Through the Barricades(Charles E.J. Moulton) Through the Barricades

A Story by Charles E.J. Moulton


I turned around to face my mother again, very quickly this time, shocked and manic, even, as if struck by lightning. I knew she was a prude, but this was ridiculous. My hand bag swung around to hit me on my back as I turned and my long black hair ruffled a couple of locks on to my forehead. Hearing those words from my mother’s mouth exceeded shock.
“Shame on you.”
“Shame on ... me?”
“Yes.”
“For what?”
“For what you wrote.”
“It’s a part of my job.”
“You know how people talk.”
“Do I give a shit what people think?”
“Don’t say the word ...”
I interrupted her. “I’m nominated for an award.”
My heart beat raced like crazy now and I think my spleen had just caught fire. If I wasn’t such a good girl I would’ve broken something.
“But I guess that doesn’t matter to you. You just care about what people might think. Never admit that sex is a part of life. Noooo,” I smarmed. “Babies come with the stork.”
I was half-way out the door, sorrily disappointed with her for not even mentioning once that she actually liked having a successful daughter.
“I didn’t say that.”
“What then, mother?”
“I didn’t say that babies come with the stork,” she said, just a bit louder this time.
“Oh, I see. Really?” I asked. “That people in the 21st century should enjoy making love to each other, stop expressing their feelings and rather praise the people who get sent to war and die.”
“No, I’m not saying that.”
My mother had played this game with me for years and I was not going to go along with it. Not anymore. Even with this lump of spiritual pain that was forming in my chest, I was not going to accept the knife she had thrown into my heart. I was not a little girl anymore.
“Mom,” I retaliated, shaking the fallen lock away from my forehead, taking a few steps away from the house door and back into the kitchen. “I am 32 years old, a mother of two, I am successful at what I do. They call me ‘the Mother Teresa of Couples’. The fact that I like sex and promote that, and you don’t, does not mean that I sleep around. I am just as faithful to my husband as you are. And you would need a good roll in the hay once in a while.”
“This is not about sex,” my mother croaked.
“The what is this about, huh, Mom?”
“Decency.”
“Decency?”
“Yes,” Mom growled, wiping off the stove and lowering the glass cover on it. “I do hug him. I just have a problem with you saying what you said in that article, saying all those things.”
“Even if your daughter’s article got published in the New York Times,” I spat. “That seems to matter ... what? Nothing?”
“It does, it really, really does,” my mother said.
“Oh, yeah? What was that about decency? Society is an invention and the corporations use us, sending our young people into war to kill people who never harmed us while we blame people who make kids. So much for decency.”
“You’re exageratting, Barbara,” my mother spat, pretending to be busy in the kitchen.
“Eternal and peceful truths that promote love and understanding. The Hindus use sex as a way to enlighten their spirit. They call it Prana. That is decency, mother. To hell with what people think.”
“I am not a Hindu, Barbara, and neither do I want to be.”
“What is Dad doing now, Mom?”
My mother turned around, clutching her kitchen cloth, no, wringing it. “Vacuuming the upper floor,” she whispered.
“Didn’t he do that yesterday?”
“Do you expect me to do everything around here?”
“Does father expect to clean up all the time with you treating him like some goddamn gofer?”
“Do you expect me to kiss his feet?”
“No,” I snapped, taking three decisive steps up toward her, slapping my hand against the kitchen sink. “But I do expect you love and respect him.”
“Who ever said I didn’t respect him?”
“Do you kiss him good night, caress his cheek, tell him you love him? Mom, do you guys ever make love?”
“We’re 69 years old.”
“I have a couple in my therapy sessions who are way over 70 and I gave them a full crash course in sensual practices to spice up their sex life.”
“What do they do with their crutches and wheelchairs while they are at it?”
“They’re both marathon runners, mother.”
“I’m not.”
“Look,” I retalliated, “life is much more than a bunch of compartments. You should be old enough to realize that.”
