Signs of Departure

Abstract

Signs of Departure Heather Brittain Bergstrom One of these days I'll look back and I'll say I left in time Cause somewherefor me I know there's peace of mind There's gonna be peace ofmindfor me, one of these days -Emmylou Harris The first thing I noticed missing when my two sisters and I walked through the front door was the gold-framed mirror. Our mother had bought the mirror years ago at our old church's Annual Money-ForMissionaries Garage Sale, and I'd been making a careful point of avoiding it since turning fourteen and moving up two dress sizes almost overnight. The matching gold sconces were still hanging there, but looked ridiculous and uneven with so much bare space between them. My older sister, always more observant than I, also noticed immediately the four missing knickknacks, the missing embroidered couch pillow, and what looked Uke about ten missing books—judging from the dark gaps in the homemade bookcases that fined one waU of our Uving room and held mostly bibUcal reference books, a set of encyclopedias, and a few old hymnals. My younger sister, the towheaded baby ofthe family after making a quick dash down the hall and back, yeUed out with true eleven-year-old terror what my older sister and I should have at least suspected: "Mom's gone!" I Uke to think my mother's flight that day was spontaneous. I Uke to think she hadn't been trying to decide for weeks or possibly months which knickknacks she would take, which books. I like to think the note she left for my father on his desk was written in a hurry, not labored over in the bathroom during sleepless nights while he snored softly in their double bed. I Uke to think she grabbed handfuls of clothes out of her drawers and closet and 144 Heather Brittain Bergstrom145 shoved them quickly into garbage bags. I like to think she snagged the goldtrimmed mirror and pfllow randomly on her way out the door. I Uke to think she didn't have time to sort through the picture albums and that's why she didn't take any with her. As I did often those first weeks after my mother left, especiaUy during long Sunday afternoons between services or nights I couldn't sleep, I stfll like to imagine her last day as my father's wife. She went to work at The Donut Depot at five in the morning as she had been doing for almost a year—since the preacher at our new, more fundamental Baptist church decided she should quit teaching kindergarten at the unaccredited school my sisters and I attended in the church's basement and go to work where she could earn enough money to cover our tuition and help our dad with rent and groceries (and tithing). She wore one ofthe long double-knit skirts she'd sewn for her newjob, modestly refusing to wear the short cotton ones the other waitresses wore. I imagine she blushed or smiled that day when the truck driver, Stan, came in for breakfast around six-thirty and told her she was beautiful and he wanted to take her on the road with him, buy her a pair oftight-fittingjeans. As my mother probably did the first few times Stan told her this, I imagine she cried that November morning in the employee restroom, praying toJesus he'd eat his poached eggs quickly and leave. After about five or ten minutes my mother walked back out of the employee bathroom. She heard her boss yell, "get a move on it, Margaret." She saw the empty booth where Stan had been sitting, watching her with affection or amusement (I stfll can't decide which) as she juggled hot plates and refilled coffee cups, the hem ofher skirt brushing the dirty floor whenever she leaned forward. I imagine she stared at herself in the long mirror above the row of cracked booths she'd have to scrub with bleach water before going home to fold laundry, read the Bible, and wait for her husband and three daughters. She stared at herself, maybe...