by Calia Read
Leaving her there was out of the question. It was a struggle, a back and forth between the doctor and me. The only way I could sign her out was if I agreed to take Mom back for a follow-up. When we left, dread took root in my body. There couldn’t be a third-time visit. If there was, I knew I wouldn’t be able to sign her out. I had to be with her. She needed me.
So I moved back home. I did all of this knowing that Mom needed me more than anything. Until she was better, my life was on hold. To me, it seemed fundamentally wrong to leave the woman that raised me all alone during a rough time. She was, no, is, a good mom. No, better than that. She’s poured all her energy into giving me a good life. Now it’s my turn to return the favor.
But that doesn’t mean that every day has been easy. At first I couldn’t sleep for more than three or fours hours. My racing mind would rip me out of my slumber and I would have to go check on my mom. I was so afraid that she was going to leave that I refused to let her out of my sight.
Sometimes she was fine. Other days she stared blankly at the television or sat at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee in front of her. She never drank it, just stared into its muddy depths as if the secret to her insanity lay there. Maybe insanity is a harsh word, but there’s no other explanation for what made her snap.
There is no income coming in. My savings is dwindling. But it’s next to impossible to find a job that would give me a schedule to fit my mom’s and my unusual circumstance.
“What are you doing?”
“Putting sugar in my coffee.”
“That’s fine, but first you need to make some coffee,” I say gently.
She stares into the coffee cup. At this point, it’s halfway filled with sugar.
“You want me to make you some?”
She shakes her head no.
“Are you hungry?”
Another head shake.
“Are you sure?” I persist. “I can make something simple like a ham sandwich.”
Minutes roll by and I’m close to giving up and going back to my job search. Then she looks me in the eye. “I guess a sandwich sounds good.”
Instinctively, I smile. Because this is good. Really good. “Excellent!” I say, wincing at my own voice. I sound like an eager beaver.
There are days where it’s an all-out war to get Mom to function like a human. If I didn’t remind her she’d go days without bathing and eating. If it were up to her she’d live off Sweet’N Lows and home makeover shows.
I go to the fridge and pull out food to make a sandwich.
My mom has always been an introvert, the kind of person that doesn’t vocalize her thoughts. She’d rather sit in silence and endure the pain. She’d rather go slowly insane than reach out to someone.
I look at her out of the corner of my eyes. She stares straight ahead.
What brought her to this point? What made her turn in on herself and become a shell of her former self? Out of this entire situation, that was the scariest part.
“Tomorrow I’m going job hunting,” I say conversationally.
She says nothing.
“I found a few jobs that look pretty promising,” I lie. I don’t know why. Maybe I’m hoping it will snag her attention.
Silence.
“There’s one job opening at a credit union in Decatur. It’s not my dream job but it’s only ten minutes away from here. So if you needed me I could be home in a heartbeat.”
This one-sided conversation is par for the course.
“Of course I’m still holding out hope that I can find a good teaching job.” I place the sandwich in front of her and start to put away the food. Out of the corner of my eye, I look at Mom. She continues to sit there; she doesn’t touch her sandwich. What was the point of even making the damn thing?
I wipe down one of the counters before I turn around and face her. “Good talk,” I say sarcastically. “We should do this again.”
I start to walk out of the room when she finally speaks. “I’m so sorry, Selah,” she says very softly.
I stop in my tracks and walk back to her. “Mom, it’s fine.”
“No, it’s not. It’s not fine. You shouldn’t be here.”
“Of course I’m going to be here. You’re my mom.”
“I can be alone,” she replies earnestly, like a child trying to prove her parents wrong.
“No, you can’t,” I say slowly but gently.
TWO WEEKS AGO a man moved into the house across the street.
For the twentieth time this morning, I peek through the blinds and peer at him. As usual, he’s sitting on the porch. It doesn’t matter that it’s freezing out. He seems impervious to it. A newspaper rests on his lap and a coffee sits on the end table. He has a golden retriever that normally follows him around but is now loyally resting at his feet. His tail lazily shuffles back and forth as he looks at the world around him.
Nothing about this picture should be even remotely interesting. But there’s something… strange about this man. I can’t put my finger on it. For that reason alone, I can’t stop watching him. I need to figure him out or it’ll drive me crazy.
I’m not obsessive or compulsive or anything but I’m damn near close. When I don’t know the answer to something or can’t find an item I’ll keep looking and thinking until it’s found. Safe to say that for the past fourteen days I’ve been doing a lot of staring at this man.
I suppose he could be considered attractive. He has a weathered look about him. His dark hair on the sides is threaded with gray hairs. He has stubble that’s also peppered with gray, which makes me wonder if he’s one of those silver foxes or is just prematurely graying.
The one thing that I despise is his eyes. For me, that’s uncommon. I truly believe that instead of people wearing their pain, they store it in their eyes. With this man, I can’t get a good read on his eyes. That unnerves me. They’re shrewd and closed off and say, I’m watching you.
Even so, I still watch him. And this is what I’ve gathered from my stalking sessions: he has no family. No kids. No friends. If he does, they certainly haven’t by stopped by for a visit. He has a golden retriever that he frequently walks.
