The Perfect Mother

Jocelyn Kir is the smoother-in-chief for all of her family’s needs, yet when her marriage hits a major bump, her three adult children each react through their own self-absorbed lens. Their inability to cope with life’s challenges forces Jocelyn to realize that her buffering them from the harsh realities she faced as a child has left them ill-prepared for adulthood.

Sarah, the oldest, is jealous of her mother’s unruffled demeanor and her ability to get along with her own two young daughters better than she can. What kind of person appears on a doorstep at six AM declaring she’s left her husband of thirty-four years while holding a basket of freshly baked blueberry muffins? Sarah refuses to believe anything could be amiss in her parents’ perfect world and calls her younger sister, Rebecca, to join forces to elicit answers from their close-lipped mother. Three generations of strong-willed females spar and parry as they each search for their own truths—determined to have their voices heard.

So yes, even though she would change her granddaughter’s smelly diaper while dressed in head-to-toe Dior, and even as she tours the country tagging along with her husband, David, as he delivers brilliant medical-laden lectures, it’s no longer enough for Jocelyn. It may never have been enough, especially for a Magna Cum Laude Columbia graduate.

A random conversation with a cardiac surgeon at yet another convention where she sits idly by while dutifully admiring her superstar husband sparks her to revive her writing skills. Weeks later, when she shares the draft of her medical-thriller with David, he is underwhelmed, urging her to write what she knows. She tells him she knows about menopause and navigating the half-yearly sale at Nordstrom. How about growing up motherless? He presses in an attempt to get her to reveal some nugget of her life before they met. The running family joke is that their mother hatched whole from an egg.

David’s challenge goads her into writing a novel that’s more biographical than it isn’t, as it reveals the extent of her trauma as a young child—too often acting as the adult to her unstable mother. He is shocked and hurt that she never shared that part of her life fully with him and finally understands how she so seamlessly takes care of everyone and everything—needing very little from her husband. She reminds him that her unflappability is exactly what has allowed him his demanding career as a heart surgeon, oftentimes filling the roles of both parents.

When Jocelyn realizes her issues aren’t getting resolved camping out at Sarah’s house and preparing blueberry pancakes every morning, she leaves and embarks on a self-pity tour. From the crowded Manhattan sidewalks to the sandy beaches of New Jersey, and finally, to the tiny town where she grew up in upstate New York, she searches for answers that eluded her about her formative years.

Ultimately, Jocelyn learns she must make peace with her unresolved abandonment issues spurred on by her mother’s suicide and confronts her father for what she views as his hand in her mother’s unhappiness. As the summer draws to a close, Jocelyn and David take a long break from each other as he heads to Cambridge to take a position as a scholar -in-residence. The time apart readjusts the power dynamic in their relationship, but Jocelyn still has one more secret she has yet to share with her husband.