The Real Mother Read online

  THE REAL MOTHER

  JUDITH MICHAEL

  CONTENTS

  Epigraph

  Chapter 1

  Sara arrived at the airline terminal as the Corcorans walked…

  Chapter 2

  He sat at the head of the table, hands folded…

  Chapter 3

  We practically never see him,” Doug complained.

  Chapter 4

  See, this is what I mean,” said Doug, handing his…

  Chapter 5

  With a flourish, Mack placed the tiny…

  Chapter 6

  My brother gave it to me,” Carrie said proudly.

  Chapter 7

  I don’t know what she expects me to…

  Chapter 8

  Don’t flutter,” Lew Corcoran snapped at…

  Chapter 9

  Mack set a vase of roses in the center of the…

  Chapter 10

  It was like being conductor of a huge orchestra…

  Chapter 11

  Abby saw Sean coming toward her, and held her…

  Chapter 12

  Mack went to see his mother.

  Chapter 13

  I’m thinking of going out of…

  Chapter 14

  Mack was asleep in Rosa’s apartment in…

  Chapter 15

  Carrie hated the house without Sara in it.

  Chapter 16

  I’m on my way over,” Mack said on…

  Chapter 17

  What they saw first was water, the street…

  About the Author

  Other Books by Judith Michael

  Credits

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  “As long as we feel like a family,” Sara said, “that’s all that matters.”

  The Real Mother is dedicated to all families who weather stress and turmoil and constantly reinvent themselves to create love, joy, support, and friendship.

  ONE

  Sara arrived at the airline terminal as the Corcorans walked out, trailed by a young man pushing a cart piled with luggage. She wedged her car between taxis and stepped out to open the trunk and the two passenger doors before extending her hand to Lew Corcoran. “Sara Elliott,” she said. “Welcome to Chicago.”

  “Right.” His handshake was perfunctory. Squinting in the bright sun, he pulled a five-dollar bill from his wallet, considered it, replaced it with two singles, and shoved them into the young man’s hand. He slid into the front seat, turning to Sara.

  “I don’t have a lot of time, I’m a busy man.”

  “We’ll move quickly, then,” Sara said with a smile, and when Pussy Corcoran, fur-clad and rosy-cheeked, had anchored herself in the center of the backseat, she drove toward the city.

  “Never used one of you people before,” Corcoran said, staring moodily through the window. “Taking a chance. Could be a waste of time.”

  “We’ll try to make sure it isn’t,” Sara said pleasantly.

  Everyone asked her how she managed to deal with her clients, spending her days with strangers who did nothing but make demands on her. “It’s like a grab bag, your job,” they said. “You never know who’ll pop out when you answer your phone. It could be anybody. Anybody. The oddest people.”

  Her office telephone number was posted at airports, train stations, and rest stops on highways leading into the city. “Welcome to Chicago,” the signs said above the mayor’s signature. “For an official Welcome, and assistance with your visit or becoming a Chicago resident, our City Greeter is ready to serve you.” Beneath, in bold type, were Sara’s name and City Hall telephone number and e-mail.

  Officially, her title was City Greeter; unofficially, she was General Factotum, Global Secretary, Walking Encyclopedia, Personal Telephone Directory, Everybody’s Schlepper. Officially and unofficially, she was always supposed to be smiling.

  “We’ll be looking at three apartments,” she said when they were on the highway. “And I have the names—”

  “You a broker?” Corcoran asked. “Otherwise, why bother, if we have to find a real estate broker when we’re done with you?”

  “I’m a real estate broker,” Sara said, smiling. “I’ve lined up three apartments for you to look at. And, as Mrs. Corcoran requested, I have the names of four personal shoppers for her to interview.”

  “You’re the one supposed to do the interviews,” Corcoran said. “Weed them out.”

  Sara smiled. “You telephoned yesterday; that gave me very little time.”