“I don’t need to change, Barbara.”
“Change is the only constant in life.”
“Really now?”
“You close yourself up, shut yourself down and exclude us from your life. And then you hollar nasty things when someone uses the wrong washcloth to clean the kitchen. Or when did you last time actually open up to us? Thank God I don’t live here anymore.”
“Oh, stop.”
“Have you listened to anything I have told you?”
Her body grew more tense, her posture tightened.
She looked up, away from me, toward the living room table. Not a candle out of place, not one wrinkle on the table cloth. It was a completely different look in her face. One of regret.
“What are you hiding from me?”
“I’m not hiding anything,” my Mom said, wincing, her gaze distant, her voice small.
My mother trembled. It plagued her. My mother chewed on something, a thought, a truth, something rather. It was nearly impossible for her to admit it, though. I knew some very sordid and painful truth was hidden in there.
“What’s going on?”
“Nothing.” She looked down, folding her arms across her chest. I had seen a hundred patients do this and it all amounted to the same thing. Denial.
“Really?”
I waited a moment longer for her to tell me what was going though her mind. In that moment I realized a horrible truth. I was this accomplished couples councellor, famous for my patience and understanding, but when it came to my mother I just couldn’t stay calm. It all seemed a bit hopeless. Ironic, wasn’t it?
I spoke very softly now.
“Your daughter is about to be nominated for the Oliva Espin Award and you ask her if she sleeps with her patients.”
Sunday coffee chats, asking her what her lady friends in the sewing club had thought of her cheese cake. It had been a social call.
“I’m sorry I raised my voice,” I said, knowing that she had been unfair, but that my mother probably could not help being that way.
My mother shrugged, her arms still folded across her chest.
“Be well.”
“Thanks for the coffee.”
My mother nodded, flashing a very strained smile, the wrinkles around her mouth revealing too many moments of pursing lips.
“Bye, Dad!”
“You popping by tomorrow with the kids?” he called down.
“Yeah,” I answered, tiredly. “I am. In spite of everything.”
I turned back to my mother, so many words to say and no possibility of saying them. Here I was, the trained shrink, shrunk to tears. I could help everyone but myself.
The lines of sacrifice were our history.
I knew she loved me. But I also knew that she had never been able to break away from her conservative attitudes. I lost my nerve, turned my back and headed for the door. This time, though, I walked through it and threw myself into my car, my tires skidding.
Typical me.
I had not driven further than the first stop light when I started to doubt my own senses. Had my reaction been justified? I had treated mother badly, had I not? But she didn’t respect my success. I mean, I was very successful. Why was she not proud of me? If she was, why was she not able to show it?
I sighed, drumming my fingers against the steering wheel, wondering how I had endured my mother all these years.
“Money. Stick the money into Barbara's pocket, as long as she agrees with me.”
No.
I knew there was more to Mom than that.
Something troubled her. I knew that look. In her heart, something, a realization, a memory, had just exploded back into her memory. But why could I not help her tell me about it?
Was I involved? Was it my fault? Holy shit, there was that guilt again? Crap, everything was not my fault? Okay, so maybe the cliché was true, shrinks becoming shrinks because they were crazy themselves. In this case, my prehistory had actually made me famous. I had seen in my parents behavior how not to behave.
Maybe my mother thought she could not tell me about it?
I just had to find my peace, park my car somewhere and think, watch the ocean waves splash against the sea shore and, hell, try to find myself.
So I did, eager to just retract, meditate and chill, finding a spot to park my car, wandering over to my favorite bench, sat down, just letting the wind whisper sweet nothings into my ear.
The ocean breeze swiftly blew across my face the day I sat down by the ocean, looking at the opulent waves. So calm, those waves, so honest, no wave pretending to be something it wasn't.
