Page 13 of Good Days Bad Days

She’s having a good day. A good day.

Well, what the hell could that possibly look like?

The box of Betty’s belongings starts to slip, and Nurse Mitchell reaches out for it.

“Hey, you look a little overloaded there. Let me help.”

I let her take it, rearranging the puffy coat slung over my arm.

“Thanks,” I manage to say, my voice barely a whisper. I follow her past the living area and the OT room where several residents work on a craft project. Who will I meet today? Betty? My mom from my childhood? The elderly mother who is still angry I never returned home? Someone else entirely?

“I found a few more interesting things,” I explain in reference to the box, trying to act normal.

“Well, that’s just great. It’s beneficial for the residents to have physical reminders of their life stories. Very grounding.” Nurse Mitchell says, her voice a soothing balm to my ragged nerves. “I’m sure your mom will love them.”

I nod and slow down as we get to Betty’s room. I’m like a child again, or a teen who snuck out and was returned home by the police. Nurse Mitchell’s knock is followed by a faint “Come in.” My mouth is sticky, and I might be more anxious than on my first visit.

“Betty, look who’s here! It’s your daughter,” Nurse Mitchell declares as she bursts into the room.

The overhead fluorescents are off, the only source of light coming from an uncovered window.

No music is playing today, and I notice paper plates in the sink as though she plans to keep them.

I shiver, a chill running up my arms and down my legs.

By the window sits my mother, with her freshly curled white hair, staring at her puzzle, a frown tugging at the corners of her mouth. Her lips are bare and pale, and her cheeks are, too. She doesn’t look up.

“I don’t have a daughter,” Betty says, her voice a touch deeper than during my previous visits. It’s a voice I recognize. It’s my mother’s voice.

Nurse Mitchell glances at me with pitying eyes as if she thinks my mom doesn’t remember me, which is an understandable mistake.

Every time I’ve visited, my mom has said she doesn’t have a daughter, but today, the phrase has a different meaning.

I glance at my mom, hoping her deeper, raspy tones are all in my imagination.

“Sorry, dear,” Nurse Mitchell whispers to me after writing a few numbers on Betty’s whiteboard. She takes my coat and hangs it on a hook next to the closet. “She had a great morning. Thought it would last longer. You good?” she asks, always so caring, like she’s my nurse as much as my mother’s.

What would she think if I up and left? On my first day here, she told me she’d understand if I needed a break. She told me I could step out whenever I wanted. I’m sure she’d let me go, but would she really get it?

Probably not. Not many people do—it’s why I let everyone outside of my family believe my parents passed away during my teen years.

It was easier to lie than to explain the whole situation over and over again.

Ian knows a bit of the truth, the foster care and hoarding bits, and I’ve shared a story or two with Olivia over the years, but what they know more than any details of my past is that I don’t like talking about it.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” I say, though I don’t mean it. Nurse Mitchell smiles softly and nods.

“All right then. I’ll leave you two on your own for a bit. Looks like you’ve got some fun things to look through,” she says, backing out of the room. “Bye, Betty. Enjoy your visit.”

“Thank you, dear,” Betty says cordially, preoccupied with sorting her puzzle pieces on the rolling table in front of her. As soon as Nurse Mitchell shuts the door behind her, Betty addresses me directly, all the brightness leaving her voice. “What are you doing here? Was this your father’s doing?”

She speaks of my loyal father as though he’s committed high treason. Even when Betty doesn’t remember Dad, she has a sweet spot for him, she sometimes holds his hand and often enjoys his arm around her when they sit on one of the great-room couches. This hostility, toward him at least, is new.

“Kinda,” I say, stuttering, frozen in place near the entrance. She sighs and rearranges a few oddly shaped puzzle pieces of the same color, eyes never leaving the tabletop.

“I never would’ve guessed he’d do such a thing. But I bet you’re happy to see me locked up in a place like this.”

“No,” I say honestly. “No, I’m not.”

Her hand trembles as she clicks a puzzle piece in place.

“Well, you got what you wanted. You got your hands on my house.”

“That’s never what I wanted.” I’ve never tried to take her house away.

She must mean when I was made a ward of the state.

