A Mothers Choice

A Mother’s Choice

Purgatory as a movie theatre...

As a kid I always imagined purgatory as a really nice air conditioned movie theater with leather duplex wax coated seats and 7.1 channel super surround audio. That’s because when I was in Kindergarten some girl from Catholic school told me that before I could go to heaven or hell all the angels, God, and various other powers-to-be had to review your life to see if you were righteous or dishonest. The only way I knew of viewing past events was through home movies. So for years that’s w hat I imagined the limbo judgement process to be like. Watching seemingly endless amounts of POV-styled movie tapes in a comfortable air conditioned area (I mean hey, these were pretty important entities!) until a judgement on whether a person was ultimately wicked or benevolent was reached.

It all sounded boring as hell to me.

So when sweet Mother burst into the kitchen screaming that she had found yet another startling revelation amongst the archived old video tapes, I did not completely relish the idea of having to humor her as usual.

“It’s a sign! A sign from fate,” said Mom, high energy. “Oh Millie, my wonderful daughter Millie, you’ve got to see this. This time he has truly led me to the right direction.”

The ‘he’ she was referring to most of the time was not the almighty entity the greeks had called Zeus nor was it any sort of immortal Jesus figure. He just so happened to be a mortal who had once lived in this world until a decade prior. It was my late father. In the years after his death my mother's obsession had seemed to grow exponentially instead of wavering.

It was ten to seven in the morning according to the clock on the kitchen wall. Before Mom had come staggering in I planned to call my fiance William after breakfast. Looks like that was going to have to wait.

Wordlessly I stood up, arched my back to stretch, and tried to rub some of the tired flakes from my eyes.To defy her outright this early in the morning without viewing this ‘holy instance’ would be akin to lighting my hair on fire. She might threaten to kick me out and that would seriously fuck me up, seeing as my train back to the college campus wasn’t scheduled to leave for another three days. I knew people I could crash with, but I wanted to avoid that if possible. So I’d decided when I arrived that I’ll put up with her bullshit, for the next three days. At the very least I didn’t have to deal with it every single day like Claire would for the next couple years.

Before leaving, Mom turned to my younger sister on the farther side of the table. Claire’s long dark hair drooped across her pretty face, nearly hiding it. She stared apathetically into her bowl of Cheerios, making her attempt to act like a wallflower in front of the hungry hyena painfully obvious.

“Claire? Honey? Won’t you joins us? This time, it truly will be a wonder to behold.”

Without a moments hesitation she spoke, having most likely planned her words beforehand. “I’m running late to school. It’s ten to seven and Wendy’s mom doesn’t like to wait. Big test today in Geometry too you know, so I’m really focused on that this morning.” She nibbled her food just a little faster, and decided to push the conversation more towards me. “I’m not in College yet like Millie. I can’t just go to school at 5 pm at night.”

“Is that so? Well, I must share this incredible piece of life with my second offspring as soon as she is off from school.” She paused, then remembered. “Wash your dish before you go, honey. Have a good day!”

That was Mom, always incredibly grandiose with her visions and declarations of madness, but never ever forgetting the chores of the house. One of the only things I’m glad rubbed off just a little bit on me. Her sane side, I liked to put it.

When we passed Clair on the way to the den she gave out the tiniest snigger of laughter, obviously directed towards me as if to say ‘bwahaha, you pathetically poor foolishly foolish fool, you’re in for a fun day all alone with Mom.” Although it would be an ordeal I really didn’t mind so much. So I let her have that one without the slightest bit of revenge on my mind. She would have to deal with it today, tomorrow, for at least five more years years until she could find a way to move out, while I was already peacefully situated two states away in an apartment near my school. These insane instances by Mom were comparatively small prices to pay in order to visit old friends and have three free meals a day. She may have been a psycho, but she was still my mother, and that meant good food.

The den was more or less what I had expected it to be when Mom had announced the divine intervention. A complete fucking mess. Tapes, tapes, and more of those 1990’s artifacts were strewn and thrown about in every direction imaginable. They were on top of the lamp, sticking out from underneath the couch, in big and small piles, some dirty from 10-year-old stains, some worn to hell, others unmarked possibly having no footage at all. The ones with footage had all been filmed by Dad. When he was alive nobody would be able to keep him away from a home video camera.

