MadMom

Maddy pushed the door open to her dad’s office, slowly.

“What’s up, kiddo?” he asked brusquely, gnawing a hangnail off his finger.

“I think there’s something wrong with Mommy’s bike,” she said.

“Oh yeah? Did she say it was broken?” He moved his hands to his keyboard and tapped something quickly across the keys. Maddy darted into the room, trying to get behind his desk and see what he was looking at. 

“She said her name,” Maddy said, climbing onto his lap and reaching for the rollerball, which she loved to spin round in its little nest. “Delilah. The trainer-girl.” Still no real reaction from her father. “She was talking to Mommy. Is she supposed to do that?”

Her dad smiled, slid his hand under hers to prevent her from getting to the mouse. “Remember when Mom showed you how the bike worked, how she made her screen name?”

“MadMom,” Maddy supplied.

“Exactly. So the trainers see a list of all the people logged in and taking the class, and she’s one of the names on the list, right. The trainer just chooses to say certain people’s names from the list sometimes.”

She nodded, looking at the array of open windows on his screen, trying to find something that helped make sense of what any of them were. None of them were videos, this time.

Her dad went on. “Your teacher does the same thing. Right? She says your names to help you pay attention and keep you involved? That’s just what the trainers are doing.”

Maddy nodded again, even though she didn’t think he understood what she was talking about.

“It’s just part of the L'Avventura! I guess.” He always did this, calling the bike by the company that made it, rolling his r’s into a rumbling purr that seemed to delight him. “Don’t worry about it. Now scoot, kiddo, I’ve got work to do.”

Maddy slid off his knee and backed away from his desk, trying to keep his screen in view for as long as possible. Her Mom and Dad were always trying to keep her from their screens, and there had to be a good reason why.

*

One morning not too long after the bike had arrived, Maddy had snuck into her parents’ room to explore it, frowning at the way it jutted rudely up, all harsh metallic gleam and sharp angles against the rest of her parents’ bedroom. It didn’t belong with the soft pillows, the happy yellow curtains, the rumpled blankets, the messy piles of books and overflowing hampers. The room felt damp and smelled of sweat. Her mother was in the shower.

She had very much wanted to know what would happen if she threaded her knees over the handlebars and leaned back, which felt like the sort of thing that she would get in trouble for. But surely if her mother—a woman who seemed to lose every race to Maddy and consistently refused to climb trees—could climb on and off L'Avventura without hurting herself, then Maddy—a six-year-old who could go in endless circles around the monkey bars (back when she could still go to the park) and had once biked all the way to the donut shop and back—wouldn’t break herself hoisting her leg up and over the imposing seat.

Once astride, she had stretched her toes down to see if she could reach the pedals (she could not). She had tapped her fingers on the screen to see if it would light up like her tablet (it had). In fact, it opened up what looked like her television app, but instead of the bright colors and bubbly words describing the variety of shows she could select, each little square thumbnail showed the same background and a woman on a bike. Maddy was still trying to figure out which lady was most interesting—blue sports bra and blue leggings or neon yellow one strap sports bra and pink leggings or—when suddenly the screen changed and she was watching one of the bike ladies (red crop top and red leggings) pedaling and smiling right at her.

Welcome back to La-La Land, my darlings, the beautiful woman said. A song Maddy had heard on the radio played in the background and the woman called over its noise. She reminded Maddy of a cartoon character in how her eyelashes seemed to flare out to the side, how her long dark hair snaked down around her head past one shoulder in a fishtail braid that turned an electric purple at the bottom. Her skin glistened as though she’d covered herself in glitter. My name is Delilah Defranco, and I can’t wait for our avventura to begin. You know the drill my friends, reach down and turn that resistance up. Even though she was already yelling, she managed to get louder on the word “up.” Maddy reached down and began spinning the knob to the side.

Now that you’ve found a comfortable spot for our warm-up, I want you to relax. Wait—what? Did I just say ‘relax’? Delilah screwed up her face in confusion, but then her voice dropped slightly. You’re goddam right I did. This bike, this place, where we are all together and focused on this one thing, this is a sacred space for you. Put everything else in your life… she rotated one of her hands in a circle, as though gathering everything into a bag, somewhere else. It does not exist here. You hear me? It does. Not. Exist.

Maddy had the weirdest feeling of discomfort, as though she was watching characters in a movie kiss, but instead of hiding her face as she normally would, she couldn’t pull her eyes away. Delilah was staring at her, right at her. She leaned forward to grab the handles of her own bike, but never broke eye contact.

The knob had stopped turning to the right, which broke the spell. Maddy panicked, trying to turn it in the opposite direction. She needed both hands to unstick it, so she reached down and twisted as hard as she could.

“Maddy!” her mother had shrieked, surprising her so much she lurched herself right off the bike, still holding the knob, which popped off with her. She clattered to the ground, banging her knee and shin and forehead along the way.

