I swiped at my eyes and my nose. Here she’d been gone all day to who knows where after leaving unexpectedly while I was on my trip. She’d let the cat out and then couldn’t be bothered to help me find her?
Anger coursed through me, and all the things I’d been shoving down came bubbling up at once. I stomped to the front of the house.
“Goddammit, Mom,” I bellowed as I came through the door. The loudness of my voice felt like a pressure valve releasing. “Now I can’t find Lucky anywhere. You know she runs out the door any chance she gets. How could you forget? That was such a stupid thing to do.”
Mom looked surprised, then just ... worn.
My anger felt misplaced, but I couldn’t stop it. My mouth kept going even as my brain told it to stop. “And where the hell were you anyway? You’re never around when I really need you.”
And just like that I knew I’d gone too far. Her chin jutted up with determination. “Maybe I’m never around because I’m always at arm’s length, where you keep me.”
I took a step backward as she stared me down and then looked away as if trying to communicate something important that just couldn’t be put into words. Disappointment, frustration, sadness—all those feelings hung between us. Then she shook her head, seeming to give up trying to express in words what she was feeling, and turned on her heel and walked with purpose into the primary bedroom.
I followed her. “Mom, what are you doing?”
“Vivian, I’m tired.”
Her words reminded me of Mitch, and I tasted panic and bile.
Without waiting for a response, she drew her suitcase out from under the bed and slammed it on the mattress. Then she went to the chest of drawers and started taking out her clothes.
That reminded me of Mitch, too.
The insecurities I’d felt when he left bubbled to the top again; I couldn’t seem to tamp them back down. “Tired of what exactly?” I tried to keep my voice even, but it was impossible.
“Trying to help you when you won’t help yourself.” She marched to the bathroom and started shoving toiletries into a gallon Ziploc bag.
“Mom!” I sounded like a teenager and hated myself for it. Those were years I never wanted to think about again, much less revisit.
Her eyes met mine. I couldn’t tell if her sympathy made things better or worse. “I want to fix everything for you, but I can’t. Believe me,I’d take your hurts for you in a heartbeat if I could. But, Vivian, when are you going to realize that you’ve been hurting me, too?”
Her question came like a gut punch, and I sat on my edge of the bed. I couldn’t have answered if I wanted to because ... she was my mother. Did mothers hurt? Of course they did, and I would know because I was a mother, too.
Shoulders slumped, she returned to the bedroom and tossed the bag into the suitcase.
“So you’re just going to leave?”
“Yep,” she finally answered, the word a knife to my heart.
She couldn’t leave. If she left, I would have no one. First Mitch. Then my friends. Then Parker. Even my cat had fled. Now my mother was going to leave me, too? So I’d yelled a bit when I came through the door. My cat could be gone forever or even ... dead. Didn’t I have a right to be upset? What did she do whenshewas getting a divorce? Hadn’t she yelled? I thought back, way back. They were all so long ago now.
I tried to remember a time—just one measly time—when she’d taken her frustration out on me. But she hadn’t. The only time I could remember her yelling was when she was on the phone with my father.
“But why?” Now I just sounded pathetic. And desperate.
“I made myself a promise long ago to never let another husband talk to me that way, and I’m not going to let you talk to me like that, either. Especially not over an accident.”
That was such a stupid thing to do.
You’re never around when I really need you.
When I heard the words again in my memory, they were sneers, awful sneers. They were also things Mitch had said to me at one time or another, and I hated myself for having said them. The last person I wanted to turn into was my asshole husband.
Mom slapped the suitcase closed, causing me to flinch. Then she zipped it with vigor.
“Mom, let’s talk about this,” I said, all my feelings and realizations mutating into a desperation clawing its way up my throat.
I need you.
