The Mother Garden by Robin Romm Page A

I tried to lean into the embrace, but it put me off balance.
    â€œI don’t understand,” he said. He sat, placed the bowl in front of him on the floor, and shoved his hairy hand into the remaining beads. The muscles in his jaw pulled back, but the rest of his face got very still. He rocked, grasping his upper arms, kneading the flesh as if looking for a good place to grip. Then he began to cry out. I’d never heard him cry and the noises were tentative and jagged.
    Mateo padded out of the bedroom in his socks and boxers. He looked at me, alarmed. I looked at my father. I’d heard stories about this. Women threw themselves on the graves of their dead husbands, eyes rolled back, throats dilated. But I hadn’t expected it from him. When my mother stopped breathing, he put his hand on her head, then pulled the sheet over her face. He called the attending nurse. He made sure the right papers were signed.
    When my father quieted, I felt the small hairs on my neck and arms reorient. He hung his head, balled his hands into fists, and wept. I kneeled next to him. Mateo followed and kneeled next to me. I put my hand on my father’s back. Mateo put his hand on my back. My father took some deep breaths.
    â€œI’m sorry,” he said. “I’m sorry.”
    I shook my head and patted his back.
    â€œDon’t be sorry,” Mateo said. I brought out extra sheets and blankets and put my father to bed on the sofa.
    Back in the bedroom, Mateo wanted to know how I was. There was a feigned sympathy in his eyes, but behind that, exhaustion.
    â€œI don’t know,” I said. I fumbled for the necklace beneath my robe. Warm from my skin, the beads felt animal and alive, as if inside of each of them beat a fragile little heart.

    When I woke up, my father was drinking coffee on the sofa. Mateo had left for work.
    â€œI’m sorry about last night,” my father said. There was a grayish tint to his skin and his sideburns were completely white. He used to look tall and brusque, always rushing away in dark polished shoes. Now he wilted in beige sneakers and jeans.
    â€œDon’t be,” I said. I went and sat next to him. Momentarily, his eyes locked on my neck.
    â€œI made plans to go sailing today.” He changed his focus, staring deeply at the coffee in his cup. “I’m trying to get out of the house.”
    â€œThat’s good,” I said. But my mind wasn’t linking up to the present. I could feel only the beads.
    â€œI’m going with a nurse from the hospital, but I just want you to know that it’s not really a date.” I looked at him, still staring at the coffee.
    â€œIt’s not a date,” I repeated.
    â€œOf course not,” he said. “How could it be a date?”
    â€œHow could it be a date?”
    â€œHow could it be?” he asked.
    A date? It had occurred to me that this would happen someday, but not two weeks after her death. She’d been sick for years, dying for months, but her death was new. It was like a magic trick, of sorts: now you see Mom in the bed, now you see a bed!
    â€œI can’t believe this.”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œI can’t believe you’d even think of dating right now.”
    â€œI just told you it isn’t a date,” he said.
    â€œShe just died!”
    â€œYael, this is hard for me,” he said. “I know it’s hard for you, too. But I need to do something. I need to get out. I can’t spend my days locked in the house, feeling that I never knew how to be happy and now I never will.”
    Happy? Of course he wasn’t happy. They’d been married thirty years and now she was dead. Why would he be happy? And that he’d never been happy? Happy was a word to be squished through the nose at birthday parties.
    â€œThere’s a lot you don’t know,” he said. “Your mother and I were our own people, not just your parents.”
    â€œPlease