All the afternoons I had spent here with my father returned to my mind, us sharing moments, recollections, laughs, or just us trying to talk away mother's unfair assumptions. The first meetings had seen me licking lollipops. During the later ones, Dad and I had shared soft drinks. In the last decade or so, we had shared beers.
I was alone now, no pedestrian, not a dog walker, no kissing lovers, no sunbathers. Just me and the Atlantic. And my buddy, the most well-known drunk of all, Mr. Melancholy.
My agitation sank down into my subconscious, dwindling down almost to a bare non-existence. A bit of the eager hate haunted the spectres of my heart, making me feel like a moth drawn to a flame.
A thousand thoughts criss-crossed through my brain as I sat there on my favorite bench overlooking the ocean. My wonderful husband. My sons. My job. Our house. I realized my college graduation at age 24, even my adamant ambition to become a couples therapist, it had all come from seeing my Mom not even once telling me she was proud of me. So I kept working harder and harder, topping every victory with even greater victories, hoping that one day she would say those infamous words: “Barbara, I’m proud of you!”
My mother. It meant something to me that she said she cared. Maybe she did. But she certainly did not show it.
In my mind, I drifted in and out of consciousness, the afternoon sun sending me into blues country. Songs I had heard as a college student came into mind. “Picture Postcards from L.A.” by Joshua Kadison. “My Melancholy Blues” by Queen. “Just the Way You Are” by Billy Joel. I don’t know what it was, but the ocean breeze, the sunset, the loneliness, it all made me feel like one of those sad babes in the Hollywood flicks from the 1980’s, walking the beach, looking out across the ocean and crying. Some guy having left them and broken their hearts, smoochie love-songs by some Richard Marx-like guy playing saxophone-hit could be heard. “Why did you leave me, baby? When we had it so good?”
“You left me a long time ago, Mom,” I whispered to myself.
I sat there by myself, reaching a kind of shallow and wounded peace within, when I heard the tires of a station wagon park. By the sound of it, it was our car. Dad? Had my father overheard us, deciding to again try to heal the wounds? Then I could expect a cake and some cash as replacement for forgiveness. God forbid that she should actually face up to the challenge of saying that she was sorry.
I turned around, seeing our Dodge 4 by 4. Up until now, all these quarrels of ours had followed this same scenario. Dad’s friendly round face sighing at me literally tore me to shreds every time. Living with Mom literally was killing him, he would whisper as he said good bye by the door. I was torn between telling him I loved him and asking him why he had married Mom in the first place.
This was not father.
This was Mom behind the wheel.
She wore the same expression she had worn back at home.
“Mom?”
I turned back toward the ocean, trying to focus on the waves, pretending not to care, waiting for the sound of a car door opening. No, fearing to hear a car door opening. Either that or a station wagon driving off again.
Neither of those things happened. In fact, it took so long for anything to happen that I thought I had imagined seeing her at all.
All at once, my mother appeared beside me, her hands now at her sides. She looked young, younger than ever, the wind ruffling her skirt. I even noticed her gorgeous figure and how beautiful she must’ve looked in that wedding gown. Strained, very tense, yes, nervous, oh, yes, but gorgeous. It had taken a lot a courage for her to come here all alone. Dad was probably doing the sign of the cross right now.
I couldn’t help myself, but something in that moment caused me to feel that she had made a decision to share whatever it was she had been hiding all these years. She watched the waves with a calm poise, her hair swaying to and fro in the wind, the setting sun orange on her cheeks. I looked out at the ocean with her and for the first time in years, I felt connected to her. This wasn’t the angry shrink screaming at her frustrating old lady. This was a daughter bonding with her mother. Two women, two generations, one spirit. Had I ever felt that way before? I don’t think so.
I think something in the mood of this moment caused her to make a move. Maybe the fact that I was not putting the pressure on her. Whatever it was, she sat down, folding her hand onto her lap.
So we sat there next to each other, wondering who would say something first.
