The Mother I Never Had, page 1
PRAISE FOR THE MOTHER I NEVER HAD
“There are so many surprises and joys in this beautiful, human, well-told, emotionally rich story, that you won’t want it to end.” – Iris Rainer Dart, bestselling author of Beaches
“A highly pleasurable read with a lovable main character at its center … Goldstein expertly captures Nate’s essence with sharp dialogue and a relatable interior monologue. The author also gives us a fine-tuned exploration of what family means … in this TREASURE OF A NOVEL. I highly recommend it to anyone who has ever been at a crossroads in life—which is everyone!” – Elyssa Friedland, author of Last Summer at the Golden Hotel
“Goldstein has crafted a ‘what if?’ tale that’s as poignant and profound as it is propulsive. An evocative journey of love, loss, and discovery.” – Darin Strauss, award-winning author of Half a Life and The Queen of Tuesday
“Gary Goldstein’s sensitive, wonderfully detailed imagining of what would happen if you found a mother you never knew you had, is deeply emotional and filled with complex, but ultimately lovable characters—in other words, just like a real family.” – Bruce Cameron, #1 New York Times bestselling author of A Dog’s Purpose
“Can a mother’s love ever come too late? A poignant and powerful story about loss and love, and the lie that sent two lives on trajectories of regret. You’ll think about The Mother I Never Had long after you put it down.” – Ken Pisani, Los Angeles Times bestselling author of AMP’D.
“Goldstein is a skilled storyteller and his latest book is a real page-turner. His vividly crafted characters draw you in and the plot has twists and turns about family dynamics that keep you guessing right up to the end. I couldn’t put the book down—and neither will you.” – Andrea Cagan, New York Times bestselling author of Diana Ross: Secrets of a Sparrow and Grace Slick: Somebody to Love?
Contents
ONE
TWO
THREE
FOUR
FIVE
SIX
SEVEN
EIGHT
NINE
TEN
ELEVEN
TWELVE
THIRTEEN
FOURTEEN
FIFTEEN
SIXTEEN
SEVENTEEN
EIGHTEEN
NINETEEN
TWENTY
TWENTY-ONE
TWENTY-TWO
TWENTY-THREE
TWENTY-FOUR
TWENTY-FIVE
TWENTY-SIX
TWENTY-SEVEN
TWENTY-EIGHT
TWENTY-NINE
THIRTY
THIRTY-ONE
THIRTY-TWO
THIRTY-THREE
THIRTY-FOUR
THIRTY-FIVE
THIRTY-SIX
THIRTY-SEVEN
THIRTY-EIGHT
THIRTY-NINE
FORTY
FORTY-ONE
FORTY-TWO
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The Mother I Never Had. Copyright © 2022, by Gary Goldstein.
This is a work of fiction. Characters, places, events and organizations are fictitious or products of the author’s imagination. Any similarity to actual persons, events or locations are coincidental.
Hadleigh House Publishing
Minneapolis, MN
www.hadleighhouse.com
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, permitted by law. For information contact Hadleigh House Publishing, Minneapolis, MN.
Cover design by Alisha Perkins
ISBN-979-8-9850576-1-4
ISBN-979-8-9850576-2-1 (ebook)
LCCN: 2022908696
To Natalie, the best mother I could have ever had.
“Life changes in the instant. The ordinary instant.”
-Joan Didion, The Year of Magical Thinking
ONE
Nate’s morning began like any other. So how could he possibly know that, well before the day was over, his life would never be the same? Who would have guessed that something that was laid to rest for him some thirty years ago would soon return to upend everything he’d ever thought and known and alter his entire worldview? All that, just as another major part of his life was about to disappear?
He’d often swing by Occidental College to visit his dad, who had taught American Literature there for the past twenty or so years. Nate loved to linger in the back of a lecture hall listening to the cool, accessibly erudite Jim Cronin theorize on one great author or another, one great novel or another, always making it sound like the first time he’d ever held forth about either. Jim had a wondrous view of books, of the written word, and this enthusiasm made the professor seem far younger than his sixty-two years. That and his longish, still more pepper-than-salt hair; vintage T-shirts; athletic build (strange, because Jim’s idea of exercise was pacing in front of a lecture hall); and warm, melodious voice that made the potentially dull seem captivating.
