When I ring the bell, a robotic arm slithers out of the keypad. It’s the Ring home security camera mixed with Doc Ock from the Spider-Man series. In a way, I feel a bit like Venom in this timeline, wearing a suit that’s somehow turned me evil.
The lens on the camera scans my body, and the screen pings with my identity.
A ding sounds, and my profile pixelates out to make way for animage of Mom. “Resident has been alerted of visitor.” But nobody comes to the door. My nerves escalate.
After minutes pass, I walk around the gate in the side fence. When I’m not even halfway through undoing the latch, a beeping sound blares.
Good thing these contraptions didn’t exist when I was a teen, or I’d never have been able to sneak out or sneak friends in without my parents knowing.
I hear Mom’s voice. “Nolan, is that really you?”
Worry torpedoes through me. I feel entirely discombobulated as I set the latch back and turn to find her skeptically smiling beneath a jaunty sun hat. Soiled gardening gloves are tucked underneath her armpit.
“It’s me, Mom.” The words are barely above a whisper as I take her in.
Seven years from your twenties to your thirties seems to fill you out and set your features. Seven years from your late fifties to your midsixties seems to be a balancing act of preservation. I can tell Mom’s hair has been dyed recently to keep the gray away, and the tan she used to have year-round looks more uneven, hinting that she’s either been in a tanning bed recently or lathered on a tinted cream this morning.
She’s still Mom. Same bright smile and Martha Stewart fashion sense, but she also looks a bit like an actress hired to play Mom in a biopic of my life, purposefully made up to be aged down so she can still believably pass as the mother of a twenty-three-year-old.
Clearly astounded, Mom runs in for a hug, and I’m confused since this isn’t what I expected. “Oh, Nolan, it’s so good to see you. You have no idea how many times that blasted security camera CeeCee and James had installed tells me someone is you when really some media outlet has sent a look-alike journalist out here to get a ridiculous inside scoop on you.”
Pleasantly surprised by this warm welcome, I mime pulling out a tiny notebook and pencil. “Say here, Mrs. Baker, tell us something scandalous about your son’s riveting dating life.” Mom’s forehead creases in response. “Sorry, it was a joke.”
She shivers at that. Those old stand-up sets didn’t just throw Drew under the bus. They ran over my entire family without hitting the brakes. It’s like one of those ethical trolley-problem situations where instead of choosing one track over the other, I somehow hit one and then swerved and killed the rest while I was still in command.
Mom has every right to be wary of my presence here, yet she invites me inside, without hesitation, for lunch, and I decide not to tamper with that by bringing up the past. Even if I want to tell her everything, ask how often we’ve spoken, or if I’ve visited at all, I stay mum as she lays out a spread of deli meat, cheese, and two different types of bread—“White or rye?”
I choose rye.
There’s a new light that hangs down over the sink, a large air fryer, and a fridge that looks like the basic model of the one I have in my swanky apartment. In the living room, there’s a new smarter-than-smart TV, mounted to the wall over where the brown TV stand used to be. The couch, where we sat to watch movies and award shows and Super Bowls, has been reupholstered but not replaced.
“What brings you home?” she asks, setting the plate of sandwiches down at the two ends of our rectangular table. The place where CeeCee and I would fling peas at each other or do homework or make ice cream sundaes when we made good grades on our report cards. I hate that I need a reason to be brought home.
“Overdue for a visit,” I say before taking a bite, letting the melty mayo swiped onto the toasted bread sluice down my fingers.
Mom hands me a second napkin with a tentative smile. “Four years is a long time to be away from home.”
I nearly choke on my sandwich at the shock. I figured it had been a while, but that’s extreme, even for me. Regaining my bearings, I croak, “It’s really been that long?”
Her nod is calculated, making clear that she doesn’t want to throw a rain cloud over our afternoon. “By my count, yes, with all your touring and various shows, but what does that matter? You’re here now and you look well.”
What a strange compliment when it feels like I exist in a constant state of stupefaction. “You too, Mom.”
“It’s the new color,” she says, toying with ends of her still-short hair. There’s a reddish hue to the natural brown. “I needed a change.” It sounds so much like the Doop slogan, which reminds me of the last time I saw Mom—outside on the garden terrace at CeeCee’s wedding. At least that’s one fight that’s not still simmering seven years later.
“It’s really nice. I bet CeeCee loves it,” I say, knowing the compliment will do her good and wanting to slip CeeCee into the conversation since she hasn’t written me back.
“CeeCee hasn’t seen it yet. I got it done last week, and we haven’t had a chance to video chat,” she says while she scrounges around in the pantry for a bag of chips that aren’t just crumbs. She returns with veggie straws.
“CeeCee hasn’t visited recently?”
“CeeCee and James are so busy since they moved out to Colorado.” I still can’t help but wonder what my urbanite sister is doing in Colorado of all places. “Then, when Imogen was born, it didn’t make sense for her to be flying a newborn across the country every few months, so we stopped doing our special brunches.”
Imogen.I have a niece. A whole tiny human blood-related to me was born during the time that I skated over.
“Do you have a recent picture of Imogen?” I ask, stealing a veggiestraw and attempting to hide the fact that this will be the first time I’ve ever seen her.
When Mom hands me her phone, which is so high-definition it nearly hurts my eyes, there’s a photo of a girl with stringy brown hair in a pink dress with watermelon juice dripping off her lips, turning the leftover rind into a second smile. She looks so much like CeeCee that I’m almost convinced this is a photo of CeeCee that I’ve never seen before. One that got replaced in a picture frame when I came along and my baby photos got half the real estate CeeCee once monopolized.