And then her mother was there, untangling her from the bike, pulling her hair off her face, ripping the knob out of her hand, before she even knew what exactly had happened, just that she was surprised and sobbing and probably in trouble. 

“I’m sorry,” she wailed.

Her mother’s hair, normally a glorious web of tawny curls, was matted and dripping into the towel she clutched to her chest. “What did I tell you about keeping away from my bike?” she asked. “This is really expensive and you could really hurt yourself. Way worse than what you just did.” 

“It was an accident.” Maddy could feel her snot running into her mouth. “I’m sorry.”

Her mother had ignored her as she deftly threaded the knob into its holster. “Look, it’s fine, I fixed it.”

Maddy had continued to cry, loudly, with choking gasps for air.

“Maddy, you’re fine,” her mother had said. She’d stayed immobile, watching Maddy cry, impatient. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have yelled,” she’d said half heartedly. When the crying still hadn’t subsided, she’d sighed, looked up at where Delilah was still pedaling and chattering away, I am here for you, to support you, to lift you up. I believe you can achieve all you ever hoped for.

Maddy let loose another wail. Her mother tore her eyes away from the screen. “Hey, look, everything is okay. We just learned a really good lesson today, right?”

She’d reached over and pulled Maddy into her arms. The towel, and her mother’s body beneath it, was warm and damp and soft, and when Maddy opened her eyes past her mom’s shoulder she saw Delilah’s face—the sparkly eye makeup and the dimple on only one side, the mole right where her bottom lip met her chin—looming center-screen. Her smile groaned against the edges of her mouth, as though she was working really hard to keep it there. And then she winked.

* 

At first, her mother’s rides were short. She complained about them loudly and with gusto. She would slump over in her chair, let her eyes drain of joy, then intone, “I guess I’ll go take my ride now.”

“You got this,” Maddy’s dad would say, “Twenty minutes. It’s good for us.”

Before shuffling off to her bedroom, Maddy’s mom would inhale and exhale so deeply it was like there was a balloon in her chest inflating and then popping. If Maddy snuck over to the door to watch, she could often hear her mother cursing at the screen, pausing her motion to stand balanced between the two pedals, looking up to the ceiling for some sort of relief.

Life continued on. They woke up and she ate her cereal during morning meeting. Her mom made her sun butter and jelly sandwiches for lunch, and if he wasn’t too busy her dad would come down and theatrically steal bites. Her parents took turns cooking, or deciding not to cook and ordering in. Her mother would shepherd her for a walk or bike ride around the neighborhood or down to the lake to throw bread crumbs to the ducks, even though it was bad for the ducks to eat too much human food. On the weekends Maddy got to watch her tablet alone in the mornings so her parents could sleep in. Delivery people came and went, traipsing up the steps with groceries, pizza, takeout, coloring books, markers, a six pack of socks for her Dad, a new office chair, a new keyboard that bent in the middle, a new yoga mat, new workout clothing with L'Avventura emblazoned across the chest, new towels that her mother draped over the handlebars and around her neck after a workout.

Maddy’s dad’s rides seemed to drop off over time, while her mother’s became longer, and more frequent. When Maddy crept down the hallway and carefully tapped the door to her mother’s room ajar, she was just as likely to see her mother lifting weights, or stretching, or dancing, or sitting cross-legged in some sort of meditation, as she was to see her biking. Her mother no longer cursed at Delilah but instead gasped and sang along to whatever music blared tinnily from the screen. She wandered the house in a bra and leggings—not usually matching like Delilah’s, but close—because she was always about to start a workout or she had just finished a workout and she was really too sweaty for cuddles, Maddy. She braided her curls down either side of her head, or pulled them into a fluffy bun.

The trainers had different hair colors, different skin tones, different sized chests and different types of outfits. Sometimes she was as perky as a plastic doll, her voice nasal and high pitched. Sometimes she would be in an oversized tank top, slouchy, like the neighborhood boys circling the blocks on their bicycles. Sometimes it was a boy, with massive arms and the same bright flat voice her father used when he tried to teach her to be better at soccer in the backyard. Only Maddy seemed to notice that they were all Delilah. Same mole on the lower lip. Many of them wore makeup to cover it up but Maddy always noticed the little blip in the foundation. The smile was always the same too—perfect and painful at the same time.

Maybe they only seemed too excessive because her mother’s smiles were smaller, less lingering. She seemed to be somewhere else in her mind, even if she wasn’t looking at her phone or her computer. Even lying next to Maddy reading out loud from The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, it was as though she wasn’t hearing the words she was saying.

Maddy burrowed deeper into her mother’s side, which felt less accommodating than she’d expected. Her mother used to be more squishy, she thought. She pulled her mother’s face in towards her own so she could kiss her cheek.