  He rubbed the large ring on the fourth finger of his right hand as if ordering a genie to spring forth. The ring looked vaguely military, Sara thought. He filled his seat, a large man, ruddy-skinned, jowly, with a spreading nose and strangely small eyes, his sleek suit tailored to minimize his bulk. In back, Pussy Corcoran was small and round, perspiring gently inside her furs, her sprayed hair shining metallically in the April sunlight.

  “All the apartments are available immediately,” Sara said, “so if you decide on one, you would be in a hotel only until your furniture arrives.”

  “Don’t bother with anything that doesn’t have a view,” Corcoran said. “I require a view.”

  “And a garage?” said Pussy. “So I don’t go out in the rain?”

  “Attended,” said Corcoran. “Twenty-four hours. Same for the door-man. Twenty-four hours. Numero uno on my list, top-notch service twenty-four/seven.”

  “Maid service?” Pussy said. “And big bathrooms? Room to move around in, and one for each of us… that keeps a marriage together? Stays together?” Her chirping laughter trickled down the back of Sara’s neck.

  “Stupid.” Corcoran snorted. He lit a cigarette.

  “Smoking is not allowed in our cars,” Sara said. She smiled. “If you’d like, I can stop at a hotel; you can smoke in the lobby, and I’ll wait for you.”

  “Fucking son of a bitch,” he exploded. “I’m a client, you don’t tell a client what to do; you make clients happy, for Christ’s sake. I’m paying you; it’s my money, and if it’s my fucking money I can fucking smoke in your fucking car.”

  Sara pulled into a turnout on the highway, and turned off the car engine. “I’m sorry, but I did not invent the policy.”

  “Lew,” said Pussy, “it’s only a few more minutes. Is that right?” she asked Sara.

  “About fifteen minutes,” Sara said.

  “Lew, it’s only fifteen minutes,” said Pussy. “Couldn’t you—”

  “Shut up.” He scowled at the cars speeding past, then opened the window and flung the cigarette away. “Satisfied?” he asked Sara. “Never been treated like this,” he muttered. “Been all over the world—”

  Pussy interrupted. “They wouldn’t let you smoke in that limousine in—”

  “Goddamn it, I said shut up!” There was a silence. “Well, what the fuck,” he said to Sara. “We going or not?”

  “Of course.” She started the car and rejoined the flow of traffic.

  “And closets?” Pussy said brightly. “Big ones? And a cedar one for our furs? Big enough for the coats to breathe? You know how they need to breathe. Well…” In the rearview mirror, her appraising eyes met Sara’s. “Well, probably you don’t; but they do, you know. Breathe? They need more room than a bunch of fatties at a convention!” Her laughter chirped again.

  “Shut up,” Corcoran said absently. They turned onto Lake Shore Drive, and he gazed heavily at Lake Michigan, its choppy steel blue waves and tossing whitecaps stretching to a horizon that cut across their view like a knife edge between dark lake and pale blue sky. “Not like the ocean,” he muttered.

  Sara hated both of them. But her hands were steady as she drove, and there was a smile on her face.

  “And maids?” Pussy s
aid. “These apartments come with maids?”

  Sara shook her head. “I’m afraid not. I could show you condominiums in hotels that do provide—”

  “No hotels!” barked Corcoran. “Can’t stand hotels. Everybody out to cheat you.”

  “I can arrange for a maid,” Sara said evenly. “As many as you wish, as often as you wish. Or I can give you a list of the cleaning services we’ve found reliable and efficient.”

  “They cook, too,” he said.

  Again Sara shook her head. “I can recommend two private chefs who are available right now, if you wish to interview them.”

  “Don’t push me,” he said. “Nothing I hate more than being pushed. First we get an apartment, then we talk about cooks and maids.”

  Sara kept the smile on her face, and drove in silence to a sleek highrise overlooking the city and the lake and south to Indiana, and pulled into the garage.

  “Golly,” Carrie said that night as Sara banged pots and pans in the kitchen. “You must have had a doozer of a client.”