Nate would spot the occasional coed—and even a few so-inclined male students—eying his dad like they would readily jump his bones if the opportunity knocked, age difference be damned. Jim acted oblivious to all that, and looked at Nate like his son had three heads the one time he mentioned that his dad’s students seemed “hot for teacher.”
“I could be their grandfather, for God’s sake,” Jim said. But Nate knew the thought tickled his unaffected dad, even if he would never act upon it. He was more of a straight arrow than he looked, which may have added to his appeal.
“I can’t believe you still teach The Great Gatsby,” Nate said as he and Jim exited stately Fowler Hall that pivotal morning and made their way across Occidental’s lush, bucolic grounds. Jim’s lecture on the famed, if oft-trod, novel was his usual mix of inspiring and insightful, positing that the reader’s trust in narrator Nick Carraway is the key to believing that Gatsby is, in fact, great. “I mean, it never gets old for you, does it?”
“‘It is a lucky man who succeeds at that which he loves,’” quoted Jim with professorial authority.
Nate assessed his father as they turned onto the lovely Academic Quad, where students gathered, studied, sat, and ate under its towering old oak and eucalyptus trees. It made Nate’s heart ache for his college days, its freedoms and possibilities. “Don’t tell me,” Nate guessed about the source of his dad’s bookish quote. “Albert Camus.”
He flashed Nate a devious twinkle. “Jim Cronin,” he answered, tapping his chest. Camus clearly had nothing on Cronin.
“I should’ve known,” Nate joked. He wished he had half his dad’s joie de vivre, his puckishness, his intellect. But Nate, earnest and orderly, sometimes felt more like the parent than the child, especially as he was growing up motherless, Jim filling the role of both mom and dad. Their differences somehow worked for them; Nate adored his father and the feeling was mutual. “How about that cup of coffee you promised me?” Nate asked, worried he’d be late for the noon estimate he had to give on a new landscaping job.
Jim hesitated. “I need to talk to you about something first.”
The sound in his father’s voice, so serious and troubled, gave Nate pause. He saw something fearful in his deep blue eyes. “What is it, Dad?”
“Let’s sit down, okay, son?” Jim said, indicating a quiet area toward the edge of the campus. Nate’s head and heart began to race. His father quickened his pace; Nate silently followed. Jim waved at a few passing students, though never turned to meet their gaze.
They reached a bench perched on a bluff overlooking downtown Los Angeles, its familiar structures and towers shimmering in the hazy spring sun. It was an especially beautiful day in contrast to the kind of news Nate was expecting to receive. He and his father sat side by side and faced out at the city skyline and the dense residential areas that lay before it.
Jim told Nate his painful story in an uncharacteristically careful, plainspoken manner, struggling to reach the finish line without shedding a tear. Somehow, Nate saw his own life flash before his eyes as if it were he and not his beloved dad who had the inoperable tumor.
“You’ve known for six months and you haven’t told me?”
Jim absorbed his son’s anger while formulating the most honest answer he could. “It’s bad enough I had to know,” he finally said. “Besides, there’s nothing you or anyone else could have done.”
“Except be there for you,” Nate said quietly, his fury morphing into something more desperate, more helpless. He could barely remember his father being sick a day in his life. What kind of cruel joke was this?
“You’ve been there for me, pal,” said Jim, unable to contain his tears any longer, “you just didn’t know it.” He wiped his eyes with the back of his hands, swallowing hard. “I promised myself I wouldn’t do this.” But that didn’t stop his tears.
Nate only had one more question. Not that he wanted the answer. “Did the doctors say how long … how … much time?”
“A month, maybe two,” Jim answered, his voice muffled.
