“You Dont Know How to Love,” said my daughter when she saw my tears.
Eleanor Whitmore froze, her cheek still wet, and stared at Helen. Her twenty-six-year-old daughter stood in the kitchen doorway, dressed in her best coat, suitcase in hand, ready to leave.
“What did you say?” Eleanor whispered.
“The truth. All my life, youve done nothing but control, dictate, demand. Thats not love, Mum. Thats possession.”
Helen set her suitcase down and sat across from her at the table, where crumbs from breakfast still lingered beside half-drunk tea in the fine china Eleanor saved for special occasions.
“Darling,” Eleanor began, wiping her eyes with her sleeve, “Ive lived my whole life for you. Given you everything.”
“Thats exactly it!” Helens hand hit the table. “You give, you sacrifice, then demand gratitude. And expect me to live the way you think is right.”
Eleanor shook her head. What had she done wrong? Shed raised Helen alone after the divorce, worked two jobs to put her through school, made sure she studied hard, stayed out of trouble. Was that so terrible?
“I just wanted you to have a decent life,” she said. “To avoid mistakes.”
“What mistakes?” Helen leaned forward. “Marrying the man I love? Moving to another city? Living my own life?”
“That Lawrence?” Eleanor wrinkled her nose. “Helen, be sensible. Hes an actor, barely scraping by. How will you live?”
“On love,” Helen answered simply.
“Love!” Eleanor scoffed. “Youre twenty-six, not a schoolgirl. Love is fine, but how will you eat? Rent a flat?”
Helen stood and walked to the window, watching the street below where old men played dominoes and a young mother pushed a pram.
“Mum, have you ever been truly happy?” she asked without turning.
The question caught Eleanor off guard.
“Of course. When you were born, when you did well in school, when you graduated”
“Im not asking about me. About *you*. When were *you* last happy just for yourself?”
Eleanor frowned. What a strange question. Could a mother be happy apart from her child?
“I dont understand.”
“Thats the point,” Helen turned. “Youve forgotten how to be a woman. You dissolved yourself in motherhood and now think thats how it should be.”
“Whats wrong with that?” Eleanor protested. “Being a mother is the most important thing!”
“For you, maybe. I want something different.”
“Different? With that… that struggling artist? Helen, wake up! Hes thirty and still chasing pennies in small theatres. What can he offer you?”
Helen took her mothers hands.
“Mum, try to understand. Lawrence gives me what I never had at home. He accepts me as I am. Doesnt try to change me, doesnt demand perfection.”
“I never asked the impossible!” Eleanor cried.
“Really? Remember when you cried because I got a B in maths at sixteen? Said Id let you down, that the neighbours would laugh.”
“I wanted you to get into a good university!”
“And when you didnt speak to me for a week because I wanted to study art, not business?”
Eleanor remembered. Art was frivolous, impractical.
“I was thinking of your future.”
“Mine, or what people would say?” Helen released her hands. “Remember Aunt Margaret from downstairs? You still brag about her daughter being a doctor while yours is just an office manager.”
“Thats not”
“It *is*. You always compare me. And youre never satisfied. Now youre not satisfied with Lawrence either.”
Eleanor stood, fussing with the stove though she wasnt cooking.
“I just worry. Thats what mothers do.”
“Worrying is normal. Forbidding an adult to live her life isnt.”
“I never forbade”
“Didnt you? When I said we wanted to marry, what did you say?”
Eleanor was silent. She remembered.
“I said it was foolish and you should think again.”
“You said if I married him, Id no longer be your daughter. Remember?”
“I didnt mean it! Mothers say things when theyre upset.”
Helen shook her head.
“No, Mum. Not all mothers. A good one supports her childs choices, even if she disagrees.”
The doorbell rang, interrupting them.
“Hello?”
“Ellie, its Margaret,” came the neighbours shaky voice. “Can I come in?”
Eleanor let her in. Margaret rushed in, eyes red.
“Ellie, its awful… Olivers left for Manchester. Says hes found work, starting anew.”
“Left? What about you?”
“Im staying. He said I smothered him, controlled his every move.”
Margaret sat at the table while Helen poured tea.
“Thirty-two years together,” Margaret wept. “I gave him my youth, gave up friends, hobbies. Everything for him, for the family. And he says I choked him with care.”
Eleanor squeezed her hand.
“Men go through phases. He might come back.”
“He wont,” Margaret said. “He told me I wasnt a wife but a jailer. Watching, controlling, demanding reports.”
Helen gave Eleanor a pointed look.
“Maybe hes right,” Eleanor murmured.
“Right?” Margaret bristled. “I cared for him! Cooked, cleaned, looked after his health. Was that wrong?”
“Of course not,” Eleanor soothed.
After Margaret left, silence settled. Helen washed dishes while Eleanor sat thinking.
“See what happened?” Helen asked.
“What?”
“Aunt Margaret thought she loved her husband. Turns out, she just owned him.”
Eleanor frowned.
“Thats nonsense. Margarets a good woman.”
“Good doesnt mean loving,” Helen said. “You can care out of duty, habit, fear. Love is wanting someones happiness, even if its not what youd choose.”
“Since when are you so wise?”
“From Lawrence. He understands people. Unlike some.”
The jab stung.
“Helen, Ive given you everything. Worked myself to the bone.”
“Exactly! You sacrificed, then held it over me. Every time I wanted something different, you reminded me of what youd given up.”
“What sacrifices?”
“Remember when you turned down Uncle Richard because he ‘didnt understand me’? Really, he just wouldnt tolerate my tantrums.”
Eleanor remembered Richard. A good man. But fourteen-year-old Helen had made scenes whenever he visited.
“He didnt get you.”
“He was normal! You chose me over your own happiness and resented me for it.”
“I never”
“You did. Every time you said youd ‘given your life’ for me. Every time you cried about being alone. Every demand to account for myself.”
Eleanor paced the kitchen.
“I worry. Thats normal!”
“Im twenty-six! I have a job, my own money, my own plans. But you still treat me like a child.”
“You act like one! Running off with the first man who flatters you.”
“The first? Weve been together two years!”
“Two years of romance isnt life! Youd throw everything away for London. Why?”
“For love, Mum. Something youve never felt.”
“Never? What about your father?”
“Did you love him? Or just coexist?”
The words struck deep. Eleanor remembered her marriage to Edward. Respectful, quiet, no fights, no passion. Theyd kept house, raised a child. Wasnt that enough?
“We got along,” she said. “No scandals, no affairs.”
“No love,” Helen added. “Thats why you divorced when I left for uni. Nothing left to bind you.”
Eleanor sank into a chair.
“So my lifes been wasted?”
“No. Just… misdirected. You thought you lived for others, but really, you were afraid to live for yourself.”
The words echoed. Eleanor thought of her sister Sarah, whose drunken husband shed helped for years, only for Sarah to call her meddling. Of her coworker Jane, whose reports shed covered, only for Jane to take the promotion meant for her. Of old Mrs. Thompson downstairs, whose errands she ran, only for the woman to complain about “heartless youth.”
“Maybe youre right,” she admitted softly. “Maybe I dont know how to love.”
Helen softened at her tears.
“You do, Mum. Just the wrong way. You love, then demand repayment. You love, but want to remake people.”
“How should I?”
“Let go. Let people choose their path. Even if you think theyre wrong.”
Eleanor studied her daughterbeautiful, grown. When had that happened?
“Do you really love him? This Lawrence?”
“Yes.”
“And he loves you?”
“Yes. Not because I fit some ideal. Just because Im me.”
Eleanor nodded. That kind of love, she didnt understand. Shed always thought
