching her daughter doze in and out, was like holding a charm in her hand.
Vanessa opened her eyes, rolled her head and stretched her neck. “Mom,” she said, “you’re the best, too.” It was a tossed-off comment, and then Vanessa closed her eyes again. Her mother pulled her hands into her lap, sat quietly and this time the wait was longer. Lauren Hoffman looked at her hands and her nails, looked at her daughter’s eyelids and nose, at her mouth hanging open. She listened to her daughter’s breathing. She looked around the room, all technology and little comfort. She stood, wondering if she should just step out for a moment. Why? Go where? She sat back down. Vanessa was just resting, that’s all. She’d wake up and want her mother there. They’d talk more. They’d talk about whatever Vanessa wanted to talk about, whatever made her happy, and that would make them both happy. This conversation thing – Vanessa’s idea – it was a good idea. Her mother was happy they’d talked. Had anything been revealed? She didn’t think so. Maybe that was the point. Maybe her daughter just needed a normal conversation, so her mother sat quietly and waited again. It was more quiet than she thought it’d be. There were occasional voices passing in the hallway. A phone rang somewhere. Somewhere somebody was tapping on something, softly. Lauren Hoffman studied her daughter, measured her own breathing against her daughter’s. She felt calm, much more so than when she entered the room, and she was willing to sit as long as it took for her daughter to rest.
When Vanessa’s eyes opened, her mother smiled and leaned toward her daughter. Vanessa was pale and blinking herself back into the conversation she’d requested.
Waking up like that, from a catnap, Vanessa took on the appearance of a little girl. Big eyes, sheets up to her chin, lips pale and pressed together. Lauren Hoffman stood up, leaned closer and Vanessa rolled her head to look up at her mother and said “Mom” and her mother decided it was time to check the pillows once more. She patted a few, fluffed a few, moved them around before returning them to their positions. She put her hand on her daughter’s forehead: temperature okay. She sighed, eyed the sheets swaddling her daughter, brushed them, smoothed them at her daughter’s chin, stepped over and adjusted the ones around her daughter’s frame and the ones wrapped around her daughter’s feet. Mother attending to daughter. Wasn’t that the right thing to do?
From Vanessa, a timid smile.
“Mom,” she said. Vanessa had a question she needed to ask. It maybe wasn’t important, not in the grand scheme of things, but she wanted to ask it. That would be fair, wouldn’t it? Who else to ask but your mother? Mothers and daughters have a thing. All mothers and daughters know about the thing, ignore it at times and address it at times. It’s talked about and examined (poorly) and explained (poorly) and it is intensely personal, for both mother and daughter.
Vanessa wondered about her question, the desire to ask it. She’s wanted to know for a while and at times it’s important and at times it’s silly. Childish even. Now, today, is it playful? She’s feeling better today and their conversation … had she said anything to her mother that she really needed to say? Had she chickened out? She wasn’t sure, but their conversation, the being together, it was nice. Comfortable. The question, right there on her lips, she’s wanted to ask someone since her hair fell out. How long ago was that? She thinks she knows the answer, but she wants to hear it from her mother. Is she fishing for a compliment? Will she be acting like a child? A little girl? That would be understandable, wouldn’t it? Under the circumstances? But she’s not a little girl anymore, is she?
“Am I pretty?” Vanessa asked her mother.
Lauren Hoffman dropped to her elbows on her daughter’s bed, extended herself out and put her face next to her daughter’s, slid a hand under sheets until it reached her daughter’s shoulder, then her neck, and then pushed herself even closer until they’re tangled up. She whispered into her daughter’s ear. “Oh my God, Vanessa, of course you are.” That’s what Lauren Hoffman said, inhaling the scent of her daughter. She hiked a knee onto the bed, leaned down, pushed herself closer and suddenly they’re giggling. Both of them. There are tears and they’re silly tears, aren’t they? A wave of relief washes over them, and they take deep, deep breaths, together. Who’s consoling who?
“You are really, really pretty,” Lauren Hoffman said. She leaned away, looked down at her daughter. What kind of tears are they shedding? “You stinker, you,” Lauren Hoffman said. “You’re really, really pretty! You know you are!”
About the Author:
Victor Kreuiter’s stories have appeared in EQMM, Halfway Down The Stairs, Bewildering Stories, Tough, Frontier Tales, Del Sol SFF Review, Literally Stories, and other online and print publications.