Nate stared at the distant skyline, strained to remember the name of that iconic white tower with its rounded sides. It used to be the tallest building in Los Angeles but now it was number two o
“Pretty shitty, huh?” Jim’s eyebrows arched in a kind of wry disbelief. For a flash, he looked like the old Jim: charismatic Jim, raconteur Jim, the Jim who would live forever. But all Nate could see was the Jim whose body had betrayed him, the father he couldn’t picture a life without.
Nate knew the answer to the question he was about to ask but asked it anyway. “And there’s absolutely nothing that can be done?” Jim shook his head. Nate nodded just as faintly. It hit him: The U.S. Bank building. So fucking what?
Jim turned to Nate. “Look, I don’t have a lot saved up, but I’m leaving you the house. Live there, sell it, whatever you decide. It’s yours.” Nate couldn’t quite process what his father was saying. Jim cracked a small smile and added, “Hey, you’ll finally be able to landscape the place the way you want.”
“Jesus, Dad.” It was all Nate could muster. Maybe that said it all. He wanted to ask, “How can you joke at a time like this? How can you even think straight? Get up in the morning? Get dressed? Keep teaching the fucking Great Gatsby?”
Instead, Nate thought about Jim’s house, that small, weathered Craftsman just a few blocks away on Eagle Rock’s winding Escarpa Drive. How it cried out for a shot of new paint and, yes, a new front garden and a serious tree trim. How the place was not unlike Jim himself: charming, casual, deceptively solid. How Nate had lived there with his dad for a decade before college, moving from their modest rental in Valley Village about a mile from where Jim had once taught high school English.
A door shut on Nate’s fleeting memory and suddenly he found the right words to say—and the heart to say them. “I’m so, so sorry, Dad.”
“No, Nate. I’m sorry.” They were four short words but filled with unspeakable sorrow. “And just know that whatever I’ve done as a father, it’s always been with your best interest at heart.”
Nate studied his dad, still so effortlessly handsome despite the destruction unfolding within him. “Why would I ever think anything else?”
Jim returned his son’s gaze with an enigmatic stare. It would take a while for Nate to receive his answer.
TWO
Jim didn’t want a funeral, so he didn’t have one. He had an unexpected request instead. Or maybe not so unexpected given Jim’s love of the literary: He wanted to be cremated and his ashes scattered in the waters off Portuguese Bend, a remote area on the Palos Verdes Peninsula south of L.A. where one of Jim’s favorite authors, Joan Didion, lived with her family during the 1960s. Nate had been to the scenic spot a few times with Jim over the years, though never quite understood his father’s fascination with Didion, whose writing Nate found too stark and gloomy. Jim would say Nate was missing the point, to which Nate would ask “What is the point?”
So a week after Jim’s death, Nate and Cody, his lovably galumphing, six-year-old Shepherd Lab mix, piled into Nate’s Chevy Silverado (“Nathaniel Cronin—Landscape Design” graced its driver’s side door panel), and drove down to Portuguese Bend, the classic rock of Jim’s Central California youth blaring in memoriam from the truck’s Bose sound system. Nate grew up listening to the Stones, the Steve Miller Band, Fleetwood Mac, Steely Dan, Bruce Springsteen, and all his dad’s other favorites, making these “moldy oldies,” as he’d jokingly call them, his own as part of their many bonding rituals. It was easier than reading Joan Didion—or even Fitzgerald, for that matter.
Nate sang along, that appropriately overcast summer morning, to “My Old School” and “Second Hand News” and “Rosalita” as he and Cody wound their way down Pacific Coast Highway past Manhattan Beach and Redondo Beach, then swung into more upscale Palos Verdes. When Nate saw the sign for Inspiration Point, an iconic hiking spot with awesome views of the Pacific, he knew Portuguese Bend wasn’t far behind—and there it was. He parked on the grassy bluffs above the rustic beach and leaned across the passenger seat to open the door for Cody, who leaped out and instantly peed on a patch of weeds. Nate reached beneath his seat, grabbed the small bronze urn that held Jim’s ashes, and joined Cody, who was now urgently sniffing at a thicket of Pride of Madeira. He was clearly not the only dog who’d staked its claim up there lately.
