Look Alike

“You need to take some of these clothes, Leslie,” my sister Heather said from the floor of Mom’s walk-in closet. “Some of them are brand new. They still have the tags on them.” It had been five months since Mom died and we were trying to get the condo cleaned out because we’d just put it on the market. 

“I can’t wear Mom’s stuff,” I said, folding a wool scarf and stuffing it in a trash bag. “Everything’s too short for me. She was so little.” But eventually, I agreed it would be meaningful to have a few articles of her clothing, so I joined Heather in the closet and started pushing hangers aside, looking through her blouses and t-shirts to see if any of her tops might fit me. I pulled out a white and mustard striped t-shirt that gathered at one side of the hem. I looked in the full-length mirror, raised my arms and turned around to show Heather. “This one isn’t too bad,” I said. 

“Oh, my god, Leslie,” Heather said, laughing with surprise, “You look exactly like Mom.”

And I’ve started thinking that same thing when I look in the mirror, more frequently every day. I once bought my sister, Stacy a birthday card that read, “Don’t think of it as being another year older, but another year closer to looking like Mom!” That card spoke to me. Both of my sisters have a little bit more of the Riley features from my Dad’s side, the squared jaw, straight nose, the blue eyes. But my face has always resembled Mom’s and it seems to be getting more pronounced every day. 

After finally getting the closets emptied out, bagging up all the stuff and hauling it to the garage so Heather could sell it at her eventual big garage sale, I took her down to The Pub on Second Street in Owensboro for a well-deserved Happy Hour cocktail. We picked up Heather’s best friend Sandy on our way, found a parking space on the street, and went into the near-empty bar. Heather and Sandy waved at the bartender and waiters, calling everyone by name. Patrons trickled in, looking over at us, acknowledging us with either with a nod or upward tilt of the head. After the waiter brought our drinks, wine for me, beers for Heather and Sandy, a guy came over and Heather introduced Sunny, the chef at The Owensboro Country Club. Sunny sat down across from me, looked at me for a moment and said, “You look just like Luann.” He’d seen a lot of my mom if he was working at The Club. My mom and her boyfriend Twiggy were a well-known fun-loving couple at several night spots in Owensboro. They had been members at the Country Club for many decades and were fixtures on the golf course, in the dining room and mainly at the bar. “I know,” I said.

I supposed the first time I noticed the resemblance was it in a photo of the two of us together at my wedding. We stood in a large group during the photo session following the ceremony. We have the exact same look on our faces, looks of fatigue and numbness. The two of us look shell-shocked in the midst of the joyous celebration.

It hit me again in 2014, when I played Nick’s wife on a couple of episodes of Justified. The last few seasons that the series aired, we’d have a group of friends over every week to watch the show. Everyone was excited to see my performance in Episode 11. We were huddled around on the sofa watching the end of Episode 10 when clips from next week’s episode came on. 

“Here’s Leslie’s episode, you guys,” Nick said, shushing everyone and pointing to the television.

After quick shots of Tim Olyphant and other actors, my face flashed up on the screen. I gasped and cried out, “Why is my MOM doing my part?!” I hadn’t had an on-screen acting job in many years and my face had aged considerably in that time. (How is it that I had no idea that’s what I looked like? I am now overwhelmingly understanding whenever Nick laments the documentation of his face aging on television. It’s brutal.)

Even my body looks like my mom’s. Though she was more petite than I am (I think she weighed around 98 pounds when she was 20 years old), I am built exactly like her. Not to brag or anything, but I always had a perky little backside. Boys would yell to me down the halls of my high school, “Hey, CB, see you at the football game.” One of them told me it was short for “Cute Butt.”

I guess Mom had the perky little backside when she was younger too. One day when I was in my forties, I was admiring myself in my full-length mirror. Mom was visiting and we had probably gone shopping. I was looking at my outfit, and with my back towards the mirror, said, “These pants look good on my butt.” Mom looked at me with pursed lips and said dryly, “That’s going to sag one of these days.” And she was right, it did just what hers had done.

She must have been proud of hers back in the day. A couple of years ago when she had to go to the hospital with one of her low blood pressure episodes, Stacy and her husband, Lee came to sit with her in her hospital room. Mom turned over in the bed to reach for something and the back of her hospital gown fell open. “Nice Butt, Luann,” Lee said with a wink at Stacy. Without hesitation, Mom lifted a shoulder and answered, “Thank you.”

“Look at the way you hold toast,” My dad said to me once. “Your hands look just like your mother’s.”

“Take a good look,” I said to Nick when Mom stayed at our house, recovering from the broken leg that would leave her wheel chair-bound until her death last November. “That’s what I’m going to look like in 25 years. That’s what you’ve got to look forward to.”

Nick answered, “Could be worse.”

Getting ready for a party the other night, I spent a longer time than usual on my hair and wanted to make sure it looked good from all angles. When I saw the back, I was mortified. I texted a photo to Stacy and Heather and said, “One thing I don’t understand is why even the back of my head is looking like Mom’s?”

Stacy texted back with a laughing emoji, “You’re right!!!”

Heather’s started with an exploding head emoji, “I know! You’re Mom made over.”

Even the aging pattern of my hair is the same as Mom’s. Watching her age, especially in the last few years, was like seeing my future. After she broke her leg, I tried to take good care of her. I told myself that I would treat her like I’d want to be treated in that situation. It was like administering to her diminishing body was like giving that to myself. Brushing her thinning hair, putting make up on her when she wanted to get dressed up, putting fuzzy socks on her cold child-sized feet, pulling a nightgown over her head, swinging her legs into bed. This decline had happened to my Mom, who was once young and healthy, funny and lively and it was going to happen to me too.

I brought a few articles of Mom’s clothes back home with me. I put one on the other day and looked in the mirror. Mom, just like Grandmom before her, liked her ¾ length sleeved t-shirts. This one was faded blue and white and had been part of an outfit meant to look sporty. I yanked it off. It was way too sad. I tried a Tommy Hilfiger nightshirt. A button was missing and it reminded me of Mom in her wheelchair. Next, I tried a short-sleeved white sweater and noticed a spot on the front, a bit of food that she’d spilled, dried and flaking, reminding me that she had eaten a meal not too long ago. She had worn this shirt a few short months ago and now she was just gone. It didn’t even make sense.

I carefully folded up the items and put them in the give-away box. I kept the white and mustard striped t-shirt with the gathered hem. I may not ever get used to the fact that she’s just gone. But all I need to do is pull that t-shirt down over my head, fluff my thinning hair and look in the mirror. She’ll be there.