Her mother never re-married, let alone held a relationship past a few months. And she most certainly never introduced anyone she dated to her girls. Elise recalled being babysat a few evenings by the time she got into middle school. Other than that, Lyla Newton could do it all on her own, and prided herself on the fact. But there was something missing in those translucent, troubled blue eyes of her mother’s. Something Elise could see each time her mother looked at her. She was miserably unhappy. In some way, Elise felt penance for this came from denying her own self someone to love. It was either that or her mistrust that anyone would stay and commit himself to her. Her daddy left her and her mother. How could anyone else not do the same? She couldn’t go through something like that ever again.
“You look tired. Why was your flight delayed?”
“Engine trouble.” Elise searched in her bag for her phone. She knew it was in there. She kept rubbing the edges of it with her fingers on the flight, unable to pull it out and check to see if Darren had texted or called. She’d worn a ridge on her thumb, pressing hard against the cover of it. When she found it, her stomach dropped like a rock off a cliff, echoing Darren’s face in her mind.
“Are you hungry?” Melanie asked.
“I’m famished.” Elise dropped the phone back among the other things in her purse and tried putting the image of the screen out of her mind. One problem at a time, she thought. Lyla Newton’s house was closer than California at this very second. She’d think about Darren after she’d tamed the tiger in the state she was presently in.
“I bought groceries for Mom’s house. I’m going to make some teriyaki chicken skewers and steamed rice.”
“I came home for some down-home comfort food. Like some fried chicken and white gravy. What’s this with teriyaki?” She pushed her sister’s arm, poking fun and trying to resume normalcy in her brain. But seriously, teriyaki?
“Well, you can help yourself tomorrow to whatever your stomach desires, when I’m working, dear one.” She hit every green light with precision, on the way home. Where were all the red ones when you needed them?
The downtown of Bowling Green had changed very little since Elise had last been home. Still the same landmarks and sidewalks. Of course, they’d never change. They just seemed smaller than she remembered, less grandiose than her childhood brain could recall. The fountain that stood in the middle of the square looked like it had a new coat of paint. Oh, how many times she recalled throwing coins into that thing, praying for answers on what to do about her future. Just went to show you, wishes didn’t come from throwing money into a cement well. Nor did they come from anywhere else, either.
The bank on the corner of Chestnut and Franklin had a sign staked in the yard, advertising a high school car wash to support a trip to Paris for the French class. The farthest she’d gone on a field trip was to the nearby amusement park to sing with her chorus group. It was the only reason she signed up for the class. Her mother never would take her and Melanie to any places like that growing up. You either found a friend whose family was normal and did those kinds of things and took you along, or you joined chorus.
The lit up Dairy Queen did seem to have added seating on the right side of the modest building. Maybe to better accommodate the Sunday crowd. After all, it was the only hang-out in town when Elise was growing up. Probably still was. Families sat under the red canopies waiting for their food. Her stomach grumbled with the thought of salty fries on her tongue.
“All right, I suppose I’ll wait until tomorrow to get me some real southern food, then.” Elise needed an excuse to get out the house she knew she’d be trapped in with her mother for the next week. Fried chicken and white gravy might just help in the cause.
“So?” Melanie tilted her head, waiting for Elise to catch on to the vague question that could’ve addressed anything from what time it was to what’s been going on for the last month with her.
“So, what?” Elise looked in the backseat, wondering why the kids weren’t louder than they were. She looked to the ceiling and saw a movie playing on a tiny screen that hung there. Wow, entertainment in a car, too? She marveled how times had changed from when she was younger. A car ride, back then, meant staring out the window and counting how many red cars had passed by versus blue ones.
“So, what about your love life? Did he take you to the airport?”
It was nice having a sister around. Elise missed the midnight giggles about boys and discussing how their tongues could manage to choke you with one bad kiss. So much had happened between them, though, she just wasn’t sure she was ready to confide all her secrets. “He did. But we arrived very late and I wasn’t sure we’d make it. I’m not even sure I packed my makeup bag, hairbrush, and toothpaste. It was all such a blur.”
