Wait Until Tomorrow by Pat MacEnulty Page A

only one who knew what he was talking about, but he left in disgust. The boy drowned, and there was nothing we could do but watch it happen when the tide came in.”
    As we sit on the wooden bench and the evening dusk rises in a wave of darkness from the horizon, I can see the pain of that
memory etched on my mother’s face, her hazel eyes looking back at a life vanishing before her eyes.

    The director of the Landings is a bully, pure and simple. She’s reportedly got the owner of the place wrapped around her perfectly manicured finger. She cruises into work in her Cadillac and hurries off to lunch with her slightly smaller but no less blond assistant. They are always hurrying somewhere, blowing by in a hurricane of perfume.
    Fortunately we don’t have much truck with them.
    In her little apartment, Mom is claustrophobic and lonely. To combat both issues, she keeps her door open and plays piano, hoping to lure in admirers. She’s pretty effective at it. People wander by, hear Bach or Debussy, and stick their heads in the door, curious. Slowly but surely, she makes a few friends.
    One of them is a woman named Carol, a retired art teacher. My mother’s hobby for many years has been watercolors. Some of them are pretty good. Emmy still has the painting of a clown walking a chicken on a leash that my mother made when Emmy was just a baby. So Carol and my mother decide to paint together. The Landings has an art studio. We saw it when they took us on a tour of the place. What we hadn’t noticed is that no one was actually using it. Like so many of the amenities at the Landings, it is only there for show. The tables aren’t placed at a convenient height for painting, and my mom, being handicapped, has great difficulty in there. But no adjustments will be made. Still my mother and Carol somehow manage to paint together.
    Carol has a daughter my age, and like me her daughter is constantly stopping by to help her mother with one thing or another. Mom gets confused and calls the daughter “Carol’s mother.”

    â€œCarol’s daughter,” I correct her.
    â€œOh, yes. Of course,” she replies, but next time she does it again, mentioning something about “Carol’s mother.” And that’s what we are: mothers to our own mothers. I am constantly wiping my mother’s face, washing her hair for her, and exhorting her to get out and do things with friends.
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    Emmy is also trying to find a way to fit in at her new school. She’s been pestering me to try to get her into the other private school, but it’s not doable. We’ve already received a scholarship at this place, and it would be way too late to get one anywhere else. She’s despondent, but one day she comes eagerly over to the car when I pull up.
    â€œThere’s auditions for a play,” she says, her eyes bright. I can’t help but remember the three-year-old Emmy who stood on a fiveinch curb and exclaimed, “It’s a stage!”
    â€œDo you want me to come with you?” I ask.
    â€œWould you?”
    So I find a seat in the back of the auditorium to watch the auditions. The kids are good, but Emmy’s cold reading is brilliant. She’s funny and quick. The woman who will be directing the show is not actually a teacher. She’s been hired from a community acting group. After the auditions, she bounces back to where Emmy and I are sitting together. Her eyebrows leap to her hairline when she sees me. I’m the only mother there, but she seems friendly and enthusiastic about Emmy.
    â€œYou’ve got a real instinct for theater,” she says to Emmy. Then, still smiling, “I’m not going to cast you in this show, but I hope you’ll audition for one of the shows I’m doing in the community. You’re really good.”
    Emmy and I are confused. If she’s so good, why isn’t the woman going to put her in the show?

    â€œIt’s