She looked down at the ground, then up at the front yard.
“What are you going to do about work?” I asked.
She shrugged, sniffled. “I don’t know.”
“If you need help with money, let me know. Philip and I will help. Don’t go to Mom.”
“I wouldn’t—” She started to say, but her thoughts drifted.
“Paula.”
She raised her head, the heaviness of her eyes closing, lost in pain.
“Call me.”
“Right. Yeah. I will.”
“Paula,” I held firmly. “Look at me.”
She couldn’t hold my gaze. “I want to go to sleep. It’s been a long day.”
I leaned in and hugged her, our bodies angled awkwardly. I could smell the stench of vomit still lingering in her hair, even after two showers. “I’ll check back with you tomorrow.”
She nodded into my neck, her chin rubbing against my shoulder.
When I pulled away, I could see she was crying.
Chapter 31
My mother asked me to move in with her: the second part to our previous conversation. She asked me over dessert: coffee and leftover peanut butter cookies. Philip was in the shower, and I could hear the inspiring melody from a tune he was humming.
I sat beside my mother at the butcher-block island, the room stirring with unrestrained electricity. “Mom.”
“Hear me out.”
“I can’t move right now—” I started to say.
“Have you spoken to Philip about it?”
“You just asked me. I haven’t had time to think about it.”
“I’m sure Philip will be fine with the idea.”
“Picking up and moving our life here would require major changes in our life.”
“For whom?”
“Everyone. Me. Philip. You.”
“I need you.”
“I’ll visit every month.” I gestured with a wide sweep of my hand. “We’re staying another week.”
“It’s not long enough.”
I exhaled.
“Think about it,” she said. “Please. I need you and Philip. I can’t go on living alone.”
“You’re not alone.”
Her eyes got big. “Your father’s gone, Chris. I can’t live this way.”
My next words startled even me. “Move back to Milestone with us.”
Chapter 32
In bed that night, Philip said to me, “It’s not a bad idea.”
“What are you talking about?”
He reached for my hand under the sheets. “Your mother should come live with us. It makes sense.”
I looked at him puzzled. “Are you serious?”
“You’re the one who suggested it. Not me.”
I sighed. “I said it in hopes she’d refuse.”
“I think she should.”
I leaned back against the headboard, the mattress squeaking under my weight. I closed my eyes. “I hope I don’t sound selfish, but I’m still trying to process all of it. It’s a big step for all of us.”
“You’re not being selfish. I understand it’s a lot to digest.”
“What would you do?” I asked, running my hand up and down his hairy arm.
“Given your mother’s age, I think it’d be a good idea for her to move in with us. We could keep an eye on her.”
“What about Paula?”
He was quiet, thinking. “If you’re worried about her, she can come, too.”
“How did I ever meet the perfect man?” I kissed him. “You’re most generous.”
“Paula doesn’t have to live with us. She could find her own place. Your mother, however, is a different story. She would need someone to take care of her.”
“My mother’s still mentally sharp and physically to do things for herself.”
“Except drive a car.”
“Milestone is a small town. She’d get around just fine.”
We lay in each other’s arms, pondering the change in our lives, and the small sacrifices we would make in the coming weeks.
Chapter 33
As promised, Philip and I stayed for another full week, doting on my mother, getting her out of the house, taking road trips, eating and socializing with other people as the days and nights moved on with and without us.
“I’ll miss your father belly-aching about everything,” my mother said, staring out the Italian restaurant’s front glass windows onto a pedestrian-filled sidewalk. “I’d give back all the fights and unfriendly things we’d put each other through just to have him back.” She blew on the ribbons of steam rising from her coffee cup. “His bickering about the way I left old tea bags in the kitchen sink, or the many times I’d annoy him by chewing too loudly on my Fritos.” She shook her head, set her cup down on the table, clinking it loudly against the plate of seafood linguini. “Or the times I’d keep him up listening to my police scanner, the crackling static driving him out of the room to sleep in the spare bedroom.”
“Mom,” I said, reaching for her hand. “You and Dad had a great life together. It was built on trust. You shouldn’t have any regrets.” I’m one to talk, I thought. Listen to me lecture my mother.
Philip reached across me in the booth. “Why do you think we still live together, Lori?” he said. “You raised a man I couldn’t live without. Chris is the most considerate, loving man I know. You and Henry did a wonderful job raising him. I’m lucky to have Chris in my life.”
Mom turned halfway, her eyes beaming proudly, but fading. She sniffed, sliding her fork through the thick strands of pasta.
“I love you both,” she said, her voice tight, frightened, the sound of loneliness snaking down my back like cold fingers.
She leaned back in the booth and wiped her moist eyes with a napkin. “I—” She shook her head, blowing her nose into the napkin. Balling it up and shoving the dirty paper in her breast pocket, she looked up at Philip and me. “I’m so glad you’re both here.”
“Of course,” Philip said, grabbing her hand.
“I don’t mean because of Henry’s death.”
I looked at Philip who looked at me uneasily, thoughts swelling behind his eyes. We both turned to my mother. “What is it, Mom?”
