Inherited Things

Sensitive Topics Note: Themes of physical abuse, parental abuse, suicidal threats, verbal abuse.

At the hotel we are overlooking the St Clair River. To our left, we can see where Lake Huron and the St. Clair meet, the water is brilliantly blue. The skies are bragging with wispy clouds and sapphire shades.

Owen huffs out of the bathroom. He is seventeen, with dark curly shaggy hair cut right above his eyes, and the body of a young man not a child anymore. I do not know how time has moved so quickly. I wish I could live a million days like today with Owen. We are on our last day of our yearly Mom and son trip. We started the day trying to rent kayaks, but forecasts of microbursts altered that plan. The kindly harbor master on the tiny island of Harsens Island, Michigan said, “you made the trip all this way, please fish my property today.” And fish, we did. The day was epic, resulting in fourteen-inch perch, trophy sized small mouth bass. A day I hope Owen remembers for a lifetime. A memory I curated for him from scratch. A moment in time.

The bathroom door swings open, “Mom, my glasses broke again!” Owen says frustration eminent in his tone. He tosses the broken glasses on his hotel bed. “This is why I want contacts; I’ve told you that, Mom!” I think to myself, buddy, you have tried contacts a dozen times you cannot get them in your eyes. I take the glasses from the bed and ask him if he has the screw, he does.

The hotel air conditioner hums and kicks on providing a much-needed breeze of cool air to calm the tension. “Hey buddy, I am sure the hotel has a maintenance department, they likely have a tiny screwdriver, we can fix this,” I say, keeping my tone even and hopeful. Owen grabs his glasses and goes to the bathroom returning a moment later and says defeated and on the brink of anger, “well I dropped the screw down the sink.” He closes the door. I kick into overdrive. We are on vacation, he cannot see without his glasses.

Quickly, I search for a local eye doctor on my phone. My hair is sticking to the nape of my neck and irritating the sunburn that is blossoming over my neck and shoulders. I am hungry, dehydrated, and exhausted but I can fix this for him. I find a local eye doctor that is still open. Gathering my keys, phone, and Birkenstocks I call through the bathroom door, “Hey O, I am going to get your glasses fixed. I will be back in an hour or so.” A soft “okay” comes from the other side of the door.

Walking outside it feels as though I have walked into a sauna. The air is stagnant with no breeze coming from the river. I get in my car and crank the AC in hopes the musty air will clear quickly. Entering the eye doctor address into my GPS I head out. It is about a thirty-minute drive. I cannot believe the beauty of this location. The lake and river waters are Caribbean blue. The houses are Victorian and the streets are quaint. Owen picked a perfect location for our trip this year.

Driving, I reminisce about how valuable these Owen and Mom trips are to me. I hope he loves them as much as I do. Being a teenager now is impossible with the emergence of social media and the constant pressure: socially, academically, and athletically. I want our time together to be freeing and fun for him.

Tree lined streets pass me on both sides as I crawl through late afternoon traffic, emotion and memory hit me. I am young, six or seven years old. My family is on vacation at Geneva on The Lake Ohio. My Mom is smoking Winston cigarettes next to the pool smoke billows above her. “Mommy look at me!” I say excited, “I can stay underwater for a really long time.” Splashing in the pool wanting to show her my new skill, she does not even look up from her magazine and tells me “Jane all I ever do is look at you! I want a minute of peace and quiet. One minute. You can never give me one minute!”

I turn off my audio book playing in my car and open the sunroof to enjoy the weather. The sun shines and tingles my sunburnt skin. A crane is standing majestically in a small pond of water to my right.

Another memory floods me. I am a little older now, eleven, and I am attempting to do my own laundry. Trying to be helpful. I poured my clothes in the washing machine and noticed there was no laundry soap; in my ignorance to household chores, I loaded the washing machine with dish soap resulting in a volcano of bubbles. Returning home from work my mother walks up the stairs from the basement and hollers, “Jane! You ruined this. Look at the floor. Who is paying for this? Stop crying Jane! That is all you ever do is cry!” I scurry away as she reaches for the wooden spoons in the porcelain utensils caddy on the counter. “Jane! Get back here you disrespectful girl! Jane!”

My GPS informs me to make the next legal U-turn. I missed the exit while I was deep in thought. I turn my car around and the scent of lilacs in bloom filter through my open windows.

I am thirteen now, and notice blood in my underwear. I had heard friends talk about this before, a period. I knew that it had happened but did not know how to manage it. I fold up toilet paper and stuff it in my underwear and find my mother, “I started,” I say. “Started what?” she responds, uninterested. “I am bleeding, I think,” I respond. “Jane, you think or you know. Speak clearly. You would know if you started your monthly flow!” she barks. “Okay, I know Mom, can you help me, please?” I beg, on the brink of tears, mortified and uncomfortable. “Go under the sink in my bathroom, there is everything you need in there,” she says and returns to watching a cooking show on the television.

Driving down a bumpy, unkempt road now, there is a park ahead with children playing. They are squealing on the swings and running in shorts and tank tops. Two boys are spraying each other with squirt guns and running to the river to refill them. I want to tell the parents watching their children to savor it. To slow it down.

