“Benjamin!” my mom calls out from behind me, and in my defense I’d probably find that annoying on any day, not just this one.
But I’ve still got manners, so I rise from my seat to face her, leaning down to brush a kiss on her cheek.“Hi, Mom.”
“I’m sorry I’m late,” she says, settling into her chair.“My blowout ran over.”
I’m not so dumb that I don’t know my mom is a beautiful woman, the kind that still turns heads. She’s tall and rail-thin with thick blond hair that she has professionally washed and styled twice a week. She was always pretty careful about her appearance. The morning after she’d moved out I’d gone into the bathroom and stared in confusion at the vanity, wondering when my dad had managed to replace it. But it wasn’t a new vanity, it was the old one, shorn of all the products she’d kept on the counter. Since she married Richard, though, she’s got the means to invest fully, and for her, looking good is part of the gig she has with him, being on his arm, fitting in with his life, his crowd.
“That’s all right,” I say, picking up my menu, a little earlier than is probably well-mannered. But I already want out of this. I feel the same way I always have around my mom, twitchy and restless.
She orders a chardonnay, arranges her napkin carefully in her lap.“How’s Henry?” Even this annoys me. Why can’t she just say,how’s your dad?It’s like she doesn’t even want to acknowledge that we’re family.
“Dad’s okay,” I say, trying not to be pointed about it.“I don’t have long. I need to get back to the yard after this.”
“Well!” Her tone is still light. Nothing fazes her, at least not now.“I’d better pick something in a hurry, then.” She gets a salad, light on the cheese, no dressing, no bread on the side, no croutons, two lemon slices that she’ll squeeze on top. I could’ve ordered it for her. Despite the fact that I only see her once a year now, and only once a week before that, I know this part about her well.
She tells me about how she’s redecorating her living room, how she’s going to serve as secretary for the board of the symphony, how my Aunt Christine in Alabama has started wearing a mask at night that’s supposed to make her jawline tighter. I nod politely, asking questions where I should, keeping my responses to hers light, neutral. I resist the urge to look at my watch.
“You’re tapping,” she says, and though she’s smiling, I hear a fine trace of annoyance under it. I still my leg—I hadn’t realized it, but I’d been bouncing it under the table. I clear my throat, embarrassed. Moving this way—repetitive shaking of my leg, gently thumping my fist against my thigh, knocking my index finger against a table edge—all of it, my mom used to call“tapping.” I don’t do it anymore, ever, except for on those rare occasions when I’m around my mother.
When I was eight, my mom had taken me to the pediatrician about it, had told him, through clenched teeth, that she couldn’tstandit, that I was always moving, that I fought her at bedtime, that I ran everywhere, that I couldn’tsettle down. We’d come home with a prescription—and my parents had their first fight in front of me. After that, Dad had started picking me up from school, taking me to the salvage yard with him every day. Later—much, much later, when my dad sat across from me in an orange plastic chair with a guard watching our every move—he’d apologized for this choice, said he shouldn’t have fought her, or the doctor, said he’d do it differently, if he could have.
I don’t know who was right, between the two of them. The only thing I know is that my dad stuck, and my mom left.
“Sorry,” I say, and her face softens. She almost looks apologetic. I’d meant what I said last weekend, at Kit’s house. My mother is not a bad person—she can be a little severe, a little superficial, but there’s a kindness to her. She picks up feral cats and pays for them to get fixed, finds them homes. She volunteers at a hospice facility, often staying late into the night with lonely patients. She sends an email to everyone in our family—still including my dad—with updated birthdays and contact information, so we can all stay in touch. She’s agoodperson. I hate that I have trouble remembering it sometimes.
“Now, Ben,” she says, and the corner of my mouth hitches up, appreciating that she’s stopped with theBenjaminshit.“I know you’re busy while you’re in town.”
Well, this can’t be good.
She holds her chardonnay by the stem, twirls it.“It’s Richard’s thirtieth anniversary with his firm, and I’m having a party for him in a few weeks. Here, actually.”
“That’s nice,” I say, hoping against hope this is not an invitation, just a non-sequitur.
“Obviously I’d love for you to be there.”
“Mom, things are pretty hectic, on account of me running the yard, and Dad’s care.”
“Of course Henry’s invited too. He and Richard are friends!” I resist the instinct to snort. But then again, what right do I have? I guess they kind ofarefriends. At my college graduation dinner, Richard and my dad got drunk and Richard told a joke about a carpenter and a turtle that had my dad laughing so hard he’d cried.
“I’ll see, Mom.”
She purses her lips, looks up at me.“Ben. You know you owe Richard a great deal.”
And there it is. There it fucking is. I swallow the urge to snap at her, to say,It was the least he could fucking do since he blew up our family. But that’s not even true, not really. And anyways, I’m not usually so sensitive about this shit. I’m—I don’t know what. I’m hot, I’m tired, it’s been a bad couple of days.“If I can’t make it to the party, I’ll make sure I get in touch with him, okay?” I say, trying to keep my voice calm.
She plucks the napkin from her lap, folds it twice and rests it next to her plate, lifts a hand to smooth her hair.“All right. I’ll send you all the information,” she says, her voice wounded. I don’t know if I should apologize. I don’t know what she wants from me. I never have.
We settle up, say our final pleasantries as I walk her out to her car, then head the opposite way toward the truck. It’s four blocks I’ve got to go now, and the back of my shirt is sticking to me uncomfortably. These streets are still so familiar to me, even all these years later. When I got old enough, Dad would let me take the bus from the salvage yard to the historic part of downtown to do light deliveries, and afterward, I’d walk and walk, mapping the city with my feet, burning off the energy that never seemed to leave me. A thought comes to me, unbidden: If I take a left here, walk a mile and a half, cut across the fountain quad that’s lined with crepe myrtles, I’d be right across from the building where Kit works.
Instead, I get in my truck and go back to the yard.
* * * *
When I get in, Sharon and Dad are behind the front display cases, and she’s helping him get settled in his chair. I pause by the door, waiting to go all the way in, because this is the part where Dad usually gets a little cranky, and I may be the world’s biggest chickenshit, but I’m inclined to spare myself the abuse right now. But Dad’s quiet, and I catch him looking at Sharon as she lifts his booted leg into the chair’s sling. What I see there—I turn my face away, look down at my shoes. Whatever that expression is, it’s not part of my understanding of Dad and Sharon together. I know them as bickering, almost sibling-like friends.
I don’t have time to think much about it because the door opens behind me and River comes in, nearly running into my back.
“Hey,” he mumbles, doing that annoying neck-snap he does, the one that gets the swoop of hair out of his eyes for all of half a second before it falls back again.