I’m not one hundred percent sure but I’m fairly certain that he has a nine-to-five job that he goes to everyday. It’s no suit and tie job. More like jeans and a nice dress shirt that stays in the gray color wheel. He drinks so much coffee I’m convinced it’s his blood type.
He never smiles. Whenever I’m outside with Mom he never says hi. Although to be fair, neither do I. When he moved in the first thing he did was rip the FOR SALE sign out of the front yard and toss it into the garage like it was a piece of garbage. There was no U-HAUL parked in his driveway, filled to the brim with his belongings. He carried in a few boxes and a duffel bag and that was it.
In a way it’s thrilling—dissecting this man in plain sight. It’s like playing with a Rubik’s cube: just when you think you have it figured out, you see another side that doesn’t have the same colors and you have to start all over again. So far I’m still trying to solve this cube.
There are times where I open the door to my imagination and let it run wild with all kinds of crazy scenarios. Maybe he was a criminal on the run, trying to lay low. Was it murder or bank fraud? Perhaps he lost a job or a loved one and had to start over somewhere different.
I know those theories are far-fetched at best, but I didn’t want to latch onto the idea that he was some boring man that simply moved into a quiet suburb. It just can’t be as simple at that. This man is hiding something.
As though he can sense my stare he whips his body around and stares right at me, as if he’s trying to get a better look at me.
“What are you doing, Selah?”
I jump back from the window and turn around, holding my hands behind my back, like a child caught stealing from the cookie jar.
I hiked a thumb toward the window. “I was just watching the new neighbor.”
Mom narrows her eyes at me and for the smallest seco
nd she’s the mom I grew up with. With crystal clarity I can see her dressed in her customary long, flowing skirts. She hated shorts and very rarely wore jeans. She grew up in Tucson, Arizona so warm weather ran through her veins. During the summer she wore tank tops in a full range of colors. Her dark blonde, pin-straight hair would be pushed back with a headband. Gray was starting to creep in now, but she didn’t bother to cover it up. There isn’t a pair of Birkenstocks that Mom doesn’t like. There were a few times that I saw her wear them in the wintertime. With socks, of course.
I just painted you a very quirky version of Susie Kerrington. But it’s the best, most honest version I can give you. If she were her regular old self right now, watching me watch the neighbor, she’d say, “Your imagination is going to get you in trouble some day.”
And I would’ve replied, “Impossible. There’s no better friend than the imagination.”
And she’d sigh as if being an adult, being stern, was exhausting. Finally she would give up the fight and smile broadly. “Such a dreamer. Never stop living inside that beautiful head of yours.”
Any chance I could I tried to work her wise words into my life. Growing up, if I read a book that didn’t end how I’d want it to, I’d close my eyes and let my imagination take control. When I got my license, I’d drive around town with my best friend, Sam. If we were at a stoplight and a car was in front of us, I’d create a story for the person driving or the rest of the people inside. Sam thought it was insanity at first, but she quickly caught on to the game.
It’d been years since I’d done that; life had dulled out that quirky habit of mine. But right now, with everything so up in the air, it felt nice to do.
“He seems nice,” Mom says as she walks toward her chair. Her hands hold a fresh cup of coffee, which I don’t see the point of. She’ll take a few sips before she forgets about it altogether.
Mom’s words do nothing to reassure me. She got along with everyone and saw the best in them. It was a trait that always seemed to hurt her in the end. She used to always tell me how nice this person was and to give them a chance. She once made friends with a lady at Curves. They started having coffee dates. Those little dates extended to shopping trips. It took three months before Mom finally realized that her little Curves friend was stealing from her.
There were rare moments when she was right, though.
Take the couple that lived in the house before our strange neighbor moved in. Mom said they were quiet, but nice. The same age as her. They’d moved in a year after I graduated high school. The husband was retired from the military. The wife had been a stay-at-home mom. The few times I’d come home to visit, I’d seen them in passing. The lady was constantly outside. Many times Mom mentioned that the flowers she’d planted in their front yard were so beautiful.
Those flowers are now dead.
Crossing my arms, I move closer. “And how do you know he’s nice?”
Mom crosses her robe tighter around her waist. “I talked to him.”
I move away from the window. “When?”
She won’t meet my gaze. “A few days after he moved in.”
How is that possible? I’m constantly keeping watch over Mom. Sure, there’s been the small number of times she’s walked out the front door, but I always catch her before she leaves the porch and escort her back into the house.
“I just want to take a walk, Selah,” she’d protest weakly. “There’s nothing wrong about that.”
“I know,” I’d say gently. “But not today.” Or tomorrow. Or the day after that.
“I was on the porch swing and he had just finished walking his dog.” She takes a sip of her coffee. “Nice dog. His name is Duke.”
“Who? The dog or the owner?” I ask dryly.
“The dog.”
“Mom,” I say slowly as I push away from the wall. I sit down on the edge of the couch and angle my body toward her. “You have to be careful. I can’t have you wandering around by yourself.”
She scoffs. “I’m perfectly fine.”