  “Right,” Sara said shortly.

  “What was their name?”

  “Corcoran.”

  “Did they—?”

  “Hey, Carrie,” Abby said quickly, “come see what I got at school today. Back in a minute,” she said to Sara, and led Carrie from the room.

  In the midst of her black mood, Sara smiled, grateful for Abby’s sensitivity in giving her time to calm down. Between juggling a job and a house and raising two younger sisters and a brother, it was a relief to see Abby, at fifteen, growing into an adult who could step in now and then, almost another adult in the house.

  And Abby kept it up at dinner, taking charge of the conversation so that Sara could relax, listening or letting her thoughts float free. Mostly she let them float, to her work, dinner invitations she hoped to accept if Abby would stay with the younger ones, the college catalogs on Abby’s desk that meant site visits all over the country. Too much to do, not enough time, and, if they weren’t careful, not enough money. And then she heard Doug say, “I hate it; it sucks.”

  “Not for me,” Carrie said. “I love school. I love eighth grade. What else would you do all day, anyway?”

  “Everything. A million things.”

  “Such as?” Sara asked.

  “Oh, you know.” He turned cagey as he realized Sara was listening, and pushed lettuce and tomatoes around his salad bowl. “Do my carving and clay stuff—you’re always saying how good I am, Sara—and, you know, read…”

  “Bullshit,” Abby said contemptuously. “You never read unless you have to. Ten years old and you hardly ever pick up a book. Read, he says!”

  “I do read! I read a lot! Sara knows… don’t I, Sara?”

  “He does,” Sara said to Abby. “At night, when he’s looking for reasons not to go to sleep. Doug, you might try eating some of the salad; it’s part of dinner. And why does school suck?”

  “Well, there’s this power structure—”

  “This what?” Abby exclaimed. “How the fuck would you know anything about power structures?”

  Sara put down her fork. “Abby, your vocabulary is so boring. Couldn’t you think of some interesting words that don’t sound like everybody else?”

  Abby stared at her.

  Sara shrugged. “I know that most people your age are too ignorant to have a creative vocabulary, but I never thought you were just like them.”

  Carrie looked up from cutting her meat loaf into squares and triangles. “It’s important at Abby’s age to be like everybody else,” she said wisely. “When you’re fifteen you need mostly to be accepted; otherwise you’d feel rejected and left out in the cold.”

  “So, will you be like that when you’re fifteen?” Doug asked.

  “Probably.” Carrie sighed loudly. “It’s really depressing to think about. I’m quite interesting now, but I’ll be so boring then.”

  “Stop it!” Abby cried. “What’s wrong with all of you? I’m not boring! I’m not ignorant! You’re awful! Why is my own family making fun of me like this? I don’t make fun of you!”

  “We don’t talk the way you do,” Carrie said reasonably.

  “What’s so awful about it? Everybody talks like—” She stopped abruptly.

  “Don’t say it,” Sara warned, looking at Carrie, whose mouth had been open to say that that was exactly what they all meant. “Abby gets the point. Doug, if you’re not going to eat your salad, stop playing with it. And why does a power structure mean school sucks?”

  “Because I’m powerless,” he said. “I mean, it’s bad enough at home, with Mack gone so I haven’t even got a man to talk to, but school is the worst. I mean, you’re my big sister and you take care of me and you tell me what to do, but you’re good—you don’t run my whole life, every minute of every day, like they do at school, everybody at school has more power than me, even the janitors; it is hugely disgusting. I mean, some people might think it’s cool, like if they don’t have a clue about what to do and they need somebody to tell them, but that’s not me, I don’t need anybody telling me what to do, I can make my own decisions, I hate it when people put my whole day together and then they say, ‘Here it is, every minute, and if you don’t like it, that’s too bad, you’re going to sit there all day, in that chair at that desk, and DO WHAT WE SAY BECAUSE WE SAY IT.’ Boy, if that doesn’t suck, I don’t know what does.”