I heard her breathe in twice. starting whatever story she had to tell me. “Barbara,” she began. This was obviously not easy, but she was keen on getting this out. “I’ve been dishonest with you, dishonest with your father even.”
She looked out, the salty air obviously rejuvinating her spirits. Or something like that.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“I mean that I have been hiding things from you.”
I took her hand. “We were here so often, father and I, wishing you had been here with us. But you never came, Mom. Why?”
She sighed. “Fear.”
“Of myself.”
“Why?”
She looked at me, openly. “Buried secrets.”
There was long pause, the waves our friends, the sunset our lover, the beach our spiritual healer.
“I wish I were out here more often,” she side-tracked. “It’s beautiful.”
“Yeah,” I crooned, looking out, amazed at how my mother was opening up. “I know.”
“I swore never to tell you this,” she began, looking down at her aging hands, regarding her fingernails, “but when you asked me if I ever listen to what you say, it made me think of my own youth. The words you used were your grandfather’s. To the letter. He used exactly those words many years ago to prove a point. I didn’t listen to him. I never did and because I didn’t, he pushed his agenda even further and he ruined my life. If what you wrote in your article about karma is true ... well, then it’s time to solve that karma. I’ve harmed you enough.”
“No, mother,” I said, putting my hand on her leg. The fabric of her dress was soft. I suddenly realized I had not touched my mother in years. I mean, really touched. The obligatory hug, yeah. This was a family touch. Tenderness.
My mother shook her head, smiling lovingly at me.
“I don’t want to be responsible for another cataclysm.”
I had not seen this side of my mother since my childhood.
Sometimes things happen in our lives that touches us and this was one of those moments.
“This was before I met your father. The boy was handsome. 21 years old. A professional athlete. And, boy, what a great lover he was. Magnifiscent.”
I gazed over at her, flashing her a careful smile. “Gina Thorpe, the bastion of celibacy, speaks of someone being a great lover?”
My mother’s grin was the first honest grin she had given me since I had been a little girl. I could not remember when I had seen her so relaxed. Apparantly, I had opened up a very old vault. “I created you, Barbara, and, yes, sex with your father...”
She paused, her hands wringing again, her lips trembling.
“... was nice.”
Mom looked me straight in the eye, totally honest with me. For the first time in years, she was being totally honest.
“Before I knew your father, my boyfriend was all I wanted. I’d met him at a sports game. Your grandpa hated him. He had wanted me to hook up with one of the local fellahs, maybe some shop owner’s son or something. Even the kid of a local politician. This guy, though? He thought he would lose me forever and just see me once a year. He told me never to see that boy again, saying he would refuse to pay for my upcoming education as a sports instructor if I chose to be with Frank. That was his name, the athlete I loved. And I was so in love. Man, Barbara, I felt heaven's gate opening up when we made love. There was so much tenderness. I was head over heels in love.”
I saw tears in her eyes now. Another human being entirely. As she spoke on, she looked down on her hands. They were not wringing. She looked at her fingernails as if the answers to her problems were in her fingernails.
“I think the problem was that I was 17, slightly under-age. He was 21 with a burgeoning rugby career. He had an offer from a team in L.A. I wanted to move with him there. We had it all planned. I was going to study in California, he would be doing his training and play games. Marry, kids, me as an instructor, we were even looking at places where we could buy houses. It was a perfect life. Or it would have been. My father said I would become his little housewife.”
“Instead you became Dad’s little housewife.”
“Touché,” my mother said, raising my eyebrow. “No,” she added, patting me on the leg, causing me to think back to when that had happened last. “I love your Dad.”
For the first time in years, I took my mother's hand. It was a very positive feeling. She felt it. I felt it. We looked at each other, smiling.
“So I told Frank my father would not allow for me to move to L.A. Frank left and I never stopped mourning him, the wound of that memory sent me into a pain that I guess ...”
She paused, thinking back, her eyes flickering.
