Around the Bend

by Shirley Jump

  She shook her head. “I won’t fly.”

  I bit back a scream of frustration. My mother wouldn’t drive, wouldn’t fly. And sure as hell wouldn’t go home without her pig.

  Reginald.

  That damned potbellied pig, as much as I hated it, was all my mother had, now that my father was gone. She indulged him, because she had no other pets, no other companions living in her house. He was her best friend, as weird as it seemed. And though I might not like it, saving her bacon buddy was the right thing to do.

  “All right, Ma,” I said after a while, wondering myself what I was doing. This was my chance to go home, to end this trip before it really even began. But no, here I was, pushing forward with the mileage and the search for the pig. Because I knew what he meant to her, and because I understood the need for that connection. If the roles had been reversed and it had been Nick in the car, I’d have been as ballistic as my mother. I may not have wanted to marry Nick, but that didn’t mean I wanted some idiot in a bandana to steal him, either. And I would have moved heaven and earth to get him back if that had ever happened. “We’ll hire ourselves a bloodhound and find your pig. I promise. We won’t go home until we do.”

  A soft smile stole across her face, one that seemed to transform her entire face from the rigid woman I knew into someone as inviting as a hot cup of tea. Suddenly, I felt like part of the team again, not just the driver. “Thank you, Hilary,” my mother said, then before I realized what she was doing, she had leaned over and kissed me on the cheek.

  Okay, maybe miracles could happen. Or maybe my mother really was slipping into early dementia.

  five

  The cops saved us from all of the above. They found the car a couple hours later, abandoned on the side of the road, Reginald, my father and luggage intact. The ignition had been jimmied with a screwdriver, which meant a few hours’ delay in a shop to get it rekeyed, but other than that, the Mustang appeared undamaged.

  I wanted to kiss it, but figured that would look weird, so I settled for patting the hood instead.

  My mother’s relief, however, was no-holds-barred. She nearly ran to the car, embracing Reginald with the kind of fervor most people reserved for missing children. A weird little surge of jealousy rose in my chest. I couldn’t remember her ever grabbing me like that after preschool or kindergarten.

  But then again, I’d never been stolen out of a travel plaza by a guy with a bandana and a screwdriver, either.

  “You’re lucky,” the repair guy said to me. “Most of the time people never see stolen vehicles again, or if they do, they’re torched and abandoned. Your thief must have felt guilty about the pig.”

  “Yeah, leave it to Reginald to save the day.” I hated having to owe the pig, of all things, for rescuing the car I’d scrimped for years to buy.

  My mother was so happy, she was humming. As much as I hated to admit it, I’d made the right choice in deciding to stay instead of insisting we go back home. If I’d forced her to go back to Massachusetts, instead of remaining behind to find the pig, I’d have caused an irreparable rift between us.

  We had enough cracks in our relationship already.

  A little while later, we were back on the road, though we didn’t get far before night fell and we started looking for a pet-friendly motel. I had to call Nick, who used Google to find a place for us, and made a quick reservation. I wasn’t in the mood to argue with some desk clerk about whether a potbellied pig qualified as a pet or not, and was glad to leave that in Nick’s hands. “You owe me,” he said when he called me back with the confirmation number.

  My heart softened when I heard his voice, and the extra mile he’d gone to, for a pig he didn’t like, and a woman who’d just turned down his marriage proposal. I missed him already, and again found myself wishing I could crawl through the phone line and be back in his bed, his arms, my face against the end-of-day stubble on his cheek, inhaling the scent of wood on his skin. Instead I joked, because it was easier than saying all the things that bubbled in my heart. “I’d say this makes us even. I took you out for Chinese last week, remember?”

  “I want more than take-out.” Unanswered questions from the morning hung in the air between us. Nick had a way of doing that, of layering heavy meanings into simple statements. Hemingway would have loved him.

  I sighed. “Like what?”

  “Home-cooked meals. Maybe a kid at the table. Things to come home to, Hil, instead of everything being disposable.”