I am sixteen now and a new driver. Stopped at a stop sign, I am rear-ended. The damage is not extensive, but it was my mother’s car. I call her, “Mom, I just got rear ended.” “Call 911, they will take a police report for the insurance. Is the car drivable?” “Yes, I think so.” I respond. She hangs up the call. The other driver, a woman in her fifties, walks over to me and sees me sitting on the curb with tears rolling down my cheeks. She asks me if I am okay. Her blue shirt emblazoned with the phrase Life Is Good. This stranger was worried about me.

I drive the car home, and my mother meets me in the driveway. She is furious. I argue with her that it was not my fault the woman hit me. Somehow, in this house everything is my fault. She grabs her keys from my hand and storms away screaming, “I am done with you, your father, and your brother, I am done! I do not know what I did to become such a terrible mother to you! Enjoy your life without me Jane! I should just kill myself and make you happy.” Getting in the car she slams the door shut and screeches the tires pulling out of the driveway. She will be back; she does this often. At least once a month she screams, threatens to leave us, and then comes back with no apology. No remorse.

“Your destination is approaching on the left" my GPS chortles.

I am now seventeen in my memory. I have purchased my own car; I have limited freedom and friends with moms who care deeply for them. They make lunches, spend time with them, teach them how to apply makeup and how to dress. They laugh and enjoy warm summer nights and lemonade. I see now, my experience is not what love is supposed to be. I promise myself, if I ever have children, I will break this generational cycle: I will guide, teach, be calm and nurturing but primarily my children will know they are loved and supported always.

I pull into the small eye doctor parking lot. The gravel crunches under my tires and dust kicks up. I walk in and am greeted by a man behind the counter. “Hey-ya! “Got some sun today, did ya?” he says lightly, in a Michigan accent. “Hi! A bit too much I think!” I respond with laughter. “How can I help ya today?” he asks. I explain to him that I am on vacation with my son, he accidentally broke his glasses, I was hoping I could get them repaired. In true northern Midwest generosity, he takes them from me and tells them he will fix them right up.

I pace around the small lobby area with glasses displayed on every wall. There are framed photos of the man holding fish. There are also photos of him holding trophies as a coach of youth hockey teams, standing on ice skates with smiling boys all holding up the number one on their fingers. I graze my fingers over the frame. Owen played hockey for years, only to stop in his junior year of high school. I miss those days.

A few minutes later, he returns from the back room holding Owen’s glasses in a translucent plastic bag and reports to me, “Good as new! Now you can get back on the water.” I thank him profusely and ask him what I owe him, “a smile and an act of kindness dear is all I will ask for.”

Reversing my car, the tires crunch back out of the gravel parking lot and head to the hotel, hoping Owen is feeling better. The scenery is immersive with bright colors, bloomed trees and flowers, and cobblestone paths. I am listening to the latest psychological thriller book on my Libby playlist, and I have the driver's side window down and my left hand fingers dancing in the wind. The sticky air fills my car. I am smiling, despite the hiccup in our day.

After returning, I find Owen sleeping peacefully. I lay his glasses on his bed next to him and head out to our balcony with my headphones to listen to my book. An hour later the sliding glass door opens behind me, and a fresh burst of chilly air hits my shoulders and sends shivers down my spine. He sits next to me with his repaired glasses on and his gray eyes shining, “Thanks Mom, sorry for being mean.”

The weight of that sentence settles quietly between us. “Buddy, you weren’t mean,” I say. “You were frustrated. Your glasses broke on vacation. That’s stressful. It is okay to not be okay, and it is okay to voice you are not okay. Always.”

He nods and leans back in his chair and puts his feet up on the balcony railing.

“I found this restaurant for dinner,” he says a moment later. “They have axe throwing and elk. Have you ever had elk?” I laugh, and say, “You better hope my axe throwing skills aren’t too embarrassing for you. And elk? Hm, okay then!”

Owen chats about Walleye, bait shops and whether fish can see line at night, but I barely hear him for a moment. I am too busy thinking about the girl I used to be. The one who learned early that mistakes came with yelling, silence, or shame.

Owen showers and with his curls dripping with water we go to dinner. As I suspected he was incredible at axe throwing and the elk was not too bad, but I preferred my shrimp. We ate overlooking the water. Talking about his upcoming senior year, college, his girlfriend, and his catches of the day, which somehow got bigger each time he mentioned the bass.

Back at the hotel, he tells me he is going to slay walleye. I wish him luck and tell him I will be watching him from the balcony. “That's weird Mom.” he says. I smile at him and hand him his room key, a bottle of water and a portable charger for his phone.

It is now 1:00am. A train whistles in the distance. I am happily listening to my book as the cool air chills my skin. The stars are luminescent tonight, and the lapping of the river current against the sea wall is soothing. I can see Owen in the distance sprinting for his fishing net resting on the bench behind him. Quickly, he lays down on his stomach and dips the net into the river and brings up another walleye thrashing in the net. Standing with the net in his hand, he looks up in the direction of the balcony. I do not know if he can see me, but he knows I am there. I know he wants me to see his success.

Not a soul out here tonight knows that something monumental happened. Not Owen. Not the fishermen down on the docks. Not the passengers on the train or families heading to Canada on the bridge beside me. But somewhere inside me, a seventeen-year-old girl finally understands she kept her promise and is proud of the forty-one-year-old woman she has become. She changed everything.

Silently.

Not with a fight. Not with revenge. Just with patience, repaired glasses, and a son who never has to wonder if his mother loves him. I am not the person I used to be. That person did not survive. I am what came after.