She tells me this as she tucks my seven year old self in bed at the old house in Antioch. In my bedroom with the pink walls and the lime green shag carpet. With my writing nook secured on a cardboard box desk between the dresser and the wall, complete with my own peter rabbit story pretty much copied from the little golden book.
"Even if I knocked down the Eiffel Tower?"
"Even then."
She would love me, but she would still wonder to herself whether or not she was a good mother. She asked that several times when we my brother and I were growing up.
"Do you think I'm a good mother?"
Somehow I think I always managed to internalize these questions. Deep down I think I believed it was because of the way I was turning out that she thought she was a bad mother. And maybe it was because of these things that I always took it upon myself to try to be good. I went to church every Sunday even when my father didn't and my brother dragged his feet. I took over my mother's spirit of hold-things-together-while-smiling. And when she was away I picked up the house so my dad wouldn't start yelling when he got home. When conversations turned sour, I knew when to shut up or when to redirect the flow.
When I turned thirteen I can remember sitting on my bed at night, terrified, telling my mother that the next day I wanted to be baptized after church service. I can remember telling myself that now she could know she had raised us right. Now I was a model for Jack and that surely he would follow in my footsteps. Surely my mom would know I was a good kid and that she was a good mom. Surely she wouldn't worry any more. Time passed. I dated a good guy and I went to good Christian college. And I hated it.
And somewhere in there I broke. The good guy and I split up. I wrecked my car. I wasn't perfect, and I dated lots of guys, but what my mom didn't know wouldn't kill her.
And then one day she did know. And so did everyone else. I had "issues." Never mind my 3.8 GPA and my job as the campus anchor-lady. My grandfather sat on the edge of my bed and cried. I cried. I had failed. And it was strangely like someone had died. Some part of me, real or facade, that I didn't even understand then went missing. I wasn't a good kid anymore. I was the rebel I had always wanted to be, but there was this nasty aftertaste to it that I hadn't anticipated, and the gaping hole of what I couldn't understand I had lost.
She's never really asked me if she was a good mom since then. Maybe the question always had more to do with my parents' divorce than with me.
But this big thing, this ace in the hole, was more like a thorn in my side, or a snake bite that spread its venom all over and poisoned everything I had tried to make good. I was flawed, and there was no way I could ever go back.
My brother never got baptized like I did. But I'm not entirely sure what that means anyway. There are things that are never really discussed in my family now. And I can't help but wonder if my mother "still loves me" more when she doesn't have to look at the Eiffel Tower I knocked down. As long as she doesn't see it, it didn't happen. And I don't know what I'm supposed to do about that, because sometimes I feel the same way.
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