  “Then buy some dishes, Nick, instead of Dixie plates.” I knew what he was talking about, but I couldn’t go down that conversational path. Me, with a child? I could barely care for myself. How could he even envision us with kids?

  And where was this coming from? Was he hormonal?

  Could men even get hormonal?

  “I’m tired of everything being disposable, Hil. Aren’t you?” Then he clicked off.

  My mother flicked off the penlight she’d been using to read the map. “What was that about?”

  “Nothing.”

  “You don’t want to tell me?”

  I tossed the cell into my purse, then turned on my directional for the upcoming exit instead of answering the question. If I wasn’t going to give Nick an answer about the future—and kids, Lord help me, kids?—I certainly wasn’t going to give one to my mother.

  Nick had thankfully booked us two rooms in the motel, at my request, to avoid any other deep conversations. I couldn’t really afford the extra expense from here to California and probably should have taken my mother’s offer to stay for free with her, but was prepared to take out an equity loan to pay for it if need be.

  Okay, assuming I had some equity. Which I didn’t. I had credit cards, though, so what was a little more debt to add onto the pile?

  “Why won’t you talk to me?” Ma asked, closing the atlas.

  I glanced at her. “Since when do you take an interest in my life?”

  “I always have.”

  “No, Ma, you haven’t. You’ve told me what to do, but you’ve never paused long enough to listen.”

  “I’m listening now.”

  “I’m thirty-six. Don’t you think it’s a little late?”

  As soon as I said the words, I felt bad and wanted to take them back. We’d barely spent one day on the road and already I’d screwed it up, par for the Hilary course. “I’m sorry, Ma, I—”

  “It’s all right.” But the words came fast, like applying a Band-Aid over a gaping wound. It couldn’t stop the bleeding.

  And here I was, fresh out of tourniquets for our relationship. Jeez, I was ruining them all over the place. Nick back in Boston, my mother here.

  The bright neon sign announcing the motel came into view. My mother elected to stay in the car while I checked us in, got the keys and parked by the rooms. She seemed tired as she headed into hers, Reginald trotting along by her feet, both of them going inside without a word of goodbye.

  I should have been relieved. But I tossed and turned all night, overindulging in junk TV, feeling as guilty as a six-year-old caught eating the Christmas pies before the company arrived. I’d screwed things up with my mother—again—and watching too many reruns of The Jerry Springer Show didn’t give me any ideas on how to fix the mess. Nor did it help me sort things out with Nick. All it did was give me a nightmare preview of my future, should the improbable happen and Nick decided to have a food fight over the Thanksgiving dinner with his cousins after his father got a sex change and married the live-in maid.

  I finally nodded off just before dawn, only to be awakened an hour later by the sound of the phone. I grabbed blindly for it, knocking the white plastic to the floor, trying twice before I got the receiver in the proper place against my ear and mouth. “Hullo?”

  “When are we leaving?” My mother, sounding as chipper as a squirrel on Acorn Dropping Day.

  “Later. I’m sleeping.”

  “We have a lot of miles to cover. We can’t stay in bed all day.”

  “Ma,
I’m the driver. If you don’t let me sleep, I will crash the car into one of those concrete barriers and we’ll both become highway pancakes.”

  I could almost hear her disappointment in me. Apparently, she forgot I worked in a bar and “grille” and didn’t keep banker’s hours like the rest of the world. “There’s no reason to get smart with me, young lady. I was only asking a simple question. Are you ready to go?”

  “No.”

  “It’s already ten past seven. If we leave much later—”

  “Ma, listen to me. I am going back to bed. I am going back to sleep.” I used small, precise syllables. No room for misunderstanding. “I am not getting up now.”

  “Why? You sound awake to me.”

  I gritted my teeth and gripped the phone tighter. “It’s an act. I slept with a ventriloquist last night.”

  “Hilary, don’t be vulgar. Just tell me how you want your eggs and I’ll order for you. You can meet me in the restaurant attached to the motel in a few minutes.”