“Been here for awhile then, Mom?”

“Oh, you know your father. Woke up in the middle of the night, and felt a presence calling me to this room. But never mind that, sit down, sit down. The proof I’m about to show you might make you make you want to finally get on the right path in life.”

Fat chance of that happening. Mom has been saying the same thing in slight variations every time she chanced upon one of these “holy home movie tapes,” which was annoyingly becoming more and more prevalent the past few years. The times it would happen could be so random too. Sometimes she would call me up at 3 am, screaming my name, explaining the signs the video supposedly foretold in fervid detail, vowing that as soon as the post office opened in the morning she would plop it in the mail along with a care package. Those were the most annoying moments, but none were nearly as annoying as any of the times that I’d had to follow up with the video. I told her many times that she was full of shit. Of course I’d use a lot nicer words than that because I felt sorry for her, but more than not the conversation would end in some sort of argument. Sometimes it wouldn’t even end up being about the video. I wanted to avoid that today, if possible. Even if it meant lying a little bit.

Unless I wanted my butt to destroy old recordings of my possibly 8-year-old butt there was no place in the den to sit. I went over to the bean bag chair, threw a couple of the tapes aside, and sat down until I was as comfortable as could be in such a messy room. I might be here for a few hours. The thought made me groan. My mind flashed back to the ‘angels in comfortable seats’ thought I’d had for so many years.

Mom was ejecting an unlabeled tape from our extravagant four slot VCR powerhouse, and throwing it into another random pile of VHS tapes. Next to it there was a stack of roughly eight tapes toppling over. I let out a slight sigh and picked them up while Mom was rewinding.

“Only one video to show you this time, that’s all.” Mom explained. “But what a video! As soon as I found it, I knew that was the one. This was the one I’ve been looking for all this time! Isn’t that great? Oh darling, I’m overjoyed. It’s really what we’ve been waiting for, honey. This time I promise you.”

I’d heard that spiel over a dozen times. It was nothing new.

I forgot my phone in my old room where I was staying, so unless I wanted to infer Mother’s wrath prematurely I had to fiddle my thumbs until said video was available to view. I picked up a random tape and circled my finger around the white inside ring to pass the time. Mom was still rewinding and adjusting the volume so I’d been given a moment to marvel at the sheer number of the tapes around the room. Madness. Surely,there to be near five hundred in total.

Once out of the goodness of my heart I had suggested a year or two back that she give the tapes to someone who could transfer it to DVD or AVI in order to save some room. She scoffed at the idea, saying that some of spiritual evidence might be lost in the conversion. This was, of course, disregarding the fact that in order to actually be apart of the Video Home System, the tapes had to have been transferred from the film in the first place.

Most of the time the ‘spiritual evidence’ was the occasional funny remark by Dad, or a flicker or even digital artifact in the background. Mom would often imply there being ‘guardian angels,’ or inconsequential lines of static that could only possibly be the work of my late father reaching out to me, telling me to make the better choice in life.

Finally, Mom sat down on the couch adjacent from me, grabbed the remote firmly in hand and smiled at me. I awkwardly smiled back, and said what I usually say during times like these.

“I’ll try to watch it with an open mind.”

And here comes the hyperbole.

“The proof is there, child. You’ll see.”

The confidence was no surprise. This time she’d just taken a lighter, more confident approach at it. Other times she was cackling like a witch during the black ages right before showing it to me in person.

“This video was taken the day after your sister’s fifth birthday,” she explained. “Just a few weeks before...well, you know.”

Oh, I know. Trust me God, I know. You’ve never really allowed me to move on, Mom. I thought of paying respects later in the week since I was in town already.

The tape started, with grainy, faded out colors that by now I was more than used to seeing. In the corner of the screen the date read “09/03/1999” so at that point I would have been ten, on the verge of eleven.