Back then the house wasn’t nearly as bad, the kitchen mostly usable, a working bathroom, but she and Dad faced similar threats to what they do now.

Clean the house—or else. They must’ve done enough to get the authorities off their backs but not enough to get me out of foster care.

I start to devise a comeback but then I remember Nurse Mitchell’s advice from my first visit—don’t argue. Try to redirect. I hold up the box of belongings. “I brought you some things.”

“I don’t want your fancy gift, whatever it is.” She brushes me away with a flip of her hand. I sit on the edge of the mattress and pull out the items we’ve already reviewed together, setting a few more on the comforter.

“It’s not a gift. It’s some things from the house.” I pick up the picture of Laura holding me as a baby and walk across the room to her green chair. The photo trembles as I place it on the table next to the puzzle. She glances at it and shoves it away.

“Where did you get that?”

“The house, like I said.” I almost mention cleaning out her room, but I know it’ll trigger “good day” mom even though it wouldn’t phase “bad day” Betty.

“You have no right to be in that house.” Her voice rises. “The day you walked out that door, I told you that you’d never be welcome again.”

So, this is a good day. She remembers everything. And she remembers it from her skewed, blame-filled perspective. I didn’t come here to fight, but a response slips out, lubricated by my outrage.

“I was a kid,” I remind her, old resentment flaring inside me. “I didn’t have a choice. CPS took me away because of your junk.” I sound like I did when I was fifteen, arguing with my mom about the mess in the house, pushing back on all her control and rules.

She ignores my response as though I didn’t speak at all.

“And now I bet you’re throwing out all my stuff, aren’t you? I didn’t give you permission to do that. I didn’t sign anything that said you could. Tell your father I need to see him. There’s a lot in there that’s valuable. But I’m sure you know that with your fancy TV show.”

She pushes the wheeled table with both of her spotted, arthritic hands. It coasts a foot across the tile floor, half of the nearly completed puzzle slipping off and clattering onto the ground along with the photograph. I step back, hands up as though she’d tried to assault me.

“I’m sorry. I thought you’d like to see these .

. .” I say with an attitude, picking up the photograph and collecting the puzzle pieces off the floor in handfuls.

Once I’ve retrieved as many as I can see, I let my gaze lift from the floor.

My mother is watching me. It’s hard to believe this is the same woman who told me I was beautiful last Sunday and asked if she could brush my hair—the one who wanted me to paint her nails and gossip about boys.

Today she looks sad, as if her anger is sorrow that’s smoldered for so long it’s caught fire.

I don’t recognize her, but at the same time I do.

I remember moments of kindness and love from my mom when I was a little girl.

She was creative and beautiful; she’d sew my dresses and make cookies on Sunday afternoons.

The clutter in the house seemed normal then.

It was organized in spare bedrooms or unused corners.

As I grew, I came to loathe the encroaching towers of boxes and papers, but any effort I made to gain control of my own living space was met with panic and disdain from my mom.

As a teen, my strained relationship with my mother went beyond her hyperfocus on her house and belongings.

It was like the more independent I grew, the more fearful she became that I’d leave her—as if she wished she could box me up and put me into one of her piles like I was a belonging rather than an independent person.

She didn’t want a single item removed from her house without her permission—including her own child.

Don’t argue, I tell myself as tears rise in my eyes. Heaviness fills my chest with all the unshed tears from the past thirty-one years.

“This was a bad idea. I’m sorry. I should go,” I say, putting on my coat and taking the box. I can’t stay here. I don’t care if she’s unwell, if part of her disdain is misplaced or from confusion; I can detect enough of the mom I swore I’d never see again that I don’t feel safe here.

“Goodbye, Charlotte,” my mother says as I walk out of her room.

Rushing down the hall, my eyes are blurred with tears.

I know it’s crazy to come back here and face her again, hoping she’ll be the mom who calls me Laura instead of Charlotte, the jovial, friendly girl still inside of my mother somewhere who wants to play cards and holds all the answers to my questions.

The version of my mother that might be able to love me.

But as I rush past the front desk, waving goodbye to Kelsey with my damp face turned away, I know I’ll be back—because I miss her.

I miss Betty.

I miss my mom.