Walter L. Main
3 Ring Trained Wild Animal Shows
Circus Poster (c. 1890 - 1904)
The New York Public Library
Digital Gallery

We were lying on the ground, heads tilted upward. Nights between parades, we often slept at campgrounds or in state parks. Weather permitting, my mother ignored the tent. She preferred waking up with the sun directly on her face, just like they’d done between circus shows, back when she was a girl: “Me and my Aunt Della used to sleep outside on nights like these.” My brothers shared another campsite a few yards away. I could hear their low giggles; and occasionally the long, thin beam of their flashlight flooded past us. We were in Lassen National Forest that night, on our way to Susanville the following day. There was a smell of pine trees and dust. Mid-summer. We were unprotected, but I wasn’t particularly worried, because my mother was there. The dangers she talked about were always someplace else.

“It’s hard being a mother.” She squeezed my hand, as though this confession should have made me feel closer to her. “It’s not for the faint of heart.”

I rolled my head and looked over at my mother, her sharp nose tilted up toward the night sky. “I have a strong heart.”

She squeezed again, her hand wrapped comfortably around mine. “Oh baby, you’re so sweet. Of course you do. You’re very big-hearted. Sometimes, you remind me so much of Aunt Della.”

There were holes left in the sky, in the spaces between trees. Sage, and salamanders shifting over rocks…. Mom was lying next to me. I breathed: despite it all, this was a place I loved.

But I knew about Della: the great-aunt I’d never met. Well-intentioned and foolish, she’d devoted herself to a charming young man who had left her to die in childbirth. “No,” I said. “I mean I’m strong.”

“Sure, Baby,” she said, and went back to star-gazing. There were holes left in the sky, in the spaces between trees. Sage, and salamanders shifting over rocks. The air was still hot, even at night. My skin smelled of insect repellent and cheap soap. Mom was lying next to me. I breathed: despite it all, this was a place I loved.

“You know, I had a husband before your father.” She said this without introduction or apology. But I had not known that; it made me shudder. Just when I thought I understood her, my mother’s history would shift again, opening into a whole new set of tragedies and circumstances — making me question everything that had come before.

“He died — killed himself, actually. Though I wasn’t planning on staying married to him, anyway. A real animal,” she nodded, knowingly. “Once he got on the bottle.”

I laid there, holding my body as still as I could, to keep that information from touching me.

“He was a sad man, and I didn’t love him. He didn’t love himself, either. That was a problem,” she sighed. “It’s important for a person to love himself. You shouldn’t forget that, Theresa.”