When we were kids Sundays were for waffles. Hot, buttered, syrupy waffles. It made a house a home, right down to the last uneaten waffle that got fed to the dog. Last weekend, I realized I needed a waffle iron of my own, the old-fashioned kind. It was hard to find here, but I finally found one on ebay, and I spent a lot of money on it. After all, Angus' kids were coming. I wanted to make them waffles. I needed to make them waffles.

So I got your voice mail. My phone had been on silent in my pocket, as we'd spent the day with Melissa and Jeff in the New Forest. I didn't hear it ring.

But then, had I seen it, I wouldn't have answered anyway.

I listened your voice mail just before bed. You're quite good at sarcastic, damaging voice mails. You always have been. I listened. Shrugged. Deleted. Took a sleeping tablet and went to bed.

I got your news. You must be so happy. You have everything you want now, the perfectness in your life is so complete. I don't begrudge you it, because not only is it bad karma to do so, but I simply don't. How ironic that days after you found out you have the perfect baby, we found out we didn't. That was the sleeping tablet necessity, in case you hadn't guessed it. The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away. But you didn't need to guess it, the timing of your call told me all I needed to know.

Remember when we were growing up, and you would wring your hands and moan about why did no one love the girls? What was so wrong with us? Why did all the grandparents fuck off and abandon us and, as the nuclear family became a nuclear fission and we picked up folks on the wayside, why did they not love us, too? Why why why why why?

You maybe don't realize it, but it used to eat me. I used to sit there and think: What am I doing wrong? What can I be that would make people want to be around me? What if I were prettier or smarter, browner or whiter? What if I were worthy enough of being loved?

I don't blame you for my mental illness. My problems are my own, even if the seed that became the forest of my issues started from a very young age, in a very unstable house. But I do blame you for being a hypocrite. I'm calling your pot black, and I'm doing it here. Because, you see, I have two tow-headed stepkids. I have two children that I get to see once a month, and for that month Cartoon Network hits the airwaves at 8 am. The dog is a best friend, the house seems to have more things in it, and somehow, I feel the walls inhale and exhale with the pitter-patter of not so tiny feet. But do you ask about them? Never. Do you even acknowledge their existence? Nope. They are a non-entity to you. Did you know that he asks about them? He sends them gifts. He even got on the phone to wish them Merry Christmas. He tries, and the kids are shy but he doesn't care, he keeps trying in small ways. Only now maybe all that will change, I don't know.

But I have at least broken the cycle. I don't wonder and muse aloud why you don't love them enough to be in their lives, it's a silent process that I debate internally. I don't mention you to them at all, because I would never, ever let on to them that there is someone that can't be bothered with them. For every moment that they get to be here, they will only know that they are loved by anyone that crosses our fucking threshold, and I can't express in words the fierceness I feel about this.

I am many things. I am awful at most of them-talking, feeling, singing, believing, hoping, being. I can list in the single digits the few things that I am good at. It's not much. I'm not good for much, you know that. But you know one of the things that I am good at? I think I'm good at being a stepmother. I'm good at answering the Hollywood questions ("Where have I seen that guy, before, Helen?" "He was the bad guy in Lemony Snicket, Jeff.") I'm good at knowing where I fit in the scheme of things. I'm good at providing the Little Nemo Band-Aids and I'm good at knowing when someone wants a hug. I'm good at being distant, when what they need is their father. I'm good at trying to listen, even when I don't have a hope in hell of getting the answers right.

So now I'm a stepmother, I have the unique ability to see things from every single person's shoes in our family. I can see myself in my father (always on the fringe, looking in on the team he was never allowed to play on. Stakes are too high, and the fall is too steep). I can see myself in my stepfather (coming in as some kind of parent, but not really a parent, and not really a part of it all in the early days.) I can see myself in my stepmother and Angus' stepmother (the other woman, the whore, the adulterer who breaks up families. The price they pay is a life without children, even when they long for them, and they paper themselves in a life of riches. But they're not really whores and adulterers, they're just people. We're all just people.)

The only shoes I can't seem to fill, no matter what, are yours. But I don't want your shoes, I want my own. The cycles stop here. I will put myself through any kind of hell I need to, I just want to be healthy. I want to continue to try to be a mother myself, and in order to do that, I am going to purge myself of any kind of unhealthiness I need to in my weekly sessions with my therapist, where he confronts my boogeyman. There will be light in me, someday, where there is only dark.

So I make the waffles, two expectant sets of blue eyes on me, hair unbrushed and socks falling down. I pour the batter in, remembering the scents. I close the lid on the waffle iron. It is a disaster, the waffles stick and I have to pick them off. Jeff, a sweet smile and outstretched plate, tells me it's ok, he wants to eat the pieces anyway. I nearly cry. I almost give up. We give the pieces to the dog and I take a deep breath and try again.

I got your voicemail.

I pour the batter, and close the lid.

I was ok not hearing about it.

I find my own gods and pray to them.

I don't want any more details.

When the light tells me they're ready, I raise the lid.

I don't want to know any more.

There, on the griddle, are two deep brown, crusty, beautiful waffles. I smile and sigh and provide them to my stepkids. They eat them and several more. I make enough waffles for Angus, the kids, and then myself. I get the last batch, by which time enticing things have beckoned young minds away from the table. I sit alone at the table and I eat my waffles, the little pools of gold, the small flows of maple syrup. At the last waffle I am full, and in a tribute to the tradition, the last soggy waffle goes to Gorby.

I wash up.

Making waffles on Sunday doesn't make me a mother.

But it helps.

Don't call I don't want you to call I really don't.

I've figured it out.

-H.

Posted by: Everydaystranger at 07:07 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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