At first there was some shaking, and then static. For a second it showed the coffee table that was still there to this day. It never looked liked it aged, unlike some people. Some more shaking, static, and then it seemed the video found it’s balance on the catwalk and the picture smoothed out. A man behind the camera grunted, a man who was my father once. He zoomed in and out, trying to attain focus on what I assume could only be me judging by the familiar blue pattern on an old blouse that was now probably tucked away somewhere in the attic. I - I mean the ‘me’ on the screen - turned my face away from the viewing lens. Maybe I didn’t want to get filmed that day.

“-llie? Millie, honey? Do it again,” Dad said, in a persuasive tone much softer than usual, a tad unfamiliar to hear him like that. “The camera’s a-rolling now.”

“Do I haaaaaaaaave too?!” said the squeaky voice of a ten year old whose period had not yet come. The voice sounded forced, overly cute. But that’s just how I was back then. I loved cartoons and wanted to imitate them until I was twelve. Simpler days. These videos sometimes brought back the time before my parents were crazy, and it always made me a little sad.

“The only way for you to get good at something is to practice it until the point of sickness, then keep on practicing it until you’re not sick of it anymore.”

The sudden influx of static didn’t do much to hide the confusion on my young face. That was one thing I learned to appreciate and love about Dad after his death; the way he tried to pass on valuable life lessons. Oftentimes Dad had spoke to us like a karate master passing on sage wisdom to one of his underlings. He never talked down to kids, not that I remember anyway. When Mom was in one of her better moods she would often joke of it.

There was a few sudden footsteps, and the camera panned up to a woman dressed up in a dusty kitchen dress.

“Your Father’s right, you know. If you want to become a singer you need to practice a lot. It’s better when you do it in front of people.”

Mom looked and sounded more or less the same on screen, but it looked like she was incredibly made up that day. Although the video quality was atrocious, it was hard not to notice the bright red marks and fake eyelashes on her face. Once upon the time that might’ve been the kind of crazy she was, instead of what she had turned into today.

The camera man hadn’t enough time to double back to me for my response. “I don’t want to be a singer when I grow up.”

Dad focused it back on me. “Then what do you want to be, sweetie?”

My heart began beating. I knew for certainty that no outside force could cause me to change my mind on what I’d planned for myself in life. However this was a current touchy subject between Mom and I. I wanted to be a graphic artist and storyteller but she wanted me to be a lawyer. That made me unreasonably nervous.

“I don’t know,” 10-year-old me said, and twirled my finger around my hair in a circle just as I was doing with a tape fourteen years later. “Maybe an...an actress. Maybe?”

Dad laughed, a vapid absurd laugh I’d never heard or, shall I say remembered, before. The slightest bit creepy. “Being an actress is a lot of hard work. Are you prepared to work your patoot off and be oogled over by the eyes of many?”

That sentence would have been normal, but the audio went in and out at ‘hard work’ and ‘patoot.’ In its place was a light humming metallic noise. I had seen a lot of tapes but never heard something like that. It confused me.

The me in the tape hadn’t really known what to say to that apparently, so I shook my head. “Maybe...maybe an artist then? Like someone who draws cartoons? That sounds fun!”

The camera shook left and right, as if to mimic my father’s facial movements. “You’re a good artist honey, especially for your age, especially for your passion, but...have I ever told you why I take I video all the time?” My response was immediate.

“Because you love me and Claire so much, and you never want these times to end. Oh, and you’re crazy - Mom says that one a lot.”

Once again that vaguely familiar strange laughter. Dad seemed to be in a really good mood when this was taken. The video jumped closer to me. The Mom of 1999 hadn’t said anything in a few minutes, so she was probably out of the room at this point. Cooking, or cleaning likely. I was so optimistic back then I had no idea that Mom was even then trying to most likely brainwash me.

“Yes, yes, those are all true, and I certainly tell you the first two a lot. Don’t know entirely about the crazy part. Did you know there’s actually...a secret reason why I like recording little snippets of our everyday home life. Do you want to hear it?”

My eyes gleamed open, and I bounced up and down. “A secret? You’re going to tell me a secret Daddy?”

“Shhhhh. It is a secret, so I don’t particularily want your Mom hearing us right now. Here, let’s head out to the backyard.”

That was just like Dad to keep the camera on a ‘private conversation’ with one of us. It made me - the me watching this and describing this - smile a bit.

