Читать книгу 31 Hours - Masha Hamilton - Страница 11

Carol leaned over the sink and splashed water on her face. She peered at herself in the mirror and dabbed some cream under her eyes. Funny, the way time had played with her; sometimes she looked good, maybe ten years younger than she actually was, and other times she looked at least ten years older. Now, although she felt edgy, nervous, and a little sick, she looked okay. There had been seasons, many, during Jonas’s boyhood when she’d barely noticed her appearance. With Jonas gone—Jonas out of the house, she corrected herself—she’d begun paying a bit more attention. It seemed to matter more, though she couldn’t say precisely why. She wasn’t interested in adding anyone to her life, Lorenzo included.

What she wanted was to give more time to her work. She’d become involved lately in ceramic forms that were art first and vessels second. That took a certain confidence, to put form over function and think it would sell. She was exploring the juxtaposition of female curves with male lines within the architecture of a vase or a set of cups. Female curves, actually, arching away from male lines. A couple friends carried some of her work prominently in Manhattan galleries, and recently a gallery owner in Atlanta had e-mailed, offering to carry six or eight of her pieces. If she focused, she might be able to pull together a show somewhere. She’d been planning a full day of work, but it was more important today to make sure everything was solid with Jonas.

She went to the closet and pulled out an oversized sweater. Next to the closet hung five pictures of her son, one beneath the other, all of which she’d taken. The top photo showed Jonas at age three, vacuuming, an intent look in his eyes. Then Jonas at four and a half, dressed in a red firefighter’s helmet. Jonas as a clown for Halloween, age ten, and Jonas, thirteen, sitting across the table from her in a restaurant—though she wasn’t in the photo. She remembered the meal, his telling her he finally appreciated avocado, though the expression on his face as he ate a bite belied the claim. The bottom picture was Jonas, just turned seventeen, the high school graduate in cap and gown.

She’d been the right kind of mother for a boy—damnit, she had. Now she wanted to be the right kind of mother for a young man who felt things so deeply he didn’t know how to process those feelings, where to put them. She still wanted to protect him—from others, from himself—and at the same time give him the space that would allow him to be honest with her, always. She was certainly flawed, but she was trying. She even wanted, eventually, to be the right kind of mother-in-law, though admittedly she wasn’t sure such a thing was possible. She wasn’t by nature anxiety-plagued. She hadn’t been like this, in fact, when he’d been traveling out of the country; as long as he called a couple times a month, she felt fine. It was all out of her control, anyway.

Now, though, it felt like there was something she could do, even something she should do. Her son needed a mother now, or someone who cared as much as a mother—though why, what for? She had no idea. Her eyes tracked back to the photograph of him in the firefighter’s hat, courtesy of the firehouse they’d visited in the Turtle Bay neighborhood not far from the United Nations. Jonas still had that round, glowing face of a preschooler. His eyes shone, probably with the excitement of the visit. He was smiling, too, but it was a serious smile, as if he already felt responsible for something. She reached out to touch his tiny image. “Hey, kid,” she said, “you don’t have to take it all on alone.” Then, by the light of day half-believing and half-doubting her own intuition, she shook her head and made for the front door, grabbing her coat as she left.