Eliza's Mother

Eliza is the perfect daughter to a domineering mother, until she quietly rebels.

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Eliza had a Mother. Of course, everyone has or had a mother, but Eliza's mother deserved a capital M.

Small and sprightly, Maybelle Levinsdale put all of her energies into making sure that Eliza was the perfect daughter.

When Eliza was little, her mother started the drill. "You are a good girl, and I am sure you'll always be a good girl. You'll always listen to your mother." Eliza would nod at first, but that wasn't good enough.

"Say something, Eliza. You'll always obey me, won't you?"

"Yes, Mommy."

That would please Maybelle and cause her to brag to her very few friends.

"How do you do it, Maybelle?" My kids don't listen to me."

Maybelle never had a good answer, and secretly she didn't want to give a good answer. Why she had such a compliant little girl had to do with constant repetition, with beginning early with her demands and, perhaps, with having an impressionable child.

Maybelle herself had never gone to college. She had never had a fancy job (as she would call it) but had married right after high school. She had become pregnant the night of the senior prom in the back of Jake's car.

Eliza was her only child. Jake was still around but made himself absent most of the time, thereby giving his wife ample time to mold their little girl. And mold she did. What Eliza wanted from her daughter was everything she had not had: a college education; a handsome, prosperous, well-educated husband; a fancy job. But most of all she wanted what her own mother had never had: the loyalty, the uncompromising loyalty of her only daughter.

Plans for Eliza's college education began in first grade. "What did you learn today? Nothing? Don't they teach anything in first grade? Come on, you know better than that."

And so Eliza would furrow her brow and come up with an answer. "We learned that one plus one equals two. We learned to print our names."

The years flew by: first grade, seventh grade, high school. Eliza was a star student, because she had to be. Yet at her graduation from Ashleyville High School, Eliza was afraid to tell her mother that she was not going to be the valedictorian. She knew her mother would find out at the graduation ceremony. Best to tell her before the big day.

"Mom, I have something to tell you."

"From the look on your face, I guess it's something bad. Well, out with it."

"Well, I hope you'll be proud of me. I'm going to be the salutatorian."

"Not the valedictorian? Why? Who got that? Didn't you have straight A's?"

"Noreen. Noreen Fisher got it. She had straight A's too, but she was in more clubs, I guess."

Maybelle sulked for the rest of the day.

Eliza wanted to go away to college, but Maybelle wouldn't hear of it. "We have a perfectly good college right here in Ashleyville. You can live at home. Sure, you have a scholarship, but that just covers tuition. Too expensive to live in a dorm when you have a perfectly nice room here at home. And better food, I'm sure, than in that college cafeteria."

And so Eliza, at least for another four years, was required to live at home. She was required to join a sorority even though she thought sororities were snobbish. She had to major in accounting, though she preferred history. "What can you do with a history major? Think about the past? What good is that? Accountants always get jobs."

There were times when Eliza wanted to rebel, but she couldn't. Her mother loved her. Did her father love her? He didn't show it.

College ended. Eliza became an accountant. She became an official certified public accountant. She met another accountant, Wallace Cleghorn III, and Eliza became Eliza Cleghorn, CPA. They had a daughter two years later and named her Maybelle after Eliza's mother. Maybelle Cleghorn didn't sound too great in Eliza's opinion, but nothing was going to sound good with Cleghorn. Not that she would say anything to Wally about their name. Or to her mother.

Eliza had done it all, according to her mother's grand plan: She had become educated, she had a good job, a prosperous husband, a child. But sometimes Grandma Maybelle worried about her grandchild.

"That child is too independent," Maybelle would say, and Eliza would remain silent. She wasn't sure why she remained silent. She wasn't sure why her child was so independent. All she knew was that she was not going to be the mother her own mother had been.

Maybelle was seventy-two when her health began to fail. It was then that she began making new demands on Eliza.

"Remember that Noreen Fisher, the one who was the valedictorian when you should have been? She quit her job to take care of her mother. What a good daughter. Just like that other girl. What was her name? Annette. Annette Jackson. She never went to college. Stayed at home and took care of her mother. A good daughter."

Why that was the proverbial last straw Eliza could not articulate. But it was. "Wally, I can't stand it."

"What?"

"My mother now wants me to take care of her. I always did everything she wanted. Good grades in school, I majored in accounting, I married a guy with a good job, I had a child."

"Wait. You married me because of your mother?"

"No. Not exactly. You know what I mean. You know Mom."

"Indeed, I do. Only too well."

"What does that mean?"

"You've always been the good daughter. Too good, in my opinion. Hey, what about me? What about our little Eliza?"

"Eliza's not little anymore. Listen, how come you never complained about my mother?"

"Because she's your mother."

"You're a good guy, Wally."

Wallace Cleghorn III laughed. "Yes, I am."

They sat quietly for a few minutes. Then Eliza moved closer to her husband on the sofa. "I can't. I can't take care of my mother. I don't want to. Do I have to?"

"In my opinion, no. Look, you've done everything. We have enough money. We can get a care giver for Grandma Maybelle if she needs it. Of course you--we--can visit her as needed or as desired, but desired by us. I think when we got married we promised to put each other first. Our family comes first, your mother second. Does that sound harsh?"

Eliza snuggled up to Wally. "It sounds great. But what will my mother say?"

"What are you going to tell her? Why do you have to say anything?"

"You're right. And I'm good at changing the subject when I talk to her."

"Let's practice now."

"Practice what?"

"Changing the subject." Then he kissed her.

By Anita G. Gorman

From: United States

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