In the last several years, their father became more open to Dora's efforts at extending the olive branch. His relationship with a youngish woman, Tera, who had a four-year-old son, Laird, had somewhat mellowed him.
And then there was Ramani. Their grandmother stopped by from time to time with her husband, John. Dora had a way of laughing off the bizarre comments Ramani sometimes made. She knew how to bustle Ramani out of the house when her visits became too burdensome, too tiresome and irritating for the rest of the family. Or how to handle her grandparents from her dad's side, staunch conservative republicans.
But this woman who Erica brought home from The Source Mental Health Facility, this woman who refused to see them for a month, who emerged timid and shy from their Audi SUV and into their house, this woman, was not Dora. For weeks, Jesse cried in his sleep for their mother and had taken to wetting his bed. The younger ones asked Erica over and over why they couldn't see their mom. Barbara knew it was something more severe than amnesia. Something that sent Erica and Cuppa into rooms where they shut the door and had frantic whispered conversations. This woman who came home to them was someone different altogether. When she spoke, it was Dora's voice, but like all the pizazz had been sucked out of her speech. And her accent was different. Barbara couldn't quite place it, but it sounded high and young. When Dora told Jesse, "I want to remember you," her accent had changed again, the words stilted, as if she were reading off a script. Cuppa's attempt at providing some normalcy with tea fell flat. It was Cuppa's usual go-to, hence the nickname.
Would you like a cuppa tea? Let's all have a nice cuppa tea, shall we? I could do with a cuppa tea.
“You always want a cup of tea,” Sara chimed in one time, and that's where it started.
Cuppa's real name was Bridget. But they'd all been calling her Cuppa so long that when someone outside of their little family unit did call her Bridget, Barbara often found herself thinking, who?
After tea, Jesse and Sara each took one of Dora's hands and walked her through the house, pointing out the string of paper fairies taped to their bedroom wall that Dora made just months ago. She'd also helped Jesse and Sara make the paper butterflies hanging by bits of colorful string from the ceiling. They took her to the bedroom she shared with Erica and then to the upstairs apartment. It used to be one massive bedroom, but was now split into two smaller ones, Barbara occupying one and Cuppa the other. Back downstairs, Sara opened the door to the tiny room with its own bathroom and courtyard and said, "Ta da! Your office!"
Dora's eyes widened, and she walked over to the massive curved monitor on her desk and picked up the iPad next to it, turning it over. "What's this?" She asked.
"An iPad, silly," Sara said as if Dora were a young child. She had never spoken to their mother like that, like a child. It was something Dora exuded now, a naivete, an uncertainty, an awkward girlishness.
"What's it for?" Dora asked softly, unsure. There it was again, Barbara noticed, a faint lisp to her words.
"It's, you know, an iPad," Sara stared up at their mother, her face cracking with incomprehension at the question. Just then, Cuppa appeared and bustled them out of the room and Erica asked in a bright, fake cheerful voice who might want to go to The Platform and get ice cream.
"She forgot about iPads, too?" Barbara could hear Jesse say as they made their way to the living room. It was just Barbara and Dora left, Dora still holding the iPad. She set it down. Her large dark eyes moved to rest on Barbara like a deer in the headlights. It made Barbara want to walk away, close the door, start again. In an alternate universe, their mother does come back, and she's still Dora, not this stranger masquerading as Dora.
"Who is…" Dora swallowed, her throat muscles visibly rippling. "Like, who is your dad?"
"My dad?" Barbara placed her palm on her chest.
Dora tucked her hair behind her ears for the tenth time. She did that a lot, Barbara noticed.
"I… Erica never told me."
"His name is Steve."
"Steve?"
"Steve Bates."
Dora's gasp at this bit of news was sudden and sharp. "Steve, who lives across the street?"
"No. Mom."
Dora flinched at Barbara's natural use of the word mom and Barbara took a step back.
"He moved from there years ago. He used to live here with us. He has a house now in Santa Monica with his girlfriend Tera."
Dora's eyes grew wider and more luminous. "I didn't know," she whispered.
The admission to having no knowledge of someone so central and important in their lives made Barbara feel winded, like she'd just run at top speed down the block.
"What else don't you know?"
A tiny shrug. Dora's hand floated up toward her hair again, and then midway, she brought it back down to rest on the desk.
"The last time I was here, I was your age."
Barbara had to strain her ears to hear.
The confession was terrifying.
10
Serene - April 1996
"Hey."
Serene turned around and came face to face with the boy who lived across the street. She'd noticed him right off. He was tall and gangly with dark hair that was continuously falling in his face, prompting him to flip it back every so often. He went around mostly on a skateboard. A few times, she had seen him come and go on a cruiser with a mini tanker under his left arm. Sometimes he was accompanied by a friend or two, also on bikes
