by Debbie Burns
Mia’s jaw dropped open, and the last of her boiling blood cooled on the spot. “I’d ask if you’re kidding, but I can see you aren’t. I guess now I know why she hasn’t been answering my Skype calls.”
She shook her head, at once stunned and happy and a little bit angry too. Her mom was here, and as always, her timing was impeccable.
Chapter 14
Considering how she felt, Mia might well be recovering from a wicked strain of influenza while roofers pounded on the ceiling. But her only ailment was the mother of all hangovers, and the noises were from her mom banging cabinet doors and sliding drawers, prepping for the mandazi she was making for breakfast, and Ollie, down on all fours, crawling around the floor as he pretended to be Sadie’s second puppy. Sam was trailing behind him, licking the tops of his heels.
The couch would be more comfortable, but it was out of view of the kitchen. So Mia planted herself at the table in the breakfast room, her knees tucked tightly against her chest, and did her best to ignore the pain in her sitz bones against the hard chair. Rays from the mild December sun streamed in through the front window and against her back and shoulders.
“The last time I had a hangover, Faraja served me a steaming bowl of goat’s head soup.” Lynn’s voice was unnecessarily chipper. “I was skeptical, but it works wonders. That had to be five or six years ago now.”
“Oh come on, Mom, please. I can’t take those visuals right now.”
Lynn tsked as she shook out flour from the bag into a ceramic mixing bowl without measuring it. “It’s easy to forget how sheltered Americans are with their preportioned chicken breasts and preshaped hamburgers. Oh well, the mandazi may not work as fast as the soup, but the carbs’ll be a comfort.”
Mandazi were subtly sweet African doughnuts made with flour and coconut milk and spiced with cardamom. Lynn made them every time she came. They always made it onto Ollie’s lists of favorite things.
Mia had spent the last few minutes analyzing what felt so off about her mom breezing back into her life as if she’d never been away. Her mom gave one hundred percent of herself when she was with her. On the other hand, when her mother was in Kenya for months and years at a time, Mia sometimes wondered if she thought much about her and Ollie and this left-behind life.
It wasn’t until Mia realized Lynn knew in which drawer to find the mixer that she was able to put her finger on what felt so different about this visit as compared to the last several. Mia was living in her childhood home again. For the last eight years, Lynn had stayed here when she’d come back to the States and had visited Mia’s house in the Central West End as a day guest.
Suddenly, Mia felt uncharacteristically vulnerable about the prospect of living under the same roof with the mother who’d abandoned her fifteen years ago for a greater love, a more enticing opportunity. This morning, probably heightened by her angry, sharp hangover, Mia didn’t feel that far removed from the teenager who’d sat at this very table doing her homework, wondering why she was even doing it when the one person she cared to show it to wasn’t going to be around to notice she’d done it.
But, as Lynn said whenever the world came crashing down, “Such is life.”
When Ollie, still in puppy mode, crawled to the base of Mia’s chair and sat on his haunches panting, Mia leaned forward and patted him on the head. “Good dog.”
If she knew one thing, it was that wild stallions couldn’t drag her from Ollie. True, she’d been a few defining years older than Lynn when she’d gotten pregnant, twenty-two versus seventeen. But the idea of abandoning her son so she could live out a dream felt about as foreign as walking on the surface of Mars.
“Good little puppy,” she repeated, burrowing her forehead against the top of Ollie’s hair. Sam, who was still Ollie’s willing companion, jumped up and began to snap and chew at Mia’s hair as it tumbled around.
“I’m the big brother,” Ollie said. “I’m showing him how to be a good dog. This way he won’t chew on the chairs and pillows. Did you hear me trying to teach him to bark while I was in there? I put his paw to my throat so he could feel it. His barks are so loud they hurt my ears.”
“Mine too,” Mia agreed. “And good thinking, Ol. I suspect it’ll take a while for him to find his bark though.”
“Mom, can I go pee outside? If I show him, maybe he’ll get it faster.”
Mia fought down her automatic “no” response. “That’s an interesting idea, Ol, but I don’t think it’s time to start peeing outside yet. The most important thing we can do is to offer him lots of chances to go to the bathroom out there, and always right as he comes out of his crate. But I did promise you could take them out in the backyard today by yourself. If you want to try it, go ahead. Just make sure you have some treats and remember to praise him visually as soon as he goes. Show me your signs first, please.”
Ollie ran through the short gamut of signs he was using, nailing each one, then dashed for the treat bowl on the counter. He grabbed a handful, stepped over to give his grandma another giant squeeze, then dashed around the corner, grabbed his coat, and ran out the back door. The haphazard thing was opening and closing this morning, but barely.
Although Mia had no memory of it, Ben had busted it on entry last night, then patch-screwed it back together as she’d slept. She’d checked her phone this morning to find a text from him with a brief explanation of how he’d kicked it in to check on her, damaging the frame in the process, and would be replacing it. He’d ended it with a very unsatisfactory “I hope you’re feeling better this morning.”
And not a single word about the kiss.
Mia wasn’t sure she could put it entirely to her hangover as to why this had made her want to cry. She’d thought about addressing the kiss when she texted back and had attempted a few sentences but erased them before sending the message.
