by Liz Talley
Again she pictured him lying in the dark, alone. Night after night. For years. Waiting for Mom to come home, bringing the smell of cheap perfume and menthol “smokes” with her.
“Goddamn it!” She pulled off at a scenic overlook. Below, crashing waves drove the spray up a cliff face with the same relentless battering of her conscience.
She knew nothing about taking care of a kid. After all, her mother hadn’t been a shining example. And she had no interest in learning.
But she also knew what could happen to a kid in foster care. She shuddered.
Why would you even consider this? It’s not like you can save yourself retroactively.
Maybe not, but she might be able to save another kid. Her half brother.
“I am not my mother.” She put the car in Park, picked up her phone and with shaking fingers, dialed.
Shouting in the background. “Damn sketchy trick but he nailed that pop shove-it, didn’t he? It’s gonna make epic film. Hang on. Hello?”
“Hi, Ryan. I’m—”
“Hang on, babe, I can’t hear you.” The background noise faded, then a door banged.
“Okay, I’m outside, but it’s like ten degrees. If I stay here long they’ll use my balls to chill some loser’s drink. How’s it going?”
“Well, Mona broke down for a couple hours in Arizona, so I missed the funeral.”
“Oh, hell, I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay. Hey, listen, when are you coming home?”
“We’re filming at one more indoor park, in Albany. I’m planning on being back by next Tuesday. You’ll be back by then, right?”
“Yeah, no problem. But Ryan?”
“Damned wind is brutal. Yeah?”
“Um. I ran into my half brother. He’s like ten. They’re putting him in foster care.”
“That sucks. What’s it got to do with you?”
“Well, I was thinking...what would you think if I brought him with me?”
“To Boulder?” His voice rose higher at the end than the question warranted. “Why would you want the baggage? You always said you were a free bird.”
“I know. I am.” She pulled at the roots of her hair as memories chewed at her with wolf-size bites. “Damn, Ryan, I told you what those places are like. Believe me, I don’t want the hassle. But I’m not sure I can leave a kid to that.”
“Um, Priss, I don’t mean to sound all evil, but I didn’t sign up for that gig, you know? We got a good thing, just you and I.” She heard his teeth chatter. “Listen, I’ve gotta go, or they’re gonna find me freeze-dried like that guy in that Stephen King movie. But I gotta tell you, Priss, three’s a crowd that I’m not interested in hanging with. See what I’m saying? I mean...”
She let her head fall on the back of the seat, suddenly weary down to her DNA. “Yeah, I hear you. Listen, I’ll call you later, okay?”
He must have walked back into the bar, because Rihanna wailed in her ear. “Yeah. Later, babe.”
Click.
Talking to Ryan only solidified what she’d almost known before the call. She was done with Boulder. But of the zillions of flight paths she had, was one of them taking custody of her half brother?
She hadn’t realized until she stepped into that apartment how much the past weighted her. The fact that she hadn’t made it ten miles out of town was proof that today her wings had been clipped.
“Shitshitshitshit!”
Leaning her head on the cool plastic of the steering wheel, she waited until her breath stopped hitching. Then she sat motionless for a long time, poised between past and present, between facts and emotions, between flight and landing.
Her stomach pitched with the rapid altitude change.
Maybe doing this would be the last payment, the final stamp that said “paid in full” on the chit she owed her mother for giving Priss life.
Then she could fly off, unencumbered. Karma balanced.
But don’t think you’re forgiven, Mother, for leaving this mess for me to clean up.
She sat up, pulled the county social worker’s card out of her back pocket and after staring at it for a while, called the phone number listed.
* * *
“MOTHER, BE LOGICAL.” Adam Preston lifted a box of dishes and carried it to the hallway to add to the rest of his mother’s carefully selected household goods. “If you’d look at this unemotionally, you’d see I’m right.”
She stumped behind him, one wheel of her walker squeaking. “Don’t you ‘Mother’ me. I’m allowed to be emotional. This is the house your father and I bought when we married. Leaving it isn’t easy, you know.”
Olivia Preston wouldn’t let a little thing like recovering from a broken hip keep her from looking presentable—from her beauty-shopped silver hair to the soft loafers on her petite feet.
“That’s my point. You don’t have to leave. We could set you up in the downstairs bedroom, and have a ramp put in so you don’t have to navigate the porch steps. And I can take the bedroom upstairs.” Thank God his mother was healthy, but at seventy-nine, brittle bones and balance issues were an accident that hadn’t waited to happen.
“Ruining the facade of this cottage with an ugly, old-lady ramp would be criminal.” She straightened to all of her five feet. “And you are not moving in with me. How would it look to my potential daughters-in-law, you living with your mother?”
He wasn’t touching that one. “Your friend Lily lives in that retirement place in Santa Maria. Why don’t we look into it?”
“And leave Widow’s Grove? I’ve lived here all my life. Besides, can you see me getting on one of those odious little buses to go for a rousing night of bingo?”
Not without a partial lobotomy, he couldn’t. She’d been a professor of philosophy at UC Santa Barbara for thirty years. “But, Mom, above the store?” The only reason this was remotely possible was the elevator that survived the renovation when his father bought the two-story Ben Franklin dime store, back in the ’60s.
“If I can’t stay in the bedroom Tom and I shared, I’d rather be in our old apartment. That way I’ll still have his memories around me.”
His dad had died six years ago but you’d never know it, hearing his mother talk. He was proud of how she’d soldiered on afterward—not that there’d been any doubt. His mother was a strong woman. Maybe too strong. Because this was a crazy idea. Adam had moved into one of the apartments over the family drugstore when he’d returned from college with his degree and pharmacist’s license. “You’d be all alone up there.”
“You’ll be working right beneath me. Besides, if you hadn’t broken that sweet little schoolteacher’s heart she’d still be living in the apartment across the hall.”
He dropped the box on the growing pile. “Mom, let’s not start that again.”
“Why else would she have left in the middle of the school year if not because of a broken heart? I hate to point it out, but you’re not getting any younger and neither am I. I’d like to meet my grandchildren before I move on to whatever is next. But if you keep being so darned picky—”
“Mom. I didn’t break her heart.” He looked at the ceiling and blew out a breath. “She was gay, okay? She said that dating me made her sure that she wasn’t interested in men. She moved to Carmel and in with her ex-girlfriend.”
Mother winced. “Ouch.”
“And thanks for reminding me of the lowest point in my love life, to date.”
“Well, then, you need to pick yourself up and get on with your life, Adam.” She patted his hand. “Jesse at the café gave me a couple of names of nice girls you can call.”
He had to get out of here before his head exploded. “I’ve got to get to softball practice, Mom. I’ll stop by on my way home with a load of my stuff.” He walked out, shaking his head. His mother discussing hi
s love life, or lack thereof, with the town matchmaker? How pathetic was he? He bounded down the stairs to his midsize sedan, the backseat loaded with bats, bases, and dirty laundry.
So maybe pharmacist wasn’t on the “top ten sexiest careers” list. But he wasn’t hideous looking. He was neat, led a quiet life, and—
And arguing your good points with yourself is even more pathetic.
Mom was wrong. He waved to Burt Hanks, who drove past, then unlocked the car and sank into it. But lately, the safe life he’d put on like a Teflon suit so many years ago had started to chafe—as if it were made of wet wool.
But just the same, the thought of stepping out of it made his stomach muscles clench to guard his guts.
Copyright © 2014 by Laura Drake
ISBN-13: 9781460337363
THE SWEETEST SEPTEMBER
Copyright © 2014 by Amy R. Talley
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