by Claire Adams
“It’s not about the money,” my mom interrupts.
“What do you mean?” I ask. “I thought you were getting behind on mortgage payments.”
“We just think that the city’s not the right place for you,” she says. “You’ve always been such an innocent child,” read that as ignorant, “and I don’t think you’re ready for that kind of world.”
“Mom, I’ve lived in the city for years now. I think I’m good to go,” I answer.
“It’s not just about that,” my mom adds. “How are you ever going to find a good husband in that unrepentant Sodom?”
“New York really isn’t all that bad,” I tell her. “Besides, I hardly think my situation would be improved by moving back to a place where someone new moving to town is a community event. I’d worry about inbreeding.”
“Now, Jessica…” my dad starts. It’s a sentence that he’s never finished.
“I know you’re having fun with your little rebellion or whatever this is, but it’s time to come home where we can take care of you.”
My phone beeps.
“What was that?” my mom asks.
“I just got a message,” I tell her. “Can you give me a minute? I just want to make sure it’s not something to do with the store.”
As I get up from the table, my mom leans toward my dad and, loudly enough that she’s sure I hear it, she says, “I bet it’s one of those gigolos from the city.”
The bright side about having such a backward, judgmental mother is that she’s often the source of some really great comedy, though she apparently has no idea why I’m laughing.
I walk out the back and sit on the porch swing as I check the message.
It reads, “Haven’t talked to you today. How’s it going?”
I write back, “I can’t tell you how glad I am to hear from you. I’m here with my mom, and it is just horrendous.”
Through the kitchen window, I can hear my mom and dad talking. Dad’s on my side, for now at least, but my mom just keeps on repeating, “It can’t be too long before they chew her up and spit her out. She does the best with what god gave her, but do you really think she’s ready to handle that kind of life?”
My phone beeps and the discussion inside stops.
I read the message. It says, “I’m sorry to hear that. What’s going on?”
I write back, “Just the usual.” After sending the message, it occurs to me that he has no way of knowing what “the usual” is, so I enter another message, saying, “She has it in her head that I’m still four years old and couldn’t possibly make it in the real world. Any advice?”
“She’s just not built to stand on her own two feet,” I can hear my mom telling my dad. “She needs someone to look after her and point her in the right direction. Otherwise, who knows what’s going to happen?”
It’s that last sentence that really catches me.
My phone beeps.
The new message reads, “Not much you can do. Moms are moms, and in my experience, there’s not much you can do to change their minds about anything.”
I write back, “Your mom does this kind of thing, too, huh?”
My dad’s inside saying, “At some point, you’ve just got to trust that she knows the right thing to do. That’s our job as parents: To teach our children the best we can and then let them live their own lives.”
Mom has apparently either forgotten or has stopped caring that I can hear her as she bellows with laughter and, in a loud voice says, “Do you really want to know what kind of a life she would choose to lead if we didn’t give her the right direction? Do you remember that boy—oh, what was his name?—Billy or something. He was the one with the Camaro.”
“Dear, you’ve got to let that go. People make mistakes,” my dad says.
He’s a great ally to have for about the first ten minutes of every disagreement. The problem is that he gets tired of arguing so quickly that anything longer than that ten minutes and he’s just going to say whatever he needs to say to halt the disagreement.
“It’s a wonder she knew to use a condom,” my mom adds and my phone beeps again.
“Yeah,” I call, “that means I can hear you, Mom!”
I look at the screen and read, “She used to, but we lost her a few years back to cancer.”
That was a little more real than I was expecting.
“I’m sorry,” I write and try futilely to think of something to add. There’s nothing, so I just send the message.
The back door opens and my dad comes out.
“Mind if I sit with you?” he asks.
“Go ahead,” I tell him.
“You know, I used to hold you out here when you were just a baby and we’d watch the stars come out at night.”
“I remember,” I smile. “Not that far back, obviously, but we did that for a long time.”
“I always loved this time of night for that reason,” he says. “You know, your mother and I just want to have you close because we love you. It’s not that we’re trying to keep you from having your own life. We just want to be a part of it.”
It still surprises me that I forget how my dad can be even more effective with the art of the guilt trip than my mom can. If guilting was a sport, they’d take gold and silver every time.
“You are a part of it,” I tell him. “I can come visit more, but I can’t just give up my life because Mom still wants to treat me like a toddler.”
“She loves you, dear,” my dad says. “I love you, too. We just want what’s best for you.”
“Then trust me,” I tell him. “I’m doing great on my own. I have problems just like anyone else, but I find solutions. I’m actually doing some really great things in the city. My store remodel just got finished, and—”
“Do you have any pictures?” he asks.
I waited until after Eric and his guys left, but I did snap some photos with my phone, so I pull up my picture gallery and hand it over to him.
“Wow,” he says. “It looks like they did a really good job. I love the sunken floor right there.”
