Sisters of the prodigal - short story

Christian Century, June 1, 1994 by Madeleine Mysko

I guess it says something about Mother and Noreen that Mother doesn't know just how much Noreen really would mind. And I guess it says something about Mother and me that Mother doesn't understand that I have to drive all the way down there every other Friday, even though I guess she could just as easily take a cab like Frank says. As a matter of fact, it's me and not Noreen who talks to Mother on the phone every single morning of the week except Sunday, but I still feel I have to keep driving her to the beauty shop because I know if I don't, it won't be a cab that Mother calls. It will be Noreen. And Noreen does enough already.

Right now I'm trying not to think about how much easier it would be for all of us if Mother would move into Clearfield. Clearfield is a retirement home in the county, the answer to my prayers and to Noreen's too. Mother actually discovered the place herself when a friend of hers moved there. Mother likes the apartments and the gardens. She even knows the chaplain. He used to be the pastor at St. Luke's, years ago, when we were little. Clearfield is a really nice place but hard to get into. It was Mother's idea to put her name on the waiting list. She filled out the forms three years ago last January. Just in case the house got to be too much for her - that what's she said. The house was already too much for her back then-too much for Noreen and Bob and the kids. Poor Noreen's been waiting and hoping for Clearfield ever since.

So this morning, when Mother told me that, of all things, Clearfield had called to say they finally had a place for her and did she want it, I got this sinking feeling and I haven't felt right since. Of course, Mother needs a few days to think about it. "You should take a few days to think about it," is exactly what I said to her. But I know - and she knows it too - that a few days isn't going to make a bit of difference. Mother has no intensions of moving into Clearfield now. How can she, when her only son has just returned from the dead and is living with her in the house on 41st Street?

So I guess that's why I couldn't bring myself to break the news to Noreen this afternoon. I started off all right, in a roundabout way, with that story about Gerald going up to Hank's Hardware to get a new screen for the kitchen door. But I kept running in circles around the point, and then I said something like, I suppose the next thing you know he'll be taking her to the beauty shop," just to make Noreen laugh.

"I wouldn't be a bit surprised," is what Noreen said, but she didn't give me so much as a smile, and then we got off on my daughter Amy's prom dress. That's coming up in May. Noreen wants to buy the dress - she has three boys and thinks she missed something never having a girl.

The funny thing is, though, Noreen and I are surprised-by Gerald, I mean. Everything about him has been surprising since the day he came home. He looks nice and he dresses nice and his hands don't seem to shake anymore. And of course he can't do enough for Mother. In fact, Gerald is so surprising we hardly know who he is. But Noreen and I don't talk about that. Just like we never really talk about the old Gerald either - the one who said awful things and did awful things and disappeared when Mother needed him most. Noreen and I - we don't look back and we don't dare look forward. I guess you could say we're just taking our brother one surprise at a time.