I bite down on my lower lip until I draw blood. Best not to reply. I stand up and let Mom go back to watching HSN and walk over to the window. When I glance through the blinds I see he’s still on the porch.
“So during your impromptu visit with the neighbor did you happen to catch his name?” I ask with my eyes still glued to the window.
“Noah.”
“Noah,” I repeat.
Didn’t expect that. I pegged him as a Steve or a Nick. Yeah, definitely a Nick. But not a Noah. Noah seems like a gentle name. A name for a little boy with a mop of curly brown hair and a toothless grin. Or a loving husband who’s overworked and tired but keeps trudging on because he loves his family. Loves life. Noah doesn’t fit my sullen neighbor.
“So what does Noah do for a living?” I ask, making sure to put his name into air quotes.
Mom’s eyes start to glaze over. It’s like a curtain goes down behind her eyes, closing her off from the outside world and effectively making her a prisoner of her mind. I wonder what goes on during those moments. What does she feel? What is she thinking?
Before that curtain completely closes, I make one last-ditch attempt to keep Mom in the present. “Mom? Mom, did you hear me?”
She turns toward me and gives me a carefree smile that sends chills down my spine. It’s like I get to see Mom when she was teenager. Flighty and untroubled, without a care in the world.
She reaches out and grabs my hand. “Selah,” she coos. “Your imagination is going to get you into trouble.”
She gives my hand a final pat before she drops it and directs her attention back to the TV. I flop back onto the couch and sigh heavily as I stare up at the ceiling. This can’t happen. Not today. Why today?
I’ve already mentioned that Mom has good and bad days. On those bad days Mom is completely vacant. She’s living and breathing like everyone else but wires become tangled in her head and short circuit. She starts to speak in circles.
“If it’s any consolation, I’ve seen the others neighbors stare at him,” I point out.
It’s the truth. We live in Wildwood, a subdivision straddling the edge of Decatur. It’s a quaint place, with bi-level and ranch style homes. In the summertime the yards are neatly mowed. Kids walk down the sidewalk without risk of being kidnapped. Parents do carpool. In short, this is the ideal place to raise a family.
A single man who keeps to himself and has no kids of his own sticks out like sore thumb. He might as well hang a marquee above his front door that says, Hello! Look at me! I don’t belong here!
“Your imagination is going to get you into trouble,” Mom says once again, pulling me out of my thoughts.
Closing my eyes, I take a few deep breaths.
I glance down at my watch. In fifteen minutes I have to be out the door. I have a job interview that actually seems promising, something that I could be hired for and then I would have an income. And then I could pay all the bills and not just the most important ones. And then I could find a way to get Mom better.
Although all my hopes are starting to look like castles in the air. I glance at Mom. She’s smiling widely at the TV screen while a blonde lady with a sleek bob prattles on about this amazing eye cream that the viewers just have to try. You’ll see results in under two weeks!
I glance down at my watch and sigh. “We can talk about the creepy neighbor some other time. Right now we have to go. I have a job interview in fifteen minutes. I can’t be late.”
Mom perks up, looking more like the mom I grew up with. “A job interview? For what?”
I grab my purse from the coffee table and dig for my keys. “It’s nothing special. Just a job at the Credit Union.”
“That’s wonderful!”
With my keys in hand, I lift my head and see Mom’s smiling face. I can’t help but smile back. “It is,” I agree softly. For a small second I feel hopeful that everything will work out for us and we’ll make it through this difficult time.
�
�Do you want to get dressed real quick?”
Mom’s smile fades as she stares at me with confusion. “I’m not coming.”
“Yes, you are.”
“Selah,” she sighs, “I’m a big girl. I can stay at home by myself.”
Allowing her to stay at home isn’t an option. I learned that the hard way and now I’m once bitten, twice shy.
“Mom,” I start out slowly. “Do I need to remind you of what happened the last time I left you alone?”
“No.”
“I think I do. Last Thursday I went to that interview for the teaching job at the private school. Remember?”
Hesitantly, she nods.
“You vowed that you were okay alone. I was only gone for thirty minutes at the most, yet you were gone when I got back.”
Her face turns beet red. She tucks her hands beneath her thighs and stares down at the ground. “I was not!”
“You were too. I was looking for you for hours and couldn’t find you. I was so… scared.”
At the very last second, I switch up my words. What I really wanted to say was that I was so terrified that I almost called the cops. Over and over I kept picturing her dead on the street. Or cold and alone. The fear I felt can still make my skin clammy.
In the end, the cops never needed to be called. A nice woman who lived three streets away had been walking her dog when she found Mom wandering aimlessly. She’d been dressed in a ratty gray robe that she’d had for as long as I could remember. Her hair was wet, like she’d just got out of the shower.
Before the lady left my doorstep she leaned in, worry coating her features. “It looked like she’d been crying.” She hesitated. “Is everything all right?” Translation: Is she nuts and need to be on medication?
I shook my head at the kind lady and quickly made up a lie. “She’s going through a rough time. Loss in the family,” I lie and nod with a look that says, ‘You understand how that goes.’