Deborah Burns - Saturdays Child: A Daughters Memoir

Advance Praise for Saturdays Child

In her searingly honest memoir, Deborah Burns unpacks what it means to be the daughter of a mistaken-for-a-movie-star mother who refuses to be defeated by life, no matter its disappointments. At once painful and uplifting, and rich with period detail; you will fall in love with both generations.

Sally Koslow, international best-selling author of Another Side of Paradise

Riveting and affecting; timeless and timelya stunning debut.

Bethany Ball, author of What to Do About the Solomons

A beautifully written love letter to a fascinating mother. I was immediately drawn in by both the prose and the mysteries at the heart of this unique mother-daughter relationship.

Andrea Jarrell, author of National Book Critics Circle Award nominee Im the One Who Got Away

Mesmerizing. A must-read for any daughter whos ever tried to figure out where her mother ends and she begins.

Lynnda Pollio, author of Trusting the Currents

A poignant, candid exploration of the bond between mother and daughter. In allowing herself to see her mother as a real person, flaws and all, Burns not only sets herself freeshe shows the rest of us how to do the same.

Gayle Brandeis, author of The Art of Misdiagnosis: Surviving My Mothers Suicide

A heartfelt tale of love, honor, and becoming... wise and wonderful.

Agapi Stassinopoulos, author of Wake Up to the Joy of You

In this captivating memoir, the relationship between an unconventional and fiercely independent mother and the daughter who idolized her is revealed in all its complexity. A story of identity, self-discovery, and forgiveness.

Jennifer Kitses, author of Small Hours

Deborah Burns fearlessly reveals the hidden truths of a compelling and challenging mother-daughter relationship. Vividly written and thoroughly rewarding!

Barbara Novack, Writer-in-Residence, Molloy College, author of Pulitzer Prize-nominated J.W. Valentine

With a journalists eye and a poets hand, the author unveils the unique texture of her glamorous mothers elusive love. Heartbreaking and hopeful, searing and soulful, Saturdays Child is unputdownablethis generations Terms of Endearment.

Meghann Foye, author of Meternity

A cinematic memoir that reads like fiction, with lush, elegant prose that belies a raw, honest narrative of a daughter coming to terms with the narcissistic mother whom she idealized. An unforgettable journey of discovery, understanding, and self-love.

Lisa Anselmo, author of My (Part-Time) Paris Life: How Running Away Brought Me Home

SATURDAYS CHILD

Copyright 2019 Deborah Burns

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, digital scanning, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, please address She Writes Press.

Published 2019
Printed in the United States of America
ISBN: 978-1-63152-547-6
ISBN: 978-1-63152-548-3

Library of Congress Control Number: 2018958411

For information, address:
She Writes Press
1569 Solano Ave #546
Berkeley, CA 94707

Interior design by Tabitha Lahr

She Writes Press is a division of SparkPoint Studio, LLC.

All company and/or product names may be trade names, logos, trademarks, and/or registered trademarks and are the property of their respective owners.

Names and identifying characteristics have been changed to protect the privacy of certain individuals.
All photos are from the authors family collection.

Dedicated to Elizabeth, who sparked the journey
and to Dorothy, who was the flame.

Every Mother contains her daughter in herself and every daughter her mother and every mother extends backwards into her mother and forwards into her daughter.

Carl Jung

T he dream. Again. I shot up at 3:30 a.m. in a London hotel room, my heart full of remorse and racing with panic. The nightmare hadnt surfaced for years but was now breaking through the veil once or twice a week. Nearly two decades after my mothers death, the recurring illusion unfolded anewthat she was really alive and somehow, I hadnt called her in months. A notion that could not have been more absurd.

How could I be such a terrible daughter? So ungrateful? She was sick and alone. Id been absent when she needed me most. Sharp metal prongs were pulling me under, drowning me in murky water, my mouth open, arms flailing. How could I possibly have forgotten to call for so long? But I couldnt call. Because in the dream I had forgotten something elseher phone number. The frantic search began again. What was it? Back in my childhood apartment, it was missing from the center of the rotary dial. In a frenzy, I dug into address books, through paper fragments, pocketbooks, and closets. Through strange new rooms, unfurnished and dim, their low doorways making me crouch and crawl. Aaahh! A guttural sound, equal parts frustration and fury. Where was that number? If only I could find it, I would get to her, make everything all right once more. But despite my mad scrabbling for clues, I could never once make the call.

When she was alive, I had always been in chasing mode, in longing pursuit of something fleeting. In death, my mother continued to elude and haunt me, holding fiercely on to answers that only she could offer.

Now fully awake, I slid slowly out of bed and glanced at my sleeping daughter. Elizabeth had conceived of and planned the entire trip, a carefully timed one-week respite from her job.

Lets go to London, just you and me, she suggested.

It was an easy yes, and off we went to steep ourselves in the British history she loved. What she couldnt have fully realized was just how perfectly timed this escape was for me.

The dreams werent my only upset. Lately, the waking world had me white-knuckled as well, reaching for something just beyond my grasp while I felt a familiar slipping away. The womens magazines I worked for were collapsingthey had looked their digital future in the eye and didnt know what to say next. I could read the cards, and it was just a matter of time before my role as Chief Innovation Officer imploded, taking my livelihood and professional realm with it. Secretly, part of me welcomed a change. Id had enough of corporate life to know how it hardened you, constantly forcing you to cut back on what was to make way for a newer, smaller what is.

All I was really sure of was that I would soon need to reinvent my bewildered self in an uncertain future. The returning dream seemed like one more emotional hijacking, reminding me of how I still yearned for my mother; of how I needed to fully understand all that had been withheld between us. Had she somehow broken my little girls heart all those years before, knotting me up in ways that still cried out to be unraveled?

Are you OK? Elizabeth asked. Thats the gift of a daughtershe senses, she knows.

Totally. A whispered mom lie. Sorry. Just my morning routine. My eyes filled at the sound of her voice in the dark.

I reached for the tiny coffeepot that sat under an eighteenth-century gilt-framed landscape, flicked on a low-light at the far side of the room, and unzipped the closeted suitcase. There, the blank journal. I decided that I would finally reflect on this trip about the emotions trapped inside me, about searing loss and something not quite found.