“Yeah, and that window used to only go to this corner,” I tell him, pointing at the picture, “but I had them take it around the side so people coming down the street can get a view of the window displays before they get to the store. People are much more likely to see something if it’s in front of them, or close to in front of them than if they’re already walking past it.”
“Didn’t you say they started this a couple months ago?” he asks.
“Yeah,” I answer.
“Why’d it take them so long to finish it?”
My dad is probably the only person on the planet in front of whom I’d feel embarrassed about changing my mind so much, so I just tell him, “Some of the materials they needed took longer to ship than we thought they would, but it came out pretty nice, huh?”
“It looks great, honey,” he says and hands the phone back to me. “How much did that cost?”
“You really don’t want to know,” I tell him.
“I really do,” he says.
“No, New York prices are different than prices almost anywhere else. It would just sound like a waste of money.”
“I know New York is expensive,” he says. “Come on, how much?”
“All told,” I start, “a little over one sixty.”
I’m already cringing in expectation of my dad’s response.
“One sixty what?” he asks.
Now I’m cringing harder. “Thousand, Dad, it was a little over a hundred and sixty thousand. It was going to be a little cheaper, but I thought of some changes before they were done and I had them implement it.”
“Where did you get that kind of money? You didn’t take out one of those payday loans, did you?” my dad asks.
I laugh. He’s so sincere, and he’s just looking at me with those big eyes, but that just makes me laugh even harder.
“Dad,” I wheeze, “I really don’t think those places deal in that kind of cash. I to
ok out a normal bank loan, but I was able to pay a chunk of it with my savings.”
“How much?” he asks.
My phone beeps, but unfortunately, my clandestine friend will have to wait a minute or two.
“A little over half,” I tell him. “I like to save most of my money. Investing in the future is better than blowing all your money for a fleeting present.”
“Well, I’m impressed,” he says. “That must have cleaned you out, though. We can’t let you pay for our—”
“I left about twenty-thousand in my account,” I tell him. “I didn’t want to completely gut my savings. After all, you never know when times are going to get tight.”
“Where did you get all this money?” he asks.
“From my store,” I tell him. “Despite what Mom thinks, it’s actually a really good concept.”
“Don’t be too hard on your mother,” he says. “You know that she has trouble letting go.”
“I get that,” I tell him, “but that doesn’t mean that she just gets to belittle me when she won’t even listen to what I’m doing with my life. I’m not her little girl anymore.”
I regret the words because I can already hear the cliché they’re going to elicit before he says it.
“You’re always going to be her little girl,” he says.
“Yeah, I know,” I tell him. “I’ve seen the Lifetime movies, but that doesn’t mean that she can’t let me grow up. Whether she likes it or not, I already have.”
“I know, dear,” he says. “You’ve grown up so fast.”
My phone beeps again.
“So, who’s sending you messages?” he asks. “Is it a boyfriend?”
“No,” I tell him. “It’s just some guy. I don’t even know him.”
“You can block him,” my dad says. “I read that online.”
“We’re living in a strange world,” I tell him. “It starts with parents coming to a functional, albeit gradual, understanding of technology and where does it end? Next thing we know, kids will start doing their homework willingly and politicians will stop accepting bribes to sway their votes. It would be madness!”
My dad chuckles, and it’s still one of the most comforting sounds in the world to me.
Growing up, he was always the one cheering me on when I had soccer games or dance recitals. Mom, she’d always say the same thing, no matter what I was doing, “Just remember, Jessica, you may not be the smartest or the prettiest, but you go out there and do your best anyway.”
There was never any, “I’ll be proud of you no matter what,” or “You’re going to do great.” It was always, “Do your best even though it’s not going to amount to much.”
“Dad, does Mom hate me?” I ask.
It’s a dramatic question, but maybe it’ll get him to realize that her behavior is more than a mother just hanging onto her little girl a bit too much for a bit too long.
“Of course not, honey. Why would you say something like that?” he asks.
“Well, I don’t think she actually does, but you know the way she talks to me. She’s always talked to me that way, and it doesn’t matter what I do or how well I do it, she never trusts that I’m going to make the right decision about anything,” I tell him.
“She just worries about you,” he says. I wait for him to finish the thought, but apparently that’s it.
I pull my phone back out of my pocket and check my messages.
“Is he a good man?” my dad asks.
“I don’t know,” I tell him. “So far, he’s about the closest thing I have to a friend besides the people I pay to work for me.”
The statement was a bit blunter than I intended, and I can see the result on my dad’s expression.
“You work too hard,” he says. “I bet if you were to go out there and have a good time, you’d come home with a bunch of friends.”
“Maybe,” I tell him and look at my phone.
“What’d he say?” my dad asks.
“Oh, you really don’t want to know,” I tell him.
“He’s not being disrespectful, is he?” my dad asks, and I have to smile. He’s always been the protector. “You know, despite what you may see on television, it’s not okay for men to say the nasty, sexual things that they do to women.”