On the way to the backyard Dad had seemed to put one of his limbs over the lenses of the camera, so the view of the house from more than a half decade ago was obscured in favor of darkness.

After some bumbling around with nothing to see but lines for a few moments, the camera finally focused again on me, standing right in front of the fence in our backyard. I was curiously looking right in the camera speechless. I probably didn’t know what to say. The thing was so long ago I didn’t specifically remember any of this. Not so far.

“You ready pumpkin,” said Dad.

“Sure Daddy. Tell me the secret.”

“The secret is very forgettable. So much so in fact I bet you’d forget it by this afternoon.”

“If it’s a secret by Daddy then I won’t forget it! Not ever!”

Dad did not immediately respond to me. Instead he took a few moments to think while the camera shook heavily. It was like this in some videos, the camera shaking and all, but most of the time Dad seemed calm and the camera was stationary. Whatever he was about to say, he must have been nervous.

“You know I love you more than the moon and stars, more than life itself really. While we’re having a fun time right now, I don’t know if I’m going to be around forever. It’s entirely possible I won’t be around in a couple of months. That’s why I want you to listen carefully to what I’m about to say.”

It was chilling to hear him say that. But it was only a coincidence. It had to be. As soon as he said those words I repeated it in my head. It’s a coincidence. It’s a coincidence. Though what he said next could not possibly have been just a coincidence.

“Soon you will be a young lady, out in the real world. Out in college. It’ll happen sooner than you think. When you are young you’ll make mistakes. Everyone knows that. But when you are older you will watch this again…”

My heart missed a beat on those words. He didn’t give me time to think about what I’d just heard.

“....and I love you. So there are a few wishes I need to make clear before my departure. The first is about boys. I don’t know his name right now but it starts with a W and --”

“STOP!” I was yelling at Mom. “Stop it! Rewind the tape!”

“But Honey these are your fathers words. You’re talking over him.”

“Please stop! I just, I need you to rewind it.”

Mother looked at me with a stern face. “If I rewind it just this once can you watch the rest of the tape in silence? I went through a lot of trouble to find this.”

I could not think straight, my mind was absolutely focused on this. Did I really hear him say that I would watch this tape in the future? “Sure, fine, okay, just go back about a minute.”

She picked up one of our many universal remotes and rewound a couple of seconds.

“Everybody knows that. But when you are older you will watch this again and I love you. So there are a few wishes I need to make clear. The first is about boys. I don’t know his name right now but it starts with a W and I don’t want to rush into things. Not with him, not with anyone.”

It was impossible. How could he know about William? We only met eighteen months ago. We’d moved in together only six months ago.

“Second thing is -”
“Daddy,” I heard my kid-self say. “Can I hold the camera?”

It wasn’t the first time I had asked for a camera in one of our home videos. It seemed that was all I had wanted to do for such a long time as a kid. To be like Daddy, to be making videos. That was another of my many childhood dreams: to be a director. He normally wouldn’t even let me near the camera but today he must have been feeling generous.

“Sure honey, but be careful. It’s very sensitive equipment. Aim it at me close with it. Try to get my good side. Daddy didn’t really shave too well today.”

The steadycam exchanged hands and as soon as my tiny fingers grabbed ahold of it pointed it firmly at the sky. I zoomed in and out while Dad continued talking. It was jarring and a bit dizzying to us viewers in the parlor. He must have noticed my complete lack of understanding to his words, but decided to ignore it.

“Anywho like I was saying, the second thing you need to in your life is to take your job very seriously. You are a wonderful woman and before you lies an infinite number of possibilities, but I need you to take them seriously. Art is not a profession. Writing is not a profession. I’d rather play the goddanged lottery than try to succeed in those fields. You are wonderful and we need you to be happy, and to be happy you need to have money. For the longest time your mother and I have been telling you to be a lawyer.”

Mother had told me. Again and again and again, that all her and my late father had wanted for me is to be a lawyer.That my grandmother had also wanted me to be a lawyer. That his grandfather as well. However the prospect of being a lawyer interested me less than picking hairs off a Ducks butt. William knew full well about that from the many times I’d ranted to him about it.