Maybe she’d have more courage when she was less hungover. She wasn’t in the right state of mind to address the kiss this morning. “Sorry for climbing onto your lap last night and all but sucking your face. It just happens to be a nice one… Your face, that is…” didn’t seem like the best way to broach the topic.
No sooner were Ollie and the dogs outside than her mom said, “So I hope you intend to talk fast. I know you, Mia, and I know when you’ve got something you need to clear. If we wait till Ollie goes to bed tonight for you to start talking, it’s going to be a touch anticlimactic since we’ll both be exhausted, me from jet lag, and you… Well, no need to state the obvious.”
Mia straightened in her chair till the tips of her shoulder blades nearly touched. Her mom’s dramatic flair often had the opposite of its desired effect and goaded her into silence. Just not today.
“It turns out Ollie’s got a half brother.”
Lynn paused with the cap of the coconut milk an inch above the counter. “I don’t… What?”
“A baby. You know about Brad’s affair. It seems he left behind a six-month-old baby.”
After a few seconds of silence, her mom sat both carton and cap on the counter and walked over to the table. Before sinking into the nearest chair, she swept her long, breezy African-print skirt out of the way. She had Mia’s oval face and gray-blue eyes, but her skin was aged from the sun and her hips were wide enough that they seemed to create the rhythm to which her skirts flowed.
“I thought you were going to tell me you and Ben had gotten together. The energy was in the room when I walked in last night. But a baby… I didn’t see that coming.”
Doing her best not to get hung up on how perceptive her mom proved to be time after time, Mia ignored the comment about her and Ben and the energy in the room and attempted to focus on thoughts of the baby. She could only clearly remember a few minutes of last night, and nearly each one of them had been while she was kissing Ben. She’d been worried that she’d been too drunk to gauge it accurately, but judging by her mom’s comment, the kiss had in fact
been a magnificent one. A terribly timed magnificent kiss. “The baby’s mother wants to know if I’m interested in having him in Ollie’s life,” she said instead.
“Oh, does she now? Well, that answer’s simple enough. No. If you want another child in Ollie’s life—in your life—you can adopt. If you don’t, well, the world needs more only children. Only children are self-motivated, and let’s face it, there’s the population issue to consider. And the last thing you need is to clean up another one of Brad’s messes.”
“Mom, I really wasn’t asking for your opinion. You wanted to know why I drank. So I told you.”
Her mom studied her longer than necessary before answering. “I can see you’re still processing this. What did Ben say?”
Mia swallowed. “I was drunk. I don’t remember him sharing his opinion on the baby. Mostly he just let me talk. Or babble, more accurately.”
Lynn sucked in an exaggerated breath before returning to the counter. “My advice to you is to give it time, but once a rock is carved by water, it’s always carved, even after the water’s diverted.”
Mia groaned. “Mom, can you please skip the imagery and just say what you mean? I have a headache and everything hurts and my patience is about as thin as it’s ever been.”
Lynn stirred the mandazi mix, then added several dashes of cardamom, also without measuring. “My first great love was your father. You know that.”
Of course Mia did. The story of her mom’s gargantuan love for the father Mia had never met was something she’d never forget. In her mother’s words, it had been the type of love that “if you let it in, could swallow you whole. Only it doesn’t because it’s the love you’re meant to have.” Until she’d given birth, Mia had granted her mom a bit of exaggeration due to her natural poetic flair. But she’d felt that way about Ollie from the first second she held him in shaky-from-anesthesia arms. It was the most powerful emotion she’d ever felt.
“Loving your father the way I did was the first time I stepped out of my safe place,” her mom continued. “I was sixteen when we got together and seventeen and pregnant with you when he died. You and Africa are my two other great loves, and I’m sure these are the only three I’m meant to have. Of course I love other things, like Ollie and the children at my school, and Imari, who’s been joining me in bed a few nights a week for almost six years, but it isn’t the same.”
Mia was never sure how she felt about being one corner of her mom’s triangular all-encompassing loves. Over the years, her mother’s explanation had often felt like an excuse. Sorry, Mia, I’ve given you fifteen years, but Africa has been calling. If your father had lived, we could’ve raised you there together. Without him, I’ve got to choose between you.
Maybe her mom hadn’t put it in those exact words, but that was how it came across all the same. Over the years, it had bothered Mia sometimes more than others. She’d even given an impromptu speech in college about it shortly before graduation. The final speech was to cover influences in art and life, and she’d been planning to give an entirely different—safer—speech on Monet.
She’d had a few dozen note cards and a well-rehearsed speech ready to go. But instead, when it had been her time to present, she’d left her note cards on her desk and gone up to deliver a short, totally unpracticed speech on how her father’s absence, and her mother’s life choices after losing him, had been the most important factors governing not only the art she’d created, but her life.
The words had tumbled out. She’d almost lost her courage halfway through, but had found it in a pair of kind eyes. She’d spoken from the heart and, even just minutes after delivering the speech, could hardly recall a single thing she’d said. What she remembered was the silence that had hung over the room when she finished. There’d been no questions, no applause. One girl, after wiping her eyes, tentatively raised her hand and thanked Mia for her openness.