  The thought of breakfast made my stomach roll. My eyes closed and the phone slipped a little in my grasp. “Ma, for the love of all that is holy, please let me sleep for another hour.”

  Another pause of disappointment. “Fine. I’ll get takeout and bring it to you.”

  “Whatever.” As long as she let me sleep, I didn’t care if she wheeled in an entire Swedish smorgasbord. I dropped the phone back into the cradle and buried my head in the foam pillow again.

  Ten minutes later, she was at my door. “Hilary! Eggs, sunny side up with a side of wheat toast.”

  I stumbled to the door and yanked it open, blearily focusing on her fully dressed and smiling self. “I thought you were going to let me sleep for an hour.”

  “Then the eggs would have been cold. And you know how you hate cold eggs.”

  “Ma, I hate eggs, period.”

  “Since when?”

  “Since forever.” I turned, leaving the door open and climbed back into my bed, pulling the covers over my head, knowing I was acting like a three-year-old. And so not caring.

  “But you always liked eggs when I made them.”

  “And when was that?” My voice was muffled by the scratchy floral polyester coverlet. “Because last I checked Dad was the one who fed me breakfast. Got me dressed for school. Made sure I got on the bus.”

  I closed my eyes and squeezed my temples. What was with me this morning? Had I not just vowed a mere twenty-four hours ago that I would not get into a verbal match with my mother? That I would behave for this road trip?

  Uh-huh. And look how well that was going.

  She brought out the worst in me, like sandpaper on a callus. It was why I kept a mental egg timer on our visits, because I knew if I went over so many minutes, someone was bound to blow.

  “Will you please come out from under there and eat your breakfast? You need to start the day right.”

  I flung back the covers, annoyed and frustrated and not in the mood for anything sunny side up. I stalked over to the breakfast tableau she’d set up on the cheap laminate table in the corner, grabbed a piece of wheat toast, then perched on the corner of the armchair and nibbled.

  “For God’s sake, Hilary, put on some clothes.”

  I looked down at my tank top and panties. “These are clothes, Ma.”

  She glared at me.

  I had two choices. I could continue to stand there, just to tick her off, an art I had perfected during high school, or I could throw on a pair of jeans and buy some peace.

  I had learned some lessons in three decades of life. And one of them was that some battles were not worth the fight—like what I wore to bed.

  I put down the toast, picked up the Lees I’d dropped on the floor the night before and wriggled into them, ignoring the way my mother’s nose wrinkled in distaste, then went back to my breakfast.

  “You’re getting crumbs on the—” She cut herself off, apparently deciding I was a lost cause, and rose. “Reginald and I will meet you in the car. Be sure to make the bed before you leave.”

  “Ma, that’s what the maids do.”

  “We don’t want them thinking we’re total slobs.” She glanced around my room, at the shirt draped over the armchair, the open duffel bag, its contents strewn in a circle, the blankets puddled on the floor. “Even if some of us are.”

  Then she left the room without shutting the door. I crossed the room and closed it myself, muttering unflattering things about passive-aggressive relationships under my breath.

  Then I threw the eggs into the trash and stood over them, watching the little tendrils of steam rise off their happy yellow faces. If I’d thought it would make me feel better, I’d been wrong.

  six

  My mother, I discovered, only liked to read books, not listen to them. I tried each of the books on tape—New York Times bestsellers and Oprah picks—and she rejected them all. One reader was too slow. One was too hard to understand. The third had a drawl. “Grates on my nerves.” The fourth was a male. “Men shouldn’t read books written by women.”

  “Ma, he’s playing a character. He’s an actor. That’s his job.”

  “If I want an actor, I’ll watch a movie.” She settled her purse in her lap again and stared straight ahead. Reginald snarfled in agreement and laid his head on the console between us. I had to work really hard to not be grossed out by the thought of a pig lying on the leather of my car, his wet nose against my elbow, and Lord only knew what was coming out of said nose every time he made a noise. “It’s not natural to listen to a book anyway. That’s why they have pages, Hilary. So you can read them.”

