Brian Morton - Tasha : A Sons Memoir

One of the truest, most insightful mother-child memoirs I have ever read. Vivian Gornick

Tasha

A Sons Memoir

I urge you to read this astonishing work: part family comedy, part prayer for the dead, and wholly unforgettablelike Tasha herself. Will Schwalbe

Brian Morton

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Florence Gordon

A VID R EADER P RESS

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Copyright 2022 by Brian Morton

Some names have been changed.

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Interior design by Ruth Lee-Mui

Jacket design by Math Monahan

Jacket artwork: cloud by Jutta Kuss/Getty Images; figure by victorass88/Getty Images

Author photograph David Kumin

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data has been applied for.

ISBN 978-1-9821-7893-2

ISBN 978-1-9821-7895-6 (ebook)

For Heather

O n March 13, 2010, driving at night in a thunderstorm, my mother got stuck on a flooded road near the Hackensack River. Her car stalled out and the electrical system failed, so pressing on the horn yielded no sound. She didnt have her cell phone with her. The river forced its way inside the car, covering her ankles, moving up to her knees. She was eighty-five years old and in poor health and she knew that if she left the car shed be dragged down into the water. She was sure she was going to die.

I was living with my family in Westchester. The rain had been crazy all day. In the morning Id promised my kids that wed go out to the toy store and the library, but although we wouldnt have to travel more than half a mile, the storm was so wild that I wasnt sure about leaving the house at all. Heather was at a conference that weekend, and I had the kids on my own. Finally I told myself it couldnt be so terrible to drive a few blocks, and I took them to the toy store. Driving there turned out to be an exercise in not letting them see how frightened I wasI could barely make out the roadand after theyd each picked a toy, I decided to skip the library and take them back home.

My niece, who was in high school, was giving a dance recital that night, but the drive took an hour in good conditions and would have been a nightmare during a storm like this. I wrote to my sister, Melinda, with apologies; she told me it was fine, and added that our mother was still planning to attend.

I cant say I was surprised. My mother was like a child in many ways. Shed never been good at knowing her own limitations or thinking ahead. One of my early memories was of an evening when she took Melinda and me to see our grandparents off at Penn Station after theyd visited us in New Jersey. I was four and my sister was seven. Our grandparents were taking a train back to Pittsburgh. She felt it important to help them find their seats, though they were only in their early sixties and were perfectly capable of doing this themselves, and she felt it important to stay with them, soaking up every minute of togetherness, even after the announcement that anyone without a ticket had to leave the train. She told my sister and me to get off and wait for her on the platform. I dont know what made her want to postpone leaving until the last possible moment. I dont think there was any real reason; I think it was just hard for her to leave. That was one of the first things you got to know about my mother, if you knew her at all. It was hard for her to let anybody go.

My sister and I waited outside the train. We heard a second announcement, and then a third, and then we saw the train start to move.

I dont remember what I was thinking. I dont remember if my sister said anything. But I do remember that the train began moving and my mother wasnt with us and I didnt know what we were going to do.

Finally she emerged in the space between two cars. She looked at us, smiled nervously, looked down at the swiftly moving platform, and jumped.

My mother, it should be mentioned here, was not a graceful woman. Shed never been athletic, and a providential moment of nimbleness was not bestowed upon her now. She leapt from the train in an odd waythe position of her body reminded me of an angel in a cartoon, reclining on a cloud while playing a harpand landed heavily on the platform, and cried out in pain.

At the distance of sixty years, I can see that she was lucky. The force of the fall was taken by the fleshiest part of her body. She didnt break any bones. She didnt hit her head. She didnt suffer any serious injuries. But for months she bore a frightening bruise, covering most of her thigh and part of her backside. (She showed it to us more than once, even though, for me at least, once was more than enough. She might have thought it was educational for us in some way.)

To my four-year-old mind, this adventure seemed to say two things about her. Her leap and her bruise seemed to mark her as both heroic and unbalanced. I cant deny that I thought there was something glorious about the sight of her leaping from the train, but neither can I deny that I understood, even then, that there was something off about it too, something that set her apart from other grown-ups, and not in a good way.

All of which is to say that in 2010, when I learned my mother was planning to attend the recital, it didnt even occur to me to try to talk her out of it. I thought it was foolish, but I also thought it was just her, and Id learned long ago that when I tried to talk her out of doing something she was intent on, I had no chance.

I did whatever I did with the kids that night. I imagine I made them some nutritionally questionable dinnerchicken fingers for Emmett, mac and cheese for Gabeand watched a movie with them and waited eagerly for them to fall asleep. After that Im sure I either wrote or wasted time on the internet. The storm didnt die down. If you care to look it up, just search for storm and March 13, 2010 and New Jersey. I remember that I thought about my mother once or twice, wondering how shed fared in the miserable weather. I wrote her an email at around midnight, and was surprised when I didnt hear backshe liked to stay up late, and she was always on her computerbut I have to admit I didnt think about it very much. I assumed things had turned out fine.

In the morning I checked my email and saw that shed written to me at two. She told me what had happenedshed finally been found by the police as they patrolled the flooded streetsand said that it had been the worst night of her life.

A few days later, Melinda visited her and noticed that her balance was off. She took her to her doctor, who sent them to Englewood Hospital to determine whether shed had a stroke.