She’d done it hoping for a bit of closure. It had helped. A little. She’d beelined out of the theater as soon as it was over.
But that was the past. Rock carved by water, as Lynn had said. What mattered now was deciding what was best for Ollie, and for her. She spent the rest of the morning shoving away alternate images of the remarkable lips she’d gotten lost in and the bright-blue eyes of an inquisitive baby who seemed to have looked into her soul.
Chapter 15
I hope you’re feeling better this morning. Of the million things boiling up to the surface as he’d texted Mia, that was all Ben had allowed himself to add to the impersonal message before pressing Send.
He could’ve done better. Far better.
Ben paced the parking lot at the side entrance of animal control, waiting for the animal health examiner to arrive. Did Mia remember kissing him? Her buzz had been waning but not gone, and the day’s events had left her uncharacteristically vulnerable. He didn’t trust himself to say how much it had meant when she’d climbed onto his lap in a beautiful moment of surrender. It had been raw and real, and it had come from the heart just as it had on the balcony this summer.
But he didn’t know how to tell her how much it meant without telling her everything. The layers were too entwined to pull one truth apart from the rest.
All he could do was give her time. He was typically one to ascribe things to coincidence over fate, but he suspected there was a bigger reason than chance that her mom had arrived when she had. Before spotting the cab, he’d been close—too close—to crossing that room again and forgoing any sense of better judgment to heed the white-hot fire racing through him. Instead, he’d spent a half hour listening to Lynn gripe about the U.S. embassy and her general distaste for the elitism of passports as she rummaged through the cabinets searching for ingredients to make a stomach-settling tea for Mia.
Now it was a few minutes before eight on Wednesday morning, and temps had dipped into the twenties last night. Ben rubbed his hands together to fight off the cold. The animal control building didn’t open to the public until ten, but when he’d called yesterday, he’d gotten hold of Bernie, the shelter director’s kind-hearted connection there. Bernie had shared that the animal health examiner—in Ben’s mind the judge, jury, and executioner—arrived at this time to evaluate the dogs before the doors opened.
Bernie suggested that an early-morning reminder of Ben’s interest in the wily border collie wouldn’t hurt matters.
A few minutes past eight, a middle-aged guy with pasty-gray skin and a faded, alligator tattoo extending up his neck headed toward the employee entrance, a thick set of keys dangling from one hand. He looked equal parts hard and depressed, and Ben hoped Bernie knew what he was talking about by suggesting Ben meet him like this.
“Which one is it?” the man asked with a sigh before Ben uttered a single word. His tone carried the resignation of someone with disdain for the responsibilities of his job but who also wasn’t interested in making the changes necessary to free himself from them.
Ben took the man’s lead and responded just as frankly. “He’s a young border collie, black and white, less than a year old.”
“The one captured in Forest Park? I noticed him yesterday. Doesn’t care much for confinement.”
“Yeah, well, I wouldn’t either. I’m not sure if you’ve heard, but over half of the dogs he lived with are under the care of the High Grove Animal Shelter. They’re healthy and acclimating great. And I’m committed to whatever it takes to care for and acclimate him as well.”
“That can be easier said than done, or we wouldn’t have so many dogs moving though here like we do.” He jangled his keys, sorting through them until he reached the one he was after. “Building opens at ten. Come back then. I know who you want. I’ll do my best to clear him as available for adoption. So long as he isn’t aggressive, I can hold him for you until a quarter after even if we don’t have the space for him.”
Ben considered his options. He wanted to know what traits defined
aggression in these trying circumstances, but he didn’t want the words to come across as a challenge. Pissing the guy off might only give him a reason he didn’t have now to find something wrong with the dog.
It took reminding himself of his belief that people mostly did their best and were true to their word to be able to let go of his indecision. “Thank you, sir. I have faith that your best will be good enough to make that happen. And I’ll be here waiting at ten.”
Ben left, feeling the man’s eyes on his back for several seconds, and headed back in the direction of his loft, which was two miles away. Coming here, he’d seized the opportunity for movement after being awake and restless since well before dawn and had chosen to walk rather than drive.
He had a mound of work waiting for him that included wrapping up the designs for a green home remodel far out in the county. It was one of the projects he’d been most passionate about lately, and he hoped to wrap the designs up today. After last night, he’d not been in the space in the early-morning hours to focus the attention the project warranted. The property owners wanted to remodel an older ranch in dubious condition into something both modern and sustainable. Ben’s designs featured recycled and reclaimed construction materials, solar panels, sustainable landscaping, and water efficiency, among other elements.
The problem was, even hours later, his blood was still simmering hot and he knew he wasn’t in the space to focus on the project this morning. As he walked, the freezing air finally began to cool the inferno inside him. The North Face coat he was wearing was warm enough, though he’d have done his hands a service to have grabbed a pair of gloves before heading out. Three fingers on his left hand stung sharply. They’d been affected by frostbite on his descent, and the nerves were still sensitive to the cold. By the time he neared his building, they were hot and stinging. He’d never needed gloves in St. Louis, but he would this winter if he was outside for any duration, due to mild but lingering nerve damage.