  “Fine.” My teeth hurt. “Let’s try some music. I brought several CDs of—”

  “I don’t like music in the car. It’s too distracting.”

  “Distracting for what? You’re not doing anything.”

  “For you. You could get all wrapped up in—” she reached into the plastic dish that held the CDs, yanked one of them out “—Barry Manilow Sings the Fifties and next thing I know, you’re plowing into a North American Van Lines truck.”

  I laughed. “Ma, I seriously doubt I’ll get distracted by Barry Manilow. I don’t even like Barry Manilow.”

  “Then why did you bring that CD?”

  “I thought you’d like it.”

  “Oh.” She turned the plastic case over, read the list of songs on the back, then placed it back in the dish. “That was very thoughtful, Hilary.”

  She said it like I’d bought her a gift certificate for hangnail removal. “I thought you liked Barry Manilow. You went to his concert.”

  “Your father liked him. I went along for the ride.”

  “You went to a concert just because Dad liked the singer? Why would you sit through something like that if you didn’t even like it?”

  She turned to face me then, her face clear and surprised. “I loved your father, Hilary. Why wouldn’t I do that?”

  “Because you’re allowed to have your own likes, Ma. You didn’t have to pretend to like things just because Dad did.” Would Nick and I end up like that five years down the road, ten? Me pretending to like things just to make him happy?

  “He knew how I felt. We didn’t have any secrets, your father and I.”

  And yet…the way she said that—too fast, too pat—I wondered how many secrets they’d had that she wouldn’t admit. What marriage didn’t have a few secrets? I thought of Karen and Jerry, who had been my next door neighbors and relationship-advice gurus for ten years. Karen had told me about the shopping she kept from Jerry, the receipts she kept in her wallet, and the blind eye she turned to his occasional after-work beer with his buddies.

  What if the buddies he shared a Coors Light with had breasts and wore high heels? What if her trips to the mall involved more than a few sweaters and a new raincoat? They told lies, kept secrets, and each seemed to know, but ignored them, like messes behind closet doors. “A little space,” Karen said, “is a necessity. If he knew everything, I’d be suffocated.�
��

  That’s what I was most afraid of with Nick. Being suffocated. Moving in with him for good, having him know everything, from my bra size to how often I washed my laundry, to whether I ate breakfast. I liked my space, and I didn’t want to answer to anyone for where I had been last Saturday or what I’d spent last week’s paycheck on.

  And I didn’t want to spend my Saturday evenings wondering if he’d really been knocking back a Bud with Lou or LouAnn.

  Space. I needed lots of it.

  Karen and Jerry had gotten more or less lucky, my parents, I suspected, not so much. To me, that meant I had a fifty-fifty chance with Nick. Those odds simply weren’t good enough to be betting the rest of my life.

  “So who do you like, Ma?” I asked.

  “Who do I like for what?”

  “Singers, music.”

  She lifted one shoulder, dropped it, stared out the window. “I never really thought about it.”

  “Oh, come on, everyone has a favorite singer. A favorite song or two.”

  “Do you?”

  I didn’t say anything for a second, watching the signs carefully as we made the switch on 90 north to Albany. The signs were tricky, a little confusing, and I was quiet until I was sure we were going the right way. “Yeah, but I’m kind of fickle. I think that comes from working at Ernie’s. I hear so much music that I have a new favorite every year. I used to be strictly a Bruce girl then—”

  “Bruce?”

  “Bruce Springsteen. You know, ‘Glory Days,’ ‘Born to Run.’”

  “Oh.” She thought a minute. “Is that the song you used to play all the time in your room? The one about cars and getting out of town?”

  My gaze settled on my mother, absorbing her lean frame with surprise. She’d passed by the closed door of my room hundreds of times over the years, and I’d never thought that she’d paused, maybe put her ear against the six-panel oak to listen, to take an aural peek into her daughter’s world. “Yeah, that’s the one.”