No way was I judging…not with my recent past. I totally got it—the escape, by any means necessary.
“You know, one day at a time, and all that,” she said, almost embarrassed. Then she sat up a little bit straighter, owning it. “But it’s working. It’s really working this time.”
“That’s great, Mom.” I believed her. I probably shouldn’t have, as I’d been down this road with her before. But there seemed to be something more hopeful in her this time.
Or maybe I just wanted to believe this time was different? Whatever. I took it.
I looked around the place. It was your typical visiting room in a rehab center. The middle-of-the-road kind that’s paid for by your job’s health insurance. Not one of those beautiful places with views of the ocean or rolling hills to look at as you contemplate your demons. We sat on a comfortable but worn-looking brown leather couch. The place reeked of smoke. Apparently this was one of the places where the inmates could smoke.
“How’s Andy? Is he…um…with you?”
“Not with me today, no. They wouldn’t have let him in, and I didn’t want him out waiting in the hall or anything.”
“No. I mean, he’s…you’re…still in the apartment with him?”
Jesus, had she thought I’d bail on him? Or did she think my being off Oxy was precarious enough that a backslide was on the horizon? It wasn’t. I’d been clean six months and was being vigilant about keeping it that way.
“Yeah, Mom. We’re doing good, Andy and me. I get him to school and pick him up. We do dinner and I get him to bed. Then Mrs. Jankowski comes over while I work at night.”
She nodded like she’d expected nothing less, but her eyes still held some skepticism. “And the job? It’s still going okay?”
I nodded. “Yeah, really good. Frank gave me a custom tiling job as a special project. If he likes it, I’ll get more of them.”
She got a faraway look in her eyes and a sad smile crossed her face. I’d seen pictures, and Linda Kade had been a looker in her day (as much as any son can say his mother was a hottie), but my father’s death, Andy’s asshole father, several jobs, and the ever-tempting drugs had all taken a toll on her.
She looked ten years older than her forty-three years.
“That’s great, Lucas. Your father would be proud of you. Tiling, that is.”
She needed to clarify, because there hadn’t been a lot of reason lately for my dead father to be proud of me.
But life had given me a second chance, and I was grabbing that motherfucker by both horns.
This could have been me, sitting here like she was. So, so fucking easily. I’d glossed over the details of my Oxy use with Lily that day in her dorm room. The day we’d first slept together. I hadn’t told her about all the awful shit that I’d gone through just to get off the stuff. And it was by the sheer grace of God, or the universe, or whatever, that I hadn’t already turned to other stuff by the time I realized I needed to get clean so that Andy would have at least one person in his life who wasn’t totally fucked.
But it wasn’t me in here. It was my mom, and she seemed to be getting the help she needed.
“And no one’s been around? Asking questions about why you’re there with Andy?”
I debated on how much to tell her, but she’d have to sign whatever papers W. Stan Lansing put together, so it might as well be now. “Well, Andy mentioned to his teacher that you were on a trip and that I was living with him.”
“And she reported it to CPS,” my mom said, knowing the drill. Sad that she knew so well how the system worked. When Lily didn’t even know what CPS stood for.
“Yeah. They came around, saw how we were doing. I gave them Frank’s name as a reference for me having a good job. I yanked Mrs. Jankowski over to talk to them about her being with Andy while I worked, when Andy was already in bed.” I ran a hand through my hair, thinking back to that nerve-racking visit and waiting to hear back from them. It was the week before I met Lily. It seemed like a million miles away, yet a CPS visit could happen again at any time. “They were cool with the situation. Even said Andy seemed to be dealing well with your…absence.”
She grimaced at that. She’d been the one to tell Andy she was going away for a while to “learn to be a better mommy” to him.
Andy hadn’t handled it well at all, and it had been slow going at first. But the swimming lessons helped—it kept him busy a couple of the days after school, and then exhausted at night. I took him to the park to play catch and stuff on the other days. He still missed our mother and would get upset at times, but he seemed to be adjusting okay. I tried to keep an eye on it as best as I could—talking with his teacher, and, of course, deep, deep discussions with his swimming instructor.
“The thing is, Lucas,” my mom was saying now, pulling me away from my thoughts about just what other things Andy’s swim instructor was doing on a deep level. “I’d like to stay here a bit longer. My month is up in a few days.” Which I knew—that was one of the reasons why I was here today, to discuss plans for when she came home. Would she still want me to stay there? Could I help her in her recovery more by being there, or giving her and Andy more space?
“But I’d really like to stay another thirty days,” she said. She quickly went on when I didn’t say anything. “My doctors think it’s a good idea too. But if you can’t stay with Andy—”
I held up a hand. “I can stay with Andy as long as you need. That’s not a problem. I can move back permanently even when you’re back home if that will help you out.”
“Oh, no, I’d never ask you to do that, Lucas. You’re a man now, and you have your own life to live.”
Yeah, and I’d done such a stellar job of that so far. “Well, not forever, but until Andy’s older.”
