Missing Mom

My mother had a secret identity. By day she was ordinary Pam. But in her dreams, and in her fantasy world, she was Penelope Quicksilver. Penelope Quicksilver was the name she would have had if she were a superhero, I think. She never told anyone about Penelope that I know of. Once, she told me that she had the idea of a character named Penelope Quicksilver, but that's as far as she went with it to my knowledge. Knowing my mother though, I'm sure there were elaborate stories based on this character. I can't say for sure; mom was private about those things. She definitely valued her privacy. All the years I was growing up, I never knew how much money my parents made until I went to college and had to know for financial aid applications. Mom kept those things to herself as much as possible. In fact, she got all huffy if you asked. It's none of your business, she'd say. Children have no need for such information. She was right, but it irked me a bit.

So it came as no surprise to me that after she died I came across an opening paragraph she had written about Penelope Quicksilver. It was very brief, and if I hadn't lost it I would give it to you verbatim. All I really remember was that she stated she had a rather boring life as "Ellen," but in truth she was the bold and daring Penelope Quicksilver. I don't think mom thought her real life was boring. I think she was trying to write a fictional work of some kind. I base this assumption on the fact that Ellen is not her name, and so I believe Ellen was fictional, but that Penelope Quicksilver was based on some inner character that she cherished. I wondered what it was about that name that made mom pick it. Penelope is not a name you hear that much, kind of old fashioned. I guess she wanted to make a departure from her boring "Ellen." But I still don't know about Quicksilver. It's an old-time name for mercury, but I don't think that had anything to do with her choice. I think it reminded her of a name of an old soapbox go-cart or something like that from her childhood. Kind of like "Greased Lightning," you know? "Quicksilver!"

Mom fancied herself a writer. I've read various things she's written over the years. Always on the sly, of course. She'd never have let me read most of what I read of her stuff. But I don't feel bad about it. I mean, how else was I to learn about this part of my mother? And since she's been gone, I feel all the more justified, since she never told me about those things. Mom didn't write anything really substantial, except maybe for her journal entries. She was awfully long winded in her journals. One of the earliest things I remember reading was about her concerns for raising me in the context of her relationship with my father, whom she divorced when I was too young to remember. She was really quite worried that she and my dad were doing right by me. The only way I ever experienced my mother's vulnerability as a human being was through her writing. She simply never was unsure of herself, at least not in my presence. She always knew exactly how to do things, and she wasn't shy about telling me how to do them, either.

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