Melanie laughed. “Last night was that good? You couldn’t manage to wake up on time, huh?”
Elise looked in the back seat, making sure the kids were not receptive to their mother’s innuendoes. “Melanie!” Elise said, giving her a sideways glance to keep her voice down.
“They have no clue what we’re talking about. Now, spill it.”
“He’s the same guy I told you about a few months ago. No biggie.” Elise shrugged her shoulders and searched for red cars going by.
A light caught Melanie and she shot a look to Elise. “Get out! That serious?”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about. It’s nothing.” She avoided eye contact, hoping her sister would stop her interrogation. It wasn’t an easy subject, seeing she was having a difficult time identifying exactly what it was. “We date a few times a week. You’re making it sound as though it’s something big.”
“And if I asked him, would he say the same thing?” The SUV picked up speed as Melanie turned her attention back to the road.
“I’m not sure what he’d say.” Too much information for the East Coast. Keep the West Coast west and the East Coast east. “And you? Are you seeing anyone new?” She asked but figured the answer to be the same as every time she had asked in the past. Nothing new, here.
Melanie’s eyeballs grew wide and circled around in her head. “Actually, there is someone.”
Elise pushed her sister’s shoulder. “Get out! Who? How long? Oh, my gosh.”
Melanie pulled into the driveway of their childhood home and parked. The kids began pulling at their safety belts in a fit to get out as though it had just caught on fire. “I will have to tell you about him later,” her sister said, trying to stay one step ahead of her quick little tikes.
“No fair,” Elise said, pouting her lips a little.
Melanie opened the back door of the vehicle as the children poured out and ran to the front door of their grandmother’s house. Elise popped the back hatch and pulled all her cases out, trying to squander more time before she had to go inside. Her hands shook as she took the cases. Melanie took a few and they carried them up the walk that seemed shorter now than in Elise’s mind. Her eyes reached the pitch of the roof where she remembered thinking it was as tall as the clouds. Now, the wooden gingerbread that stood in the front peak was weathered and the white paint was all but erased from it.
As Elise crossed the threshold, she zeroed in on her mother who was sitting, propped up in the chaise lounge by the large picture window. A peacock wouldn’t have sat more erect displaying a new fan of feathers. Her blond hair was pulled back into barrettes, and a fluffy pink chenille throw cascaded down her legs and puddled on the floor in front of her. Elise noticed her blouse. She’d obviously picked lavender to wear for the occasion of being cut and sutured. She always said it highlighted and complemented her pale eye color, softened her features. If anyone knew her well enough, like Elise did, the thought of anything softening her was ironical. How did one soften a rock?
Aunt Hildie raised from the worn yellow chair and hugged Elise, the top of her head reaching her niece’s shoulder. She smelled like perm solution and a hint of baby powder.
“It’s good to see you, Aunt Hildie. You loo
k so young.” Elise spoke loudly to compensate for her aunt’s older age.
Aunt Hildie’s chubby cheeks lifted as the corners of her mouth spread wide. “Thank you, dear. You look so skinny. Are you eating out there in California? What are they feeding you?”
As if ‘they’ existed. Aunt Hildie was always either blaming ‘them’ for the way the government was being run, or questioning what ‘they’ were doing to you if you stayed away too long and came back missing a few pounds. Elise rubbed her taut stomach. It had shrunk since living among all the lard and carbs.
“Yes. I certainly eat enough. But I think the plane ride took a few of the extra inches off my waist. They must’ve dropped off somewhere over Colorado. I somehow felt lighter after flying over that one.” She winked and gave her aunt back the hand she’d been rubbing.