She swallowed, licked her dry licks, and closed her eyes. “I don’t want to be alone anymore.” Her words were unsettling.
My heart hammered. The hair along my neck tingled. I shivered.
I don’t want to be alone anymore.
“What do you mean, Mom?” I was afraid to ask.
I waited until she leaned forward, moved in her seat, the faux leather squeaking in protest beneath her. She pushed her lunch aside, and shuddered. She looked up at me, her expression vacant, sad, and troubled. She sat that way for a few more seconds. “I don’t want to live alone anymore.”
When I asked her to be more specific, that I still wasn’t sure what she was saying, she said, “The house is too big for only me. There are too many memories. I wake up crying every morning, hoping your father will be next to me in bed.”
“Mom—”
She held up a hand in protest. “I can’t live without your father.”
I clasped her hands in mine. “What are you saying?”
I hit a nerve. “Nobody can replace your father.” She shook her head. “No. No. No.”
My gaze caught Philip’s sympathetic expression as if to say he knew what my mother was requesting. I pulled myself back into the booth and took a swig of my sweet lemonade, emptying the tall glass.
We all sat in silence.
Philip excused himself from the table and headed outdoors into the hot afternoon.
I stared across at my mother who was looking down at her hands, shaking, incredulous.
Chapter 34
“Am I being selfish?” I asked Philip again when we got back to my mother’s house. I watched her hobble to the house and stop at the front porch. She waved over at the next-door neighbors.
“For not helping your mother inside?�
�� he asked.
I shook my head. “For not seeming overzealous to move back to Arizona.”
Philip inhaled, gripping the steering wheel. “I don’t think there’s a selfish bone in your body.”
“Then why do I feel this way?”
He turned to me and placed his hand on my shoulder. “How do you feel?”
“Confused. Hurt. Numb. Like I’ve been hit by a bulldozer.”
“Your mother wanting us to come live with her is no different than you asking her to move to Milestone to be close to us. She’s trying to make that difficult and awkward transition without your father.”
I leaned back and closed my eyes. Philip must have noticed me shaking because the next thing I knew he was pulling me into his arms. “The news comes as a surprise, but remember, your mother needs us right now. We’ve all she’s got for family.”
Opening my eyes, I turned to my husband. I just stared at him, deadpan and motionless, a jumble of thoughts tumbling around in my head.
“I can see the cogs turning in your brain,” he said. “What are you thinking about?”
I blinked back an ambush of tears and turned and looked out the side window to my mother’s small, peaceful house. Childhood memories of my father and me eating, laughing, and fishing, engulfed me in their blissful times. But the reality of his death slapped me hard in the face.
Philip leaned over, his body warm and consoling and safe against mine.
“Watching my father dying in that hospital bed was the most devastating thing I’d ever experienced. Seeing him lying there unresponsive, his breaths ragged and shallow and weak, was frightening to see and hear. I’ll never forget those sounds.”
Philip held me until the sun went down.
Chapter 35
The next day, I told Philip I wanted to go for a car ride. “I need to get away for a while.”
“What about your mom?”
“She said she’s having lunch with the Bellinghams.”
“Where do you want to go?”
I grabbed the urn with my father’s ashes. “I’ll show you.”
* * * *
We were in the car for three and a half hours when Philip, showing signs of fatigue, yawning and struggling to stay awake, pulled into the entrance to the Grand Canyon National Park.
I paid the exorbitant skywalk entrance fee for two, even though we’d only be there for a short time, and Philip and I walked into the park with my father’s remains.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” Philip asked, rambling behind me along the glass bottom trail, overlooking the magnificent views of the Grand Canyon.
Along with a crowd of other onlookers, we stood at the edge of the precipice, my palms slick with sweat, head dizzy. I felt Philip’s hand on my shoulder. “I want my father’s resting place to be home,” I said.
Philip looked around at the other tourists. “I don’t think this is legal,” he whispered.
“It won’t take long. Luckily, there’s not a lot of wind today,” I said, ignoring his comment.
Philip kept his eyes on the sightseers.
My clammy fingers slipped a few times as I tried opening the urn. When I got a sure tight grasp on the lid, I set the urn on the railing, and dug inside for the bag of ashes.
Philip stood behind me to block my activity from the other tourists’ stares.
Untying the plastic bag, I held the heavy remains of my father for a few final minutes. I didn’t want to let go, but I knew this was the right thing to do. Release him into nature that was his life, his younger years complete with adventure and purpose and happy, sun-filled days. It was how I wanted to remember the man who provided me a rich, rewarding life.
“I’ll take care of Mom for you,” I murmured into the heaping bag of ashes as I handed the urn to Philip. I bent over the railing, and emptied the contents of my father’s remains down into the depths of the canyon.
Philip slung his arm over me, tenderly as if to tell me he had my back, and held on tightly, as we watched the light warm wind whip my father around in thick clouds of grey, the ashes sailing through the heat in a fitting remembrance of a good man.
I clenched the empty bag. At that moment, the world felt empty, lonely, and without light.