“... really had me living in denial.” I took her hand, caressing it and looking out across the sandy beach. “Your grandpa was so mad at me. He said Frank’s globetrotting life style would have ruined my chances to settle down and live a good life. I knew he was wrong, but I never told him. So I buried my love for Frank, my father had his way and I never saw Frank again. He married a cheerleader. He’s living in Florida now. Me? I never ever forgave myself.”
“What about Dad? Does he know about all this?”
Mom smiled. It was a very soft smile. She shook her head, looking out into the distance. The waves carrying a mystery.
“Your father has always been sweet to me, taking my up’s and down’s with such stoicism. But I was always afraid that my story would hurt his feelings.”
She laughed, bitterly.
“I realize now that I hurt him even more by not telling him.”
I now saw the wounds in her eyes. Years of self-hatred now were visible, now that the pretense was gone.
“I have to tell him how sorry I am what a bitch I have been.”
Tears came rolling down my cheeeks.
“No, Mom, don’t say that.”
“I have been unfair to you,” my mother confirmed, grabbing my hand in her now very clearly sweet fashion. “Will you forgive me?”
We locked in an embrace that felt honest and true, her skin feeling warm, her old hands patting my back.
“If I would have gone to Los Angeles, I would never have met your father and made you. And that would have been ashame.”
All the fear and resentment I'd had for my Mom was gone. It felt like two girlfriends sitting on a bench in Cape Cod, wind in their hair, smiling at each other.
“I am proud of you, Barbara.”
I grinned, lost for words.
“You are absolutely right. As the Hindus say, sexuality and spirituality are related. I am even willing to try that Prana therapy on Dad. Who knows? You might be responsible for a new renaissance.”
“Spare me the details,” I mused, taken aback with these massive changes. “But it does sound good.”
“What did you write? A prolonged embrace,” mother sang.
She held up her hand, giddy with excitement.
“Quantum physics proves everything is vibration and energy, matter is an illusion. Consequently, emotion is everything. Sex then is the way for couples to experience what they will be living in after death: loving unity.”
I gave my mother an enthusiastic applause.
“Bravo,” I cheered. “You also believe the bit about the original sin being shame?”
Mom nodded.
“We have to like it in order for us to procreate. The fact that Adam and Eve covered themselves when they left Eden has to proof enough. What a difference confessing our mistakes makes!”
Funny, how certain songs just pop into your head when things go right. I don't know how long we sat there, enjoying the sight of the waves. I just know that as mother and I sat there on the bench, holding hands, our new-found love so strong that I really had to cry. As a young girl, I had become a huge fan of the 80s group Spandua Ballet. They were not the group that were popular among my friends, but I didn’t care. I really listened to their album “Through the Barricades” so often that my mother asked me if I had become an addict. Now, it all made sense.
My mother and I, we really did make our love on waste land, through the barriacades. Her lost love, my found love, her barriers, my will to open up, her prude attitudes, my open sexuality, her lies, my truth. But somehow, we both found each other in the middle of all those differences.
That should be a sign to us all. That, no matter how different we are, we can all come together and find each other in the end, though the barricades. Who knew what agendas our souls had to pass, which horrors our spirits had to face to arrive at this point? Man, I was just happy to be here, holding my mother’s hand, leaning against my mother’s head, feeling so good that we hadd found each other at last. Through the barricades.
My husband and sons wondered why grandma was so relaxed when we all visited my folks the following Sunday. I think my younger son was a bit more comfortable with all her repeats of the words I love you. My older son couldn’t stop laughing. My mother liked that. She knew he was embarassed, though. But that was okay.
I am now a happy grandmother of a young boy, who tells me he wants to be a rock star. My husband and I, we still make love on a regular basis and we make a point of telling each other we love one another. We make a point of letting our children live the life they choose. After all, we borrow our children. We don’t own them. They have to find their own way. Through the barricades. But you know what? If they have faith in their own love, in their angels and in life itself, all will be well. If anything, I believe in that.

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