“It’s not that,” I tell him. “He’s never talked to me like that, actually. I was just telling him about Mom and the cancer.”
“What did he say?” my dad asks.
“He just told me to hang in there—that it’s going to be okay.”
I leave out the fact that my text-friend’s mom died of cancer. Dad has enough on his mind as it is.
“Well that’s good,” my dad says. “Now, why don’t you come inside for some more of your mother’s award-winning blueberry pie?”
“Dad, I know you’re the one that makes it,” I tell him.
“What?” he asks, feigning ignorance. “What are you talking about?”
“Every time we have blueberry pie, your hands are stained purple,” I tell him. “Mom’s never have been.”
“She wears gloves, dear,” he says and gets up from the porch swing. It’s a ludicrous response, but it’s too endearing to argue with him about it. He smiles and holds a stained hand out toward me. “Shall we?”
* * *
“I think I’ve become my mother,” I write. “Don’t get me wrong, I love her and everything, but she’s not exactly who I thought I would be at thirty years old, you know?”
I’m sitting on the corner of my old bed in my parents’ house, hoping that he knows male/female propriety well enough to try to convince me that I couldn’t possibly be anything like my mother.
“Tell me,” he writes, “if you could go anywhere in the world with anyone in the world, who would it be?”
Well, it’s hardly the response I was hoping for, but at least he knows male/female propriety well enough to change the subject.
“I don’t know,” I write. “Where did that come from?”
Along with coming to talk to my mom and dad about the house, I came here for another reason.
It’s hardly new. In fact, it’s something that I’ve tried to talk myself into doing for years now, but I can never find the nerve to just do it.
My phone beeps.
The message reads, “In my experience, when someone starts to think that they’re turning into one of their parents, it usually means it’s time for a vacation.”
I cover my mouth as the laugh escapes me.
“Well,” I write back, “you’re right about that. It’s starting to look like you’re right about a lot of things.”
Even as a little girl, I tried so hard to impress my mother, to show her that I wasn’t this frail, stupid thing she’s always thought me to be. Apart from trying to convince my parents to help them with the mortgage, I’m here to confront what is quite possibly the saddest part of my childhood.
My phone beeps.
“That’s something I never tire of hearing,” he writes. “What specifically am I right about this time?”
I write back, “I should start trusting my employees. I’ve had a few lackluster workers in the past, but the staff I have now is pretty amazing.”
I joined every club in high school and before that I went for every team, volunteered for every school play, every bake sale, every fundraiser... One year, I tried out for the cheerleading squad, but the coach said I didn’t smile enough.
He wasn’t wrong.
My phone beeps and the message reads, “So what are you going to do?”
“I’m going to start management training,” I write. “It’s terrifying, but I think it’s time I realize that I’m not the only one who can do it.”
Despite my cheerleading disappointment, over the years, I built quite the collection of first place ribbons, trophies and certificates declaring me champion at this or first place with that.
Every time, I would come through that door and I’d walk right past my dad and show my mom what I’d wo
n.
Every time, she said the same thing, “That’s okay, honey, you’ll do better next time.”
When I was younger, I tried to explain that I had, in fact, done better than anyone else, but she’d just pat me on the head and say, “It’s not nice to take advantage of people’s kindness.”
It took me years before I realized what she meant. She was saying that I only got the awards because the judges felt sorry for me.
After that, I stopped tacking up my certificates and stopped polishing my trophies. Now, they all sit in the bottom of the closet in this room.
My phone beeps.
The message says, “You’ll do great. Have you ever done employee training before?”
I’d been trying to ignore the fact that I’ve never in my life trained a person to any level higher than salesperson or cashier.
“No,” I write, “not to that level. It can’t be that much different than normal job training, though, can it?”
When I got to be a teenager, I’d still try out for everything and I’d still come home with awards and certificates, but by the time I walked through the door and saw my mom sitting in her chair, I’d be overcome with a sense of dread at the response I knew was coming, and I’d just walk in my room, open up the closet door and toss whatever I’d gotten in one of the boxes I’d placed in there.
It’s been so long since I opened that closet door that I don’t even remember how many boxes I put in there.
I’m pretty sure my high school diploma’s in there somewhere.
The phone beeps and I read the message.
“That’s all right,” he writes. “Do you know anyone who has trained other people to higher positions?”
“Not really,” I start, then as the thought comes to me, I groan. “There was a guy who was doing some work for me. He’s done that sort of thing, but I’d feel weird asking him.”
I lie back on the bed.
Eric probably wouldn’t help if I asked him anyway. Besides, they’re totally different kinds of training.
The phone beeps and the message reads, “Are we still avoiding the finer points of our lives, or can you give me a little more to go on? What kind of work do you do?”
There’s really no reason for me not to tell him what I do. I mean, I’m nowhere near ready to actually meet him, so it’s probably best to keep the store name out of it, but maybe it might actually help to give him a little more to go on.