Chapter 36
It was still pitch black when I woke to the aromatic smells of coffee and pumpkin scones in the early morning hours.
Adam Bellingham was at it again, emptying out his garage at an unreasonable hour. Bang, scrape, scuffle.
Philip was out cold, snoring in the back of his throat, and whispering things only a squirrel would understand. I crawled out from underneath his arm, padded barefoot across the room, and slipped out into the dimly lit hallway.
I detoured to the bathroom, and a few minutes later walked into the kitchen to the sound of my mother baking, whisking ingredients into a large aluminum-mixing bowl, her face powdered with flour. I stayed in the shadows and watched my agile eighty-three-year-old mother surprising me to this day. But I was also worried about her new bad habits, staying up late into the night, cooking, watching TV, or sitting on the living room couch, alone, crying, incapable of sleeping.
She had her favorite country music station turned on, as she flew around her familiar surroundings, opening cupboards, pulling out eggs and milk from the side door of the fridge, and humming to the feel-good tunes.
The time on the digital reader above the oven read 2:48 A.M.
I stepped out of the shadows and approached her. Though she didn’t see me coming up behind her until she turned around, closing the oven door behind her, a hot tray of scones in hand, pumpkin from the smell of them, she was startled by my presence.
“Chrissy, what are you doing up?”
“Can’t sleep.”
“I didn’t wake you, did I?”
I shook my head, too tired to explain my reason for being awake.
“Do you want a pumpkin scone?” she asked, the sticky and sweet smell transporting me back to my childhood days when my mother had baked my favorite after school snack.
“They smell delicious,” I said.
“Sit. Grab a plate,” she said, flying around the kitchen, making me dizzy and anxious.
I took a scone, let out a small shriek at the touch of its warm freshness, dropped it on the plate, and licked the icing from my fingertips.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” she cooed. “Take two. You could handle more than one when you were six.”
“As you can see, my metabolism has slowed down since then.”
“Hush and eat. Listen to your mother. It’s comfort food.”
I smiled. “Did Adam Bellingham wake you again?”
Sidestepping, she answered, mumbling, “I was awake already.”
“How was your lunch with him and Carly?”
She scrunched her face. “They served escargot over a bed of Boston lettuce and homemade balsamic dressing. I told them I was allergic to snails.” She wasn’t. She just didn’t want to eat them.
I laughed. “I would’ve, too.”
“Want a glass of cold milk to go with that?”
“Sit down, Mom. Take it easy. I’ll get the milk.”
“I hate when people tell me to take it easy. They make me feel old, like I’m incapable of doing anything.”
“That’s not it at all.”
“Baking relaxes me.”
“I’ll be more relaxed if you join me.”
Sighing, she set down the tray of scones on a cooling rack and pulled out a seat across from me.
“They’re awfully good,” I told her.
She winked.
“How long have you been awake?” I asked.
She looked down at her watch. “Two, maybe three hours.” She shrugged. “I don’t sleep well anymore.”
“Mom?”
“Hmm?”
“Are you all right?”
She shook her head. “I miss your father. Everything feels different, as if I’ve stepped into somebody else’s life.”<
br />
I held out my hand to her. “Philip and I have been talking.”
She curled her bony fingers around mine. “About what?”
“You moving to Milestone with us.”
We fell into a deep silence. The oven timer beeped, signaling that the second batch of scones was cooked. A homey scent infused the room.
“I’ve got to get the scones out before they burn,” she said, pulling away from me. She opened the oven door and reached inside for the tray of a dozen pumpkin scones. 420-degree heat blasted into my face, and I closed my eyes, oddly consoled.
Placing the piping hot tray on a cooling rack next to the other batch on the island, my mother looked over at me. “I could go into a nursing home,” she said.
I shook my head. “Not an option.”
She pulled her hands out of the oven mitts. “It was just a suggestion. I don’t want to put you and Philip out either. I don’t want you guys to have to rearrange your life for me.”
“You’re my mother. I’d do anything I can to make your life easier.”
She stared down at the rack of rolls. “I made enough for the entire neighborhood.”
“Mom.”
She pulled her gaze up to me. “What, dear?”
“I’d be worried about you if we weren’t living close to each other.”
Chapter 37
The last few days at my mother’s house flew by too fast. By Friday morning, Philip and I were packed and ready to board the airplane to head back home to Milestone.
My sister Paula drove us to the airport. She looked pale and withdrawn in the early morning light.
Philip unloaded the trunk with our luggage, hugged Paula, wished her the best, and walked to the passenger’s side window to thank my mom for the hospitality. I watched him lean into the opened window and wrap his arms around her.
I heard him tell her that he loved her, kissed her cheek, and turned and headed to the airport terminal, waving at both Paula and Mom. I gestured that I’d join him soon.
Paula and I lingered in each other’s arms for a few unhurried minutes. When a taxi pulled up behind us and blared its horn for us to move, I pulled away and kissed my sister on the cheek. “Don’t forget about our little talk,” I said.
The Light Between Us Box Set Page 22