“What’s on your face?” Maddy asked.

“That’s just my face,” her mother replied, wiping her fingers along her sharp cheekbones. “We done reading for tonight?”

She left the door open like Maddy liked, but forgot to turn on the hall night light. Maddy heard her open the door to her own room and soon Delilah’s voice echoed down the hallway. Welcome to La-La Land, my friends, my tribe, my people, my babies! I only have one rule today—show up. Can you show up for me today? I can’t hear you! Are you going to show up for me today?

Her mother’s response was strong and resounding, “Yes. Yes. I’m here.”

*

That night, Maddy had a bad dream. She was running down the hall to her parents’ room before she was even fully awake. Their door was cracked, a blue glow emanating from it. Maybe they were still watching TV. But no one was awake at all when she came in.

The light was coming from the bike.

It was Delilah, the palest Delilah, the one whose hair was so light it practically glowed. Her reflection behind her in the studio showed that it had been gathered into a perky ponytail so long and thick it covered her entire back, even past the top of her leggings. Her legs were just a blur, the bike making a slight whir as she moved the pedals round. That was the only noise, and this was perhaps the most unsettling part. Normally Delilah chattered all the way through the rides, sometimes singing along to the music, constantly prodding her mother to stand, or sit, or twist the center knob. The music usually pounded. But right then there was nothing except that dim hush of the wheel spinning.

On the far side of the bed, the humped back of her father rose and fell with deep irregular sighs. Closer to the bike, her mother’s face was tilted away from its illumination. The blue light hit her nose, the bridge of her forehead, the caves of her eye sockets in such a way that the long shadows changed her face entirely. Was that even her mother lying there? Or was it some sort of imposter, trying to trick them?

The sticky fingers of Maddy’s dream climbed up the back of her neck and into the base of her skull. Something bad was happening. The shadows over her mother’s face hit what Maddy had spotted earlier, the slight hump of a mole, right on her chin. Maddy froze, terrified that whatever she did next would be the thing that sealed their fate.

Shhhhhh.

At first Maddy thought it was just the whir of Delilah on the bike, but then she realized it was Delilah. Shhhh, honey, it’s okay. She released one of the handlebars to hold a single finger to her lips. The mole was right next to her finger, dark and explicit. It was just a bad dream. You can go back to sleep. Everything will be okay in the morning.

Maddy nodded, a paradoxical relief flooding her as quickly as the fear had. She didn’t like Delilah, but she believed her. Just to be sure, she clambered up the bed into the nook of mother’s arm. Her mom sighed and grunted, rolled slightly to accommodate, laying her heavy arm over Maddy’s chest. It wasn’t comfortable, but more squirming might wake her mother, who’d send Maddie back to bed. She closed her eyes and lay as still as possible, a solid wall between her mother and the bike.   

*

Confusingly, she woke up in her own bed. When she went downstairs it was her father getting her cereal down from the cabinet.

“Where’s Mom?” she asked.

Her Dad looked deeply uncomfortable. “Mommy just needed a little break. She’s sleeping in.”

“Is she sick?” Maddy asked. “Are we going to get sick?”

He shook his head, then paused. Finally, he said, “No, she’s not sick, not physically, but she’s not feeling well, and since we want her to feel better we need to let her rest. Don’t worry.”

At first, Maddy didn’t. She went to school a few minutes late since her dad didn’t know the schedule exactly. Morning meeting. Reading block. Math block. Maddy was above grade level in math, so while her teacher cheerily repeated how counting worked, Maddy rested her head on her table, letting her hair fall into her mouth where she could feel the strands change from dry, coarse threads to a single silky clump. Maddy’s father’s voice, muffled by the door to the office, echoed down the hall, joining her teacher’s drone. The okay, who knows what comes after 49? braided together with the okay, so we’ll circle back on the Fieldston account in a pleasant sleepy sort of way.

But then another strand joined the braid, the whir of a bicycle and Delilah’s peppy voice. That’s right, you can do it, this is when growth happens, this is when you learn what you are capable of. Is that all you’ve got, MadMom? Keep pushing, think about all that you have been giving to others.

She sounded different. Maddy pounded up the stairs and down the hall.

Show me who you are, the real you, what you are capable of. I’m right here with you. You be right here with me.

She flung the door open to find the room unoccupied. There was just the empty bike, triumphant, screen ablaze, displaying the strained creases of her mother’s perfect smile.

Carolyn Abram is a freelance writer based in Seattle. Her work usually focuses on the intersection of technology and everyday life, and has appeared in various journals and anthologies, most recently in Lit-Sea, in conjunction with the Seattle Public Library. Abram holds an MFA from California College of the Arts and a BA from Stanford. She teaches classes at Hugo House in Seattle. You can learn more about Carolyn Abram at www.carolynabram.com