Kodachrome
In all those therapy rooms, I did not tell the whole story
You would not believe the things I’ve said about my mother, time after time in a string of therapy rooms, decades of them, milky light streaming in from useful windows, or rain streaking the glass, or no windows at all, no visible clock except turned away on the shaman’s side, big chairs across from each other, provocative artwork on the walls, tile or carpet or slatted wood on the floor.
I pushed piles of cash and checks across those desks for my redemption; sometimes I even brought a lunch to get me by.
I spoke novels in those rooms: how she did not love me enough, how she pushed my hands off the piano so she could play by herself how she spanked me for infractions I forget, baring my little bottom,she and I alone in the daytime, humorless house, how she kept me out of the kitchen because I was meant for better, how she retired to her downcast bed on glum afternoons, how her elaborate griefs and disappointments leached into my bones like lead, making it hard to think straight about what to expect.
But.
Then.
A little Kodachrome slide falls out of a rediscovered shabby box, dusty and labeled in my father’s hand: 8th Birthday.
And there we are.
Me at the head of the table, checked tablecloth merrily in place.
Me in shiny dark hair, sculpted too-short bangs.
Me in my blue velvet dress.
(I loved that dress)
A cake with lit candles — that cake she made from scratch, frosted pink and white and topped with tiny doves.
And my mother standing beside me in a stylish dress. Stylish. I always said she was dowdy, but there she is in an ensemble: scoop-necked starburst print, turquoise bolero jacket with three-quarter sleeves, for godssake, a silver string of jewels at her neck, and she is hugely smiling,as if presenting me with pleasure, I swear, one hand lightly resting on my back (I loved my velvet dress — did she get it for me? I loved it always).
And on the table each place set with pastel Melmac and an individual glass of milk like a cocktail, a real party that had a plan, and at my other side, my best friend Joanne in her party dress too, and I’m reaching for her arm and touching her as if I can’t wait to tell her something — we had great secrets all the time.
In a cage behind us there’s a parakeet named Petey, and the windows covered with heavy green drapes we thought were classy…we thought our house was classy.
And also at the table are two grown women, my mother’s friends, special invited guests — unmarried “professional” ladies who loved me — I think now maybe they were lesbians and maybe that is why my mother loved them — women outside the men’s world offering her amused annoyance and sympathy and jaded cynicism about all the male bullshit she had in life.
But for my birthday they are there for me: beaming at me as if I was really something,their smart adorable girl, a girl to celebrate.
And so it comes to me, a shock,
a rush:
What if it was all a lie, all those detailed stories, all that knotty analysis, all those wounding anecdotes, all those ribbons of tears, all those encouragements and vindications as I tried to right myself in the fashion of the time: yes, you are right; yes, you are okay, yes, things went wrong.
But, this Kodachrome:
Blue velvet dress, the parakeet, our fancy drapes, that cake with its little doves, two old lesbians cheering me on, my best friend Joanne where I could reach her, how I look perfectly at ease in the center of it all, as if that would be my life of course…
And my mother, transfixing — my mother in her bright bolero jacket and jewels smiling at me, smiling, her hand so lightly on my back.
In all those therapy rooms I did not tell the whole story.
Maybe not too late, this chip of time rivets and fills my ragged heart, evening the score: before life’s bludgeons, so much said and done, here goes:
Maybe I had a happy childhood after all.