She looked past Hildie to her mother. The glasses she had perched on her head told Elise she’d fallen asleep recently. She went and knelt down to hug her mother. It would be weird to do anything less. Although embracing an inanimate object might’ve been more welcoming. Lyla Newton crooked her head a smidge and patted her daughter ’s back in three rapid beats. A snare drum would’ve benefited from the precision.
“It’s good to see you, Mother.” She pulled the comment out of the neutral box she had mentally packed in her mind, just for this trip back home.
Lyla tucked her hand back on her coverlet. Her arthritic knuckles kneaded the fibers like a cat. One thing was for sure, her mother’s face didn’t look its age, but her hands told a different timeline. Perhaps too much time in the garden without the use of gloves. Her nails and cuticles would forever be permanently stained by the dirt. And surprisingly it didn’t bother her pretentious mother. She wore the evidence of gardening more like a badge than a flaw.
“Did you have a good flight?” Her mother had also reserved pleasant conversation for the occasion.
The kids ran past them, fighting over who was right about whatever. “It was fine. I slept most of it.”
Melanie came from the kitchen to yell at her children. She was swinging a large spoon in one hand and a small box of something else in the other one. “Go in the den and play. I told you that Grandma needs to rest.”
Lyla yelled back to Melanie, who was already in the kitchen. “Melanie, I told you that you don’t have to cook. We can order out.”
“Ma, I’m not going to order junk. I’m sure that’s all Elise gets in California, anyway. I’m cooking for my kids, too.”
Her mother rolled her eyes and repositioned her legs. No one was going to change Melanie’s plans for dinner. Elise just wished it was already done. She felt her insides fighting over the last peanut that remained from the airplane ride.
Aunt Hildie began packing up, gathering a deck of cards from the table and putting her books in a pile. There was a large bag on the floor that she would be soon shoving them all into. She had to leave before dusk hit the back roads that she needed to travel to get home. “I’m sure I’ll see you again, Elise. I’ll be back tomorrow, and I’m making tuna salad.”
Elise’s stomach kicked her, letting her know how much she hated tuna. “Okay, Aunt Hildie. Although I do think I’m going to go downtown for some sightseeing. Maybe just make enough for you and Mom.”
She shook her head, pursing her lips. “Okay, Lyla, I’ll see you tomorrow.” She hung the bulging bag on her wrist and walked toward the door. “I’ll bring extra just in case.”
“Thanks, sissy.” Her mother smiled and blew a kiss just as Hildie turned back around. Who was this woman? A public display of affection? Even if it was an airborne kiss.
Elise shut the front door and then quietly strolled to the kitchen to check on Melanie and grab whatever morsel she may have dropped on the counter. She pinched her gently on the side. “I thought you said Aunt Hildie was too old to take care of Mom?”
Melanie turned around. “Elise, don’t even. You needed to come home. You haven’t been back in years. Now just be quiet and take your mother her pills and a drink.” She handed Elise two capsules from the container on the bookshelf. “And anyway, you are going to be helping me too.” She slipped it out, kind of like a few extra chips before you close the bag you’ve practically emptied.
“Excuse me?” Elise knew nothing about watching kids. Nothing. She could barely watch them in movies. They made no sense to her at all.
“I have to work tomorrow.” She raised her hand to block whatever Elise was going to say. “It’s only a twelve-hour shift.”
“Twelve-hour shift?! Are you freaking kidding me?” Elise’s eye sockets kept them from leaping out into the open air. “Someone will not be surviving by the time you make it home.” She was growing fatigued from lack of food and exasperated from the thought she’d be left in charge of a hop-along mother and two tiny, energy-charged children.
“Breathe, Elise. They’re good kids. Take them to the park or something.” She patted Elise on the shoulder and stirred the rice into the boiling water.
“And wheel Mom around to the monkey bars, too?” She hyperventilated just imagining the scene in her overactive mind.
“Aunt Hildie is going to spend the day with Mom. You just have to make sure she gets her pills and has dinner. I’ll be home to put her to bed.”
