Call Me Charlie

Issue 306

You guys,

The four of us had been drinking. I knew my mom was past the point of remembering the details of this conversation tomorrow. I knew we shouldn’t get into it. But somehow my writing was brought up, specifically my essay, the one I’d written about her, the one I’d submitted to a writing competition under my real name, the one I’d sent to her because I’d promised her that if I ever wrote something under my real name I would, because this was one piece of writing I really wanted her to see.

It was not a glowing profile. I had grievances, things I’d never told her that had bothered me in the past. Still, I loved my mom, and I’d hoped that had come across in the essay.

We’d already had a 45-minute phone conversation where we’d talked through everything. I thought things were good between us. I thought this trip to New Jersey would be a good one. I thought it was the beginning of a more honest and real relationship with my mom. But then we sat on couches in the back room after Sam and the kids had gone to bed, while my dad was passed out in the armchair in the corner with his mouth hanging open, and me, my mom, and my twin sisters got into it.

“You said you hated mom. How could you say that?”

“It was from a BOOK,” I said. “It was a quote.”

“It doesn’t matter. You still said it. Multiple times. Just because Mom has a different perspective than you doesn’t mean she’s wrong,” said Jess, who was perched on the edge of the couch, martini in hand, “and you made her seem like the bad guy.”

I should have known, at this point, that the rest of the conversation would feel like arguing politics. “We’ve all complained about Mom behind her back,” I said, looking from twin to twin, trying to explain. “I know because you have both complained to me. I wasn’t being mean. It’s not like it’s a secret.”

I was met with rebuttals. They never would have written the words, “I hated my mom.” And why did this have to be the first thing I published under my real name?

I didn’t want to defend myself anymore. What I wanted was for them to tell me I was a great writer. I had hoped they would see themselves in my perspective and think about their own instances of poor communication with our mom, instances where she made them feel that they couldn’t share how they really felt, but my sisters had no such realizations.

And then, from Jess, in a patronizing tone I could imagine her using with the middle school basketball players she coached when they complained about playing time: “Charlie, it was not a love letter.”

Even though it was, and I’d written that it was, and even though it was my own personal essay. My sister was telling me it was not.

I turned to my mom. I didn’t care if Jess didn’t get it, and she clearly did not get it. I thought my mom understood the meaning of the essay, I thought we’d been through this.

I searched my mom’s eyes to see where she stood. They were glassy and beady and different from her daytime eyes.

“Yea it wasn’t a love letter,” she said, shaking her head.

It quickly became three against one and I shut down. I stared into space, clamped my jaw shut. My mom stood up, drunker than I’ve seen her in a long time. She grabbed my face, pushing her forehead against mine, and told me she fucking loved me, over and over, and that I couldn’t do anything about it. Her spit was hitting me in the face. I shut my eyes, my arms crossed, rolling my eyes at her though she couldn’t see it.

Before things had really erupted I had yelled at all of them, “I don’t want to be having this conversation right now, when everyone’s drinking! I want to have these conversations all the time, during the day! But no one will have them with me!”

A month earlier I’d had a hard conversation with Jess. I thought she should stop drinking. I thought she would be happier if she did. I told her so. That phone conversation, with all its tears, had also gone well. But in this drunken circle of admissions tonight, my mom said to me, “You should never have said that to her.”

I looked at all of them one by one. “Oh my god, why? She should stop drinking! You all should! You all just enable each other!”

My mouth was dry after three glasses of wine, dampening my point.

At one point Mom demanded I tell her what she did wrong, as a parent. Jess seemed to be waiting for this answer, too. Mom’s greatest defender. Stephanie at least seemed interested in what I had to say about the essay and my perspective, and when I finally left the room, refusing to say anything more to them, she stopped me to say she loved me.

The next day there was no mention of our conversation. When I saw my dad in the morning I asked him if he had anything to say about my essay. “No,” he said simply.

“Well I’d prefer to talk about it now before any drinking starts,” I said.

Then my dad said something about the weather. A big snowstorm was coming in. Temperatures were going to drop later that day but this morning wasn’t too bad.

The next day I left. I hugged my mom goodbye. She made some offhand comment like, “I can’t believe you’re leaving again,” because we were doing another three months in a different country soon. By contrast, my oldest and closest friends had come over the night before and were raving about our travels and so excited for us.

Jess sent me a text with an exclamation point. “Sorry I didn’t get to see you to say goodbye, give the kids a big hug from me please!”

I sent an exclamation back. “Will do!”

And then later, my mom texted to make sure we got in, because I had not texted when we landed like I always do.

“Everyone home safe and sound? It was great having you and those kids.”

“We’re home!” I wrote back. “Thanks for having us.”

—

Until next week,

Charlie