“Here is something I’ve never told you. You will become a lawyer. And then a long time afterwards, a politician. You are such a strong, smart and beautiful women that we need you to break the mold. Do things others haven’t. Make our family name something to be proud of. As you know before bed I sometimes read history to you...”

He went on at great length of Alexander the Great and his perilous conquest of Macedonia, while only glossing over the less important things like Admiral Grant’s fierce determination during the Civil War. Come to think of it, I do remember hearing a lot about various World leaders and powers to be. It was odd I didn’t become a History major and instead had gotten rabid about art.

The random history lecture had gone on normally for a few minutes, however just as he was talking about the Japanese naval officer Isoruko Yamamoto something odd happened. Again, the audio dipped in and out. This time it got more high pitched. As this was happening I was zooming into the grass, but more visual artifacts and tears in the screen accompanied the strangness.

Then when Dad talked again, his voice was not the same. Instead it was slowed down and choppy, as though he had suddenly been a smoker his whole life, and to my knowledge he hadn’t.

“The third thing….is family. You and your mother and your little sister, we are all family. Every family goes through some rough patches, but I never want our rough patches to mess us up. Even if one of us goes away, that does not mean --* static.

The screen barely had any actual picture of what was going on. Instead there were blotches of orange and red and green. Strange fragmented images overlaid across the picture in random spots, a collage of madness. I assumed that little me was still holding the camera, but for some reason it had begun to shake more. This sudden visual change was a bit much, so I had to rub my eyes to make sure I was truly seeing this.

“Mean...does...not mean...does mean not…” His voice, and even the picture was back to normal in a blink. “that anything should make us forget that. In those dark days that follow a death a family should hold together tighter and look for a resonance of a different voice. An angel.”

“And years later, a family should move on. One day you will get married to prince charming, and one day even a former loved one should remarry.” He delivered this last part in such a solemn, pronounced tone. I might not’ve known what he was talking about as a kid so I didn’t respond. But was he talking about Mom? Remarrying?

“A-And…” a hint of the weirdness again. “that’s it. I love you Millie. I love you Claire. I love you, my dear wife. That’s all.” Pause, as I shifted the camera back up to the sun. Then out of nowhere... “Now what say you we get some dinner a-rollin…” Dad took my window that day, the camera, from my little hands. pointed it at tiny me for a second and turned it off.

The screen was blank. To my left Mom stood up, crossed her arms and looked at me. “So?”

So? How was I supposed to process a so? My hands were trembling, my heart had burst, I could barely talk. “Was that real?”

“All this time, all these years, I’ve been looking for that one special tape and when I find it you ask me if it’s real? I feel like my job going through these is finally over…”

“I can’t believe that. What I just saw. Dad really did, well, talk to us. To me.”

Mom was already ejecting the tape from the VCR and putting it in a plastic bag marked in sharpie “Holy Tape.”

“Why don’t you reflect on it sweetie? Maybe take a walk around town or something...I have to get ready to do the errands. This might be an enigmatic day for us, but the world never stops churning.”

“The tape. Let me look at the tape while you’re doing the errands.”

“I spend the better part of my adult life looking for a tape from my late husband I’m never letting that thing out of my life again. I’m going to carry it in my purse.”

“But what about the heat? I promise I’m not going to break it.”

She scowled at me. “Think of all the tapes I’ve overnighted you in the mail. None of them expired from heat stroke. And no, the answer is NO. We can watch it again tonight, as a family, after your sister gets home.”

And with that Mom off to the bathroom leaving me with a million crazy thoughts. I decided I’d take Mom’s advice and do that walk thing. Maybe I’d even go visit Dad...

“Morning darling,” Will answered over the phone. His enthusiasm was high today and that was good. I was gonna need it. “How’s tricks?”

“It’s my mother,” I said, wanting to completely skip the pleasantries of ‘how are you’ today. “She’s been showing me tapes again. A tape.”

“More of that bullshit again? Look, you know she’s ‘fucking bonkers,’ you’ve told me so yourself a million times.”

“This tape was different.”

A short pause. His tone changed slightly. “Different how? In what way?”

“It said...I mean he said things. My Dad, on the tape. He said things he couldn’t possibly have known about…” The words kept replaying in my head.

“Slow down a bit..."

To be continued.