a mother's secret hope

I was dancing with my mother at my wedding.

She was a little drunk and rattling on and on.

“When I met your father he had his feet up on a desk in his dorm room.

He’d just started growing a mustache and it looked god-awful. Sort of

wispy. I knew he hadn’t, didn’t have much of a future, work-wise. Not

that taking over his father’s dry cleaning business meant he didn’t have a

future. It wasn’t my future, I can tell you that. I shouldn’t be admitting

this to you. After all these years…darling, this is your day. And it’s been

such a lovely day. Rachel is so...she truly...has wonderful teeth... her bone

structure is just... has she had her teeth capped?”

“No, Mom.”

“You want to know if I regret marrying your father. He’s a good father.

He drinks too much, but so do I. You resent the fact that we don’t have

any money, don’t you?”

“What?”

“Your father just never had any get-up-and-go. He was always so

preoccupied with his model airplanes. How does a man spend half his life

building model airplanes? He’s been trying to sell them on eBay. Nobody

wants them. It’s breaking his heart.”

“Mom. . .”

“Mm, you came out of me like a bat out of hell. What a funny little thing

you were. The doctor said you looked like Winston Churchill. God, and

here you are twenty-six years later. . . and you’re leaving me.”

“I’m not leaving you.”

“I had so many aspirations and expectations of what our family was going

to become. Isn’t it funny how life shapes us? We truly have no control

over our own lives. The gods truly have us on strings.”

“Mom, can we just dance?”

“Of course we can. I was quite a good dancer when I was younger. And I

had a good voice, too. Then your father got me smoking.”

She laid her head on my shoulder and fell asleep.

We just stood there in the middle of the dance floor.

My father approached us.

“What did she, pass out?” he said.

“Looks like it.”

“Jesus H. Christ. Lemme have her,” he said, picking her up in his arms

and carrying her off somewhere.

I sat down. Rachel joined me.

“What happened?”

“She just had a little too much to drink.”

“Did you tell her you’re not going to take over your father’s business?”

“Not yet.”

“When are you going to tell them?”

I took a sip of champagne. “I’ll let you know.”

Outside, my mother was just coming to as my father was setting her on the

passenger seat of his Impala. “What’s going on...are we...”

“We’re just gonna sit out here for a minute,” said my father, shutting the

door, and getting in on the other side.

“Oh, God,” my mother said, taking her sunglasses out of her purse and

putting them on. “Did I...Please tell me I didn’t pass out.”

“Alright, I won’t tell you,” my father said.

My mother groaned, obviously embarrassed.

They were quiet for several minutes, and then she spoke.

“They’re going to move away, Marty, you know that.”

My father just nodded and went into another one of his secret depressions.

By the time I had finally gotten around to telling him I wouldn’t be

inheriting the family legacy, my father announced to us that he was retiring

from the dry cleaning business in order to devote more time to his model

airplanes.