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TwitThisToo Little, Too Late
Whenever I see a movie with a scene of an inmate walking out of prison after serving a long sentence, I think of my mother and the day she was released from Camarillo in 1964. I didn't know she was getting out and thus couldn't be there to greet her, but I like to think it was a beautiful day, warm and bright.She was 54. She had no house, no job. Her parents were dead, her husband gone -- my father had divorced her by now -- and her daughters all but gone in terms of how little we'd communicated with her lately.
When she tried to get a job, what could she put on a résumé? That she'd spent nine years in a mental institution? All she had were a few folded photographs of her parents and Kate and me when we were little, and two small suitcases that held all of her worldly possessions.
Much later, Mom told Kate and me that she might not have been released for several more years had not Dr. Goodman, a Camarillo psychologist, taken an interest in her. The irony of his name didn't escape her. The first doctor to pay her real attention, this "good man" watched her interact with patients and staff around the pool, at picnics. Everyone liked her. She had a gentle, healing effect on others, often making them laugh.
My father told a different story. Mom, he said, started "to snap out of it" only after he filed for divorce. He had held off because a California law made it illegal to divorce a spouse who had been committed to a mental institution -- a protection against one-sided legal proceedings. But once the law changed in 1964, he filed. That gave Mom a dose of reality, he theorized, finally cracking her illusion that she might be able to hold on to him if she stayed in the hospital.
Mom wanted to be close to Kate and me, and live in Los Angeles. But after talking with Marshall, she chose the small town of Oxnard, California, right near Camarillo, to get her bearings, renting a motel room for $37 a week. The flicker of a once-bright light -- nearly extinguished by heavy medication, neglect and trauma -- still burned in her. She looked for office jobs. She listened to the radio and practiced shorthand.
Applying at the Kelly Girl temp agency, Mom tested well enough to land a secretarial position. For the next few months, she worked two jobs, finally accumulating enough savings to buy herself a used car and rent a room in a private house. Any day now, she would be ready to invite Kate and me for a visit, and then everything would be as it once was with us, she hoped.
By now, my sister and I had graduated from the convent boarding school and were living our high school years with a single father who picked up women as easily as most men picked up the morning newspaper. There was a constant parade of his girlfriends through our home. He provided the basics for us -- food, shelter, clothing, presents at Christmas and on birthdays -- but beyond that, he had no clue how to raise children.
He got rid of our beloved dog, Queenie, when we weren't home one day. He padlocked his bedroom door so we wouldn't disturb him. During our teen years, he had two pieces of advice for his daughters: "A woman can never have too many black cocktail dresses" and "Don't just get married and have a family. Look what happened to your mother. Find a good career."
By that time, Mom was a stranger to me; she'd missed so many years of my life. No wonder that when my father arranged a weekend visit for Kate and me in Oxnard to see her for Easter 1966, I threw a fit. It would be forced, artificial. I didn't need a mother anymore. That's what I told myself, anyway.
"You're going and that's all there is to it," said my father firmly.
And then, in the Greyhound bus station, there she was, rushing toward us, her arms open wide. She appeared old for her years, and her left eye drooped. She took my face in her hands and kissed me. Unsure of how to respond, I said, "How nice to see you." Even stiffer, Kate pulled away.
As Mom loaded our suitcases into her faded blue Ford Fairlane, I remember thinking what a clunker it was compared to Daddy's classy Cadillac, and how embarrassed I'd be if anyone I knew saw me in her run-down car in this cow town. Much of the weekend is a blur except for Mom's eagerness to jump through hoops and make us happy. "I still think of you as my little girls," she told us, anguished. But for us it was too little, too late.
All these years later, I still shudder at how I treated her.
Mom needed someone to take responsibility for her until she got on her feet. When Dr. Goodman asked my father to do it, he declined. It was time to cut the cord, he said. Instead, he offered to give her some money and to contact her cousin, Marshall McCoy, in Kansas.
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