Elise buried her head in her elbow. It was too much to think about on jet lag and low blood sugar. Not only did she have to deal with the dynamics of being home, but also the flippin’ mess she left back in California. Spilling out words like ‘I love you’ all over the place at that damn airport. And no, she was not going to check her phone. She couldn’t deal with that tonight, too. The fact that Darren couldn’t pop over made her feel as secure as her mother looked, wrapped up in her chair as she approached her with medicine.
Dinner was finally served. Melanie set her mother up with a tray and the rest of them ate at the dinner table. Mason spread his rice expertly to the four corners of his plate and managed to “accidentally” knock a few pieces of chicken on the floor. Faith boycotted her fork and ate like a monster that had just received its daily rations of meat.
Elise gobbled hers and filled up before her stomach could alert her that it had had enough. In a few minutes it would feel like she was going to give birth to the couple of chickens she just inhaled. “That was really good, Melanie.”
Melanie finished her last bite and began stacking the dishes and clearing the table. She was rather an expert at the regime of eat, sort, and sanitize. All in under the fifteen or so minutes it took for it to happen, too. “You sound surprised.”
Elise grabbed the cups and silverware. “No, it’s just that you didn’t cook very much before.”
“Well, when you get married and have kids, you really have no other choice.”
“I wouldn’t know,” Elise said under her breath.
She took the dirty items to the kitchen sink and began rinsing the food off them. She didn’t want to invite that conversation with her sister. The stickiness of it all made her queasy. She now remembered the number one reason she never made trips back home.
“What are you going to do when you see him?” Melanie laid the dishes down next to Elise. The kids began running around them, chasing one another with their cups of juice.
It wasn’t easy to concentrate with the chaos swirling in the room. Elise wasn’t ready for ‘Ben talk.’ Melanie took the cups and escorted the kids to the living room to color. She brought back their mother’s dirty plate and turned the water on.
“Did you hear me, or are you selectively ignoring me?” She talked to the backsplash behind the sink, not looking directly at Elise.
“I heard you, Melanie. I’m hoping I don’t see him. I’m hoping I can do the impossible and avoid him for the next eight days. I’ve made it through today without seeing him.” Melanie shook her head continuing to eradicate the stuck-on rice from the dishes. “Good luck with that. You were on a plane for most of it.”
Elise moseyed out of the kitchen in search of her niec
e and nephew. The innocence they provided was just what she needed. Living life in the present. Not the variables that came with her visit home or what she left behind. She sat on the floor with her legs under the coffee table and began coloring a page with three ponies drinking from a stream. No wonder people facing mental breakdowns enjoyed painting. There was something therapeutic about it. The kids were fascinated with the notion a grown-up would sit among them. They giggled and pointed to the picture, telling her which colors to use. Faith handed her green to color the smallest pony.
Her mother stared at her from her perch through her round, clear glasses. Regret seemed to rest in the lines of her forehead. “Elise, how are things in California?”
“They’re fine, Mom. I’m doing great.” Elise didn’t look up from the largest horse she was coloring peony pink, just for Faith.
“Is there anyone special in your life?” She shifted on her chair, wincing from the discomfort her foot was giving her.
Special? Weren’t all guys the root of all evil to her mother? Was this a trick question? “There is someone I date pretty regularly.”
“Hmm...What’s his name? What’s he do?” A tiny flicker of stimulation danced on her cheeks.
The kids began getting possessive over Elise’s attention, grabbing her by the cheeks to talk to them and explain what the ponies were talking about; why were they at the stream; were they going to get bit by a snake? She politely took their hands from her face and smiled at both of them.
“His name is Darren. He’s a doctor.” She didn’t want to put too much weight into details about him. It was important to not seem too happy about him. About anything, for that point. Wasn’t she still serving her life sentence of solitary confinement, with all the amenities of misery? For something that happened when she was in elementary school.
The Kentucky Cure Page 6