  There was a brief, stunned silence at the table, then Carrie said, “He’s a rebel. They’re always quite difficult.”

  “I’m just me,” Doug shot back. “And I’m not difficult. I’m lovable.”

  Sara laughed. “You certainly are. And you’re absolutely right about school; it’s awful, and you definitely should quit.”

  “Sara!” Carrie exclaimed.

  Doug’s mouth was open. “What?”

  “She doesn’t mean it,” Abby said.

  Doug began to mangle the slice of bread he was holding. “Sara, what?”

  “Well, no one else has those problems,” Sara said, “so why should you? I’m sure nobody tells Carrie and Abby what to do in school; I’m sure they do whatever they want all day until it’s time to go home. And of course I can do anything I want at work; no one ever makes me do one single thing I don’t feel like doing. So I think you should quit school and then you’ll be perfectly free, like the rest of us.”

  There was another silence. “You’re making fun of me,” Doug said at last.

  “She is, she is!” Carrie said gleefully. “You deserved it; you were really dumb.”

  “I was not! You all do have it easier than me! If you were ten, you’d understand; you wouldn’t make fun of me. When you’re ten, you’re under everybody’s thumb, but when you’re older you’re more like a grown-up; you get to pick your courses, and go to different classes and choose your teachers, and go out at night—”

  “I can’t,” Carrie said, but Doug rode over her voice.

  “—and drive and—”

  “I can’t,” Carrie said again, but Doug was in full flight.

  “—do your own thing. And you do do your own thing, most of the time,” he said to Sara. “You don’t have to sit at a desk all day like I do, or stay in one room; you’re all over Chicago, and you’re with jillions of people, and I’m stuck with one teacher all day, and I’m oppressed!” He glared at Sara. “You can do what you want. If you decide you don’t like your job, you can leave and nobody will stop you—”

  “And nobody will pay me, either!” Sara snapped. She tried to hold on to her self-control as she felt it slip away, but she was tired, and tired of being reasonable. She glanced at the empty chair at the other end of the table. Coward, she raged silently. To leave just because things were getting tough.

  And then, even as she told herself to calm down, she let go. “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said to Doug, “and it’s about time you took some responsibility for what you’re saying. If being ten is such a big deal, you’re old enough to hear
yourself and stop before you say things that are ridiculous and hurtful.”

  “Hurtful?” Doug asked in a small voice.

  “I can’t walk away from my job; what would we live on? Who else is earning any money in this house? You’re all in school, where you belong, and I’m at work because I don’t have any choice. I’ll tell you what: you will leave school… I’ll call tomorrow and tell them you’re not coming back because you have to get a job so that we can buy groceries and clothes and all the other things you take for granted. And when you’re earning enough for all that, then I can walk away when I have an awful day and I never want to see that place or any of those people again, but until then I have no choice. If you were a little less self-absorbed, you’d be able to fathom this, but then, of course, you’re ten, as you keep reminding us, and all you think about is what you want and what you don’t like—”

  “Sara’s mad!” Doug shouted. “I don’t like it when Sara’s mad at me!” He began to tear chunks off the thick slice of bread he was mangling, and stuff them in his ears. “Can’t hear,” he said in a cheerful singsong, “can’t hear, can’t hear. Sorry, can’t hear a thing.”

  “Oh, gross,” Carrie exclaimed, and shoved her chair back. “Excuse me, I may throw up.”

  “We’re out of here,” Abby said, and they left the dining room.

  Sara gazed at Doug, then burst out laughing. “Okay, sweetheart, it’s okay, take that stuff out of there.”

  “Can’t hear,” he sang. “Sorry, Sara. Sorry Sary. Can’t—”

  “You can hear me perfectly well. Clean out your ears; I don’t want bread clogging up the drains when you take your shower tonight.”

  Doug peered at her. “You’re not mad anymore?”

  “I’m annoyed. That’s different. Have you done your homework?”