She feeds us minestrone for lunch and then sics Vin on her broken washing machine.
Ramona’s got me in the vegetable garden wearing a gigantic visor. She sits on a little folding chair and points out all the weeds I’ve missed.
“So,” she says, face tipped toward the sun. “You look less like shit these days.”
I can’t help but laugh. “Okay? Didn’t realize that was a battle I was fighting, but okay.”
“What?” She’s eyeing me. “You looked like shit for a while after the accident. Was it supposed to be a secret?”
“Glad I can trust you to be candid.”
“I’m allowed to say things like this, sweetheart. I’m your mother.”I’m ya motha.
Well, mother-in-law, but she’s never made a distinction there, so why should I? “I’ve…been feeling better recently.” As in since yesterday.
“Vin says you’re in art classes.”
“Oh. Yup.”
“Says you’re a genius.”
“Wait, really? That’s sweet, but I’m definitely not.”
“He says he sees your heart in everything you draw.”
“I…” The heart that Vin can apparently see starts beating double time. “When did he say that?”
She shrugs. “Couple of weeks ago.”
A couple of weeks ago? When would he have looked at my drawings? Back when he found my stuff in my backpack?When everything was cold between us? He could look at some crappy little sketches and see my heart?
“He must have been looking really hard, then,” I say, my voice slightly scratchy.
“With you, he always does.” There’s a distinct pause. And then, “How are my boys?”
I glance up at her. She never asks me about Vin and Raff. She wouldn’t need to. They talk all the time. Vin is up and down from her house a few times a month for this or that. She and Raff watch episodes ofDancing with the Starsover the phone together.
I know she’s talking about this year. About the accident. It strikes me that my answer today, Sunday, is very different than what my answer might have been on Friday. “Better every day.”
“Yeah?”
I nod. “Yeah.”
“You taking care of my Vin?” Some might view this as an annoying question from a mother-in-law. After all, doesn’t she care that Vin is taking care of me? But of course…she knows Vin. Of course Vin is taking care of me.
“I’m trying,” I say, and if it’s not completely true, I immediately resolve to rectify that.
“You know…” She spots some weeds she can’t resist and gets off her folding chair to kneel in the dirt next to me. “You’re the only one he ever lets.”
“Take care of him?”
She gives one brisk nod. “It was like, his father died one morning and then by that night Vin had decided that he was just going to take care of everything. I was too…I was so…I couldn’t see it…at the time. And by the time I started recognizing the pattern, it was too late.”
“He was already Mr. Take Care of It.”
“But not with you.”
This is so surprising it rings as dead wrong. “Oh, he’s absolutely Mr. Take Care of It with me.”