Jim’s doctor had lied. Nate’s dad lived beyond the “month, maybe two” that had been predicted. By two weeks and three days. Hardly an eternity but precious bonus time to help Nate settle into the crushing blow that was on its inevitable way. Jim managed to finish the semester just as the exhaustion and pain began to overtake him. He spent his last month laying low on Escarpa Drive, rereading old books, smoking dope and popping edibles (not always for medicinal purposes), and saying his goodbyes to friends, students, and colleagues. Nate spent as much time at Jim’s as he could, sleeping over with Cody as needed until a hospice nurse had to step in. Jim stayed mostly upbeat, more for Nate than for himself, even if the wistful resignation in his ever-weakening voice was hard to miss. It was sad and profound and strangely civilized, and Nate held his father’s surprisingly warm hand when he finally slipped away.
Portuguese Bend Beach was thankfully empty that Sunday morning. Maybe the clouds were keeping folks away or maybe it was just the early hour—it was barely nine—but it gave Nate a wider berth to scatter Jim’s ashes into the choppy ocean. Though he had gotten a permit to do so—Jim had looked into that in plenty of time—Nate didn’t want weird looks or hassles from any proprietary locals. “It’s so crazy,” Nate noted during one of his many marathon talks with his dad those last two months, “it’s not illegal to take a dump off the coast but a little ash is some kind of federal offense!” Jim laughed, as much at the irony of the statement as the fact that, of the two of them, Nate was the one more prone to play by the rules. Maybe the kid was loosening up in his “old age.”
Nate had played this scene over in his mind many times, but it felt different once he was standing at the edge of the Pacific, about to fling a gob of his father’s ashes into the hissing cobalt waves. He had thought about what he’d say before letting go of those eerily finite remains, imagining something that was not quite a prayer—think: more literary than liturgical—yet had its own sort of eternal gravity. Still, when the time came, words escaped Nate. So he relied instead on memories of his dad, a kind of greatest hits-worth of images from Nate’s childhood to last week, as the ashes swirled and flew through the salty breeze. Cody romped and barked as Nate threw handfuls of dust out to sea until the urn was as empty as Nate’s heart.
Nate felt exhausted, as if he’d just raced from one end of the beach to the other. He sat down on the rocky sand—it was more like sandy rock—Cody panting at his side, and gazed out at the horizon, envisioning the slow and steady voyage of Jim’s remains. As if on cue, the sun peeked out from behind the clouds and reflected against the waves. Nate lifted his face to the sky, closed his eyes, and took in the emerging warmth. He hoped his dad would have approved of that morning’s ritual; it was, after all, his idea. “At least you’ll know where to find me,” Jim had told Nate, with a sly smile, after choosing Portuguese Bend for his seaside sendoff. It was a far more comforting thought now than it was at the time.
That night, Nate downloaded a copy of Joan Didion’s Blue Nights and stayed up till three—while Cody sawed logs beside him—reading about Didion’s days as a resident of Portuguese Bend. He finally understood what his dad saw in the iconic author.
THREE
Jennifer had wanted to accompany Nate to scatter Jim’s ashes, but Nate respectfully declined. He actually used those words: “Thanks, Jen, I appreciate it but … I respectfully decline.” They may have sounded like they were coming out of someone else’s mouth, someone a bit more arch than Nate, but they seemed appropriate and, well, respectful. He never wanted to offend Jen—nor she, him—even though they did plenty of that when they broke up shortly after New Year’s. They’d both said things then that they now regretted—probably regretted them at the time—but they’d made the mistake of holding back so much for so long that when it finally came out it was excessive and wrongheaded.
At the heart of their problem was that, after almost two years together, Nate had been unable to commit to the next step with her. It was something she’d been aiming for once she realized they were truly good together. That if they weren’t madly in love, they did seriously love each other, felt safe and protected around each other, two things neither could unequivocally say about their exes. But Jennifer was too prideful—or maybe insecure—to simply lay out a plan for her boyfriend, expecting he would eventually make some kind of offer: if not marriage, then at least cohabitation.
