Mother Died on a Tuesday

Alexander J. Theoharides

Mother named her Anne with an E after Anne of Green Gables. She told Anne the stories of kindred spirits, raspberry cordial, and handsome Gil as they picnicked beneath the shade of their favorite linden tree. When they walked through the long prairie grass, Mother whispered the names of the flowers—wild columbine, lady’s slippers, Jack-in-the-pulpit. Up North, at their cabin in the woods, Mother dropped her into the cold glacial water and watched Anne thrash beneath the surface. Swim, my darling, she murmured. Swim.

When Anne grew up, Mother grew stern. She worried all the time. Wrinkles crowded her forehead and wove spider webs from the corners of her mouth. She cried at night and in the morning she set a rigid jaw. Finish your meal, she scolded Anne. You can do so much better than this. You’re too thin.

A year later, when Anne went to the University, Mother did not say goodbye. She watched Anne pack her things into her Volvo station wagon. She watched Anne drive down and then pause at the end of their long driveway. She closed her eyes and thought Gil would be a nice name for Anne’s first love. She closed her eyes and imagined Anne’s return at Thanksgiving: The table set neatly. A turkey roasting in the oven. Potatoes on the stovetop. Anne sitting across the table pretending she knew how to drink her first glass of wine. When Mother opened her eyes, Anne’s car was gone.

Mother died on a Tuesday morning in February. She was fifty-eight years old. Anne was not yet thirty. Mother died and when Anne asked how, the doctor said it was painless. She closed her eyes, he said. Then she smiled and passed away. Anne thanked the doctor—she understood quite well the reason for his lies. Mother died and it was awful. Chemotherapy took her hair, radiation took the muscles in her right arm and surgery took her womanhood. Mother died and it didn’t matter. Her mother was not the old woman with spider-web wrinkles, ashen skin and tufts of gray hair. Mother died and Anne smiled because she knew it was a horrible joke gone awry. Anne closed her eyes and Mother still walked through the prairie grass whispering the names of all the flowers; she still told the story of Anne of Green Gables beneath the shade of their favorite linden tree; she still stood on their dock staring through the water as Anne tried to swim.