have a better excuse for all my trips to New York.” She took a dainty bite of vindaloo after wrapping the meat in a piece of naan. “I guess things are improving some. Life is so much easier with Hazel on the ground at home. I can do things like this—a night away—without worrying about Charles.”
“Does Hazel spend the night when you’re out of town?” I asked.
“No. Charles doesn’t need that level of help yet,” my mother said. “She just gets to the apartment before Charles comes home from work, tidies up, makes dinner, and double-checks that he takes his medications. She’s been a lifesaver.”
Their new apartment, in Boston proper, was closer to Charles’s office than their old one, but it was a more arduous walk uphill from the T at the end of the day. “The truth is, Hazel is as much for me as she is for Charles. Her presence gives me peace of mind. I’d never forgive myself if something happened to him and no one was there to help.”
“What does Charles think of her?” I asked.
“Hazel?” My mother puzzled over the question for a moment, as if she’d never considered it. “Hard to say. He tolerates her. It’s not as if she’s there to be his friend.”
“Is she an okay cook?”
My mother shrugged and then smiled. “She is certainly capable of putting a meal on the table. But let’s face it, the bar is rather high on the cooking front, isn’t it?”
I was looking for some level of reassurance that Malabar didn’t seem willing to provide. “Overall, he’s okay with the whole thing, right?” I asked.
“You know Charles. He doesn’t complain. But honestly, he doesn’t have much say in the matter. No doubt he’d prefer I was home every night to take care of him myself, but I just can’t do that. I simply can’t. I’d go mad.” My mother flagged down the waiter and ordered a glass of wine. “Not while you’re off doing your own thing again.”
I told myself not to take the bait, but I couldn’t help it. “Does going to college really count as doing my own thing?” I asked.
“Oh, Rennie, try to have a sense of humor,” my mother said. “Let’s not split hairs tonight.”
A cloud of tension spread and I found myself avoiding eye contact with her. With my fork, I plowed a path through the curry with a chunk of lamb, knowing that my mother hated for people to play with their food. As our dishes were cleared, Malabar asked—more courtesy than question—if I’d mind if she ordered another glass of wine. I told her that I wanted to get back to my dorm, a small assertion of will. That she was irritated was obvious, but she acquiesced and we walked out of the air-conditioned restaurant and into the muggy Manhattan dusk.
Before stepping into her taxi, Malabar hugged me tightly. “Rennie, I know I don’t always say it, but I appreciate all you do for me. I’m going to miss you desperately. I love you.”
“I love you too, Mom,” I said.
She got in the cab and rolled down the window. “Don’t ever forget that you and I are two halves of one whole.”
I watched the taxi speed off toward Brenda’s apartment, less than twenty blocks away. I’d heard somewhere that all the cells in the human body replaced themselves every seven years. If that was the case, I was already almost an entirely different human from the one my mother had woken up at age fourteen. If I wasn’t the same self I used to be, I certainly couldn’t be half Malabar.
When I got back to my room, I found a gift my mother had left for me on my desk: a small, leather-framed photograph of the two of us. I studied it, having no memory of when it had been taken or who took it. We were standing beside each other on Malabar’s deck, both of us leaning forward, vying for the last small slice of afternoon light. My mother had snagged it, of course; her right hand shielded her eyes. Her left arm was slung around me, vanishing behind my back and making it appear that she was missing that limb, like a pine tree bare on one side, competing for sunlight.
Eleven
College life was immediately engaging: I made friends with my hallmates, wrote essays and crammed for tests, and navigated what seemed like biweekly fire drills that left the occupants of our entire dormitory huddled on the