The Phone Call

With that, she attempted to change the subject.

"How's the car doing? Are you putting enough oil in it? You know how it can heat up, especially in that California heat."

"Oh yeah, I just got it checked the other day. It runs great, thanks Mom. I even had someone from the commercial tell me they thought it was cool." The car that her mother let her have when she went to California, the car that Eleanor hung over her head as the final sacrifice she could make, was sold exactly one month and two days after Rosemary arrived in Hollywood. She needed the money to pay the rent. Rosemary was surprised at how much rent was considering the dump she found herself in.

Lying about the car was just another example of Rosemary feeling the need to lie to her mother about her life. Not in the same way that other grown children might offer up some placating bullshit to assure their mothers that everything in their life is really okay. No, this is more like a shield put up against the abuse. She thought that by answering the questions with the answers her mother wanted to hear, she could keep up a civil, even pleasant conversation.

Rosemary wondered now why she had actually called. She could have gone through with it without speaking to her mother. Maybe she just needed that final push that is her mother's specialty, the final assurance that the decision she'd made was the right one. The phone call was a form of self-pity. The way a person with low self-esteem continues to call himself ugly or stupid. It is in the problem that they find comfort. Comfort that they know they have analyzed the situation correctly.

"How's Dad and Ryan?" Rosemary asked.

"Well, your father has taken it upon himself to finish shingling the roof before winter. I keep telling him that he should just hire someone to finish it for him. He's not getting any younger, you know? But he listens about as well as you and your brother do. As for your brother, he's about the same. In that I mean that he's still failing at school and staying out all hours. Your dad seems to think there might be some drugs involved so I've got my hands full on that one. I guess I deserve all of this somehow. It seems no matter how hard I try to help everyone, they seem to get worse and worse."

Eleanor sighed because she knew that she was the only one who had ever really tried to make the family work. Lord knows Jim had never done anything. He seemed to go throughout life like a robot, involving himself as little as possible. She was the one who gave of herself constantly. She was the one who helped the children and who spent all her time worrying about the future. And it wasn't as if she asked for much. All she ever wanted was one of her children to actually succeed at something, to show the world what a hard-working mother they have behind them.

When the children were little, Eleanor dreamed of a daughter who would grow up to be a successful lawyer and a son who would become a master surgeon. How proud she would be, sitting in the wings, accepting the praise. She longed for the chance to explain how her tough love approach had made the children what they were. But it never happened. As soon as she started pushing, they pushed back. They were never able to see what she was doing for them.