The Good Mom

by Cathryn Parry

In Brandon’s bedroom, Aidan directed the boy to put his game controllers inside.

  Brandon set his chin. “I don’t see why—”

  Ashley put the game controllers in the laundry basket. There was a radio on the cluttered desk, and she put that in, too.

  “Hey!” Brandon said. “Sometimes I listen to the game in bed at night.”

  “Brandon,” Ashley said calmly. “Please cooperate with us. I see what Dr. Lowe is doing. He’s ridding your study space of distractions. He’s going to teach you how to study.”

  “He has no idea how kids study. I can’t have quiet. I can’t think with quiet. I need my earbuds.” He pulled his earbuds from around his neck.

  “Please, Brandon, put those in the basket,” Aidan said.

  “No. You two know nothing about kids today. You’re both crazy.”

  * * *

  ASHLEY GAZED FROM Aidan to her son. She’d never seen Brandon like this, and it hurt. Usually, she gave him everything—he’d been such a sweet kid. And of course, after he’d been diagnosed with leukemia as a toddler, she’d fallen to pieces over it. She couldn’t bear the thought of losing her sweet child. So she’d spoiled him maybe, but everybody had said he was a good boy. And she tried so hard to be a good mom. It was the only thing that mattered to her. The best thing she could do was to do what was best for him.

  It hurt her to be this hard on him now. But she understood what Aidan was doing, helping him mature and grow up and learn to be the student he needed to be if he was to achieve his dreams.

  “Brandon,” she said quietly, trying not to wring her hands. Trying to show him that she was serious. “Please cooperate with us.”

  “Mom—what is the point? I know how to study. I’ve been figuring out school on my own for my whole life.”

  She winced. It was a dig, a slight one, against her. She knew she was inadequate on the educational front. Unlike her doctor sister, Ashley hadn’t even lasted a year in college.

  She noticed Aidan watching her reaction to Brandon’s words. She felt herself turning red with embarrassment. He was doing her a favor, helping her with Brandon. Tit for tat, that was all. She’d helped him with his deceased girlfriend’s—deceased ex-girlfriend’s—parents. She’d handled it well. Flo and Albert trusted her. Albert had even given her his business card when she’d left Aidan’s apartment that day. She should not feel inadequate. They each had their strengths. She felt herself lifting her chin a little bit higher. She and Aidan would be a team on this.

  “Ashley, would you please bring me the textbook I brought?” he asked her kindly. “It’s out on the kitchen table.”

  She went and retrieved it, plus a notebook he’d brought, feeling a bit like his helper in a difficult procedure. Please, Nurse, bring me my scalpel. The thought made her giggle, despite herself.

  When she returned, Aidan was sitting in Brandon’s desk chair. He’d had to clear off a pile of dirty clothes to do so, and these she calmly picked up and brought to the hamper in the bathroom. At home—in their other home, the one they’d just left—the routines had been firmly established and clear, but here, in their new life, some had fallen by the wayside. She saw that she’d have to step up the rules again.

  She came back, and Aidan was writing something on an empty page in the notebook. Her heart sank. It was a mathematical formula, but it looked like gobbledygook to her.

  Brandon sat on the bed, sulking, his arms crossed and a frown on his face. She hated to see her normally happy boy in such a snit, but better to correct his bad habits now than to let him suffer devastating loss and failure at the end of the semester.

  Aidan held out the math formula. “Brandon, pretend this problem is going to be on your next math test. Please solve it for me.”

  Brandon’s expression warred between anger and curiosity. Even she wondered if Aidan had been given the test in advance. That couldn’t be true—could it?

  But the lure was too much to resist. Her son glanced at the problem. His face fell. Obviously, it was Greek to him, too.

  Aidan got up and picked up the laundry basket. In it, beside the game console and the radio and the headphones, he added a stack of sports magazines.

  A beeping sound went off. She watched as her son reached into his pocket. He shut off his phone as stealthily as he could, but Aidan obviously wasn’t that dumb.

  With his eyes, Aidan asked for Ashley’s permission to confiscate this most important tool of preteen communication. This would be her hardest test. Was she really on board with him? Because she knew there would be repercussions...

  Ashley nodded, swallowing.

  Aidan stood before Brandon with the half-filled laundry basket. “Turn over your phone, please.”

  “No.” Brandon’s eyes squinted. She knew that determined look. Her boy was drawing his line in the sand.

  “You may keep your laptop, though your mom will be turning off the Wi-Fi while you’re studying. But a phone... I’m sorry, Brandon. I know it won’t be easy.”

  “Forget it!” Brandon cried. “I need my phone to stay in touch with my friends!”

  “Exactly why it’s not a good idea for you right now,” Aidan said, his deep voice calm.

  “You’re old! You have no idea how it is for us! Nobody can live without a phone.” He glanced desperately to her. “Mom, tell him! I need to stay in touch with my friends from home! From where we used to live!”

  “Honey,” she said, her voice catching despite her determination. “Your friends will understand.”

  “No, they won’t! You don’t get it, Mom! Neither of you get it!”

  She well remembered how important friends were at his age. The opinion of one’s peers made one’s life or broke it. It was remarkable that Brandon had dared to step out as far as he had, dared to aim for something higher than the grungy streets of their old neighborhood. “I know it’s hard to make a new life,” she said.

  But Brandon was crying. Full out crying. Tears rolling down his cheeks. She hadn’t seen him like this in ages. From experience, she knew she had about ten seconds until he bolted.

  Aidan cleared his throat, interrupting her before she could act. With a look at her, he spoke quietly to her son.

  “I went to St. Bart’s, too. I lost friends, too.” His deep voice had lowered, as though he were calming a distraught patient. “But then I gained friends. Friends that were going through the same things I was.”

  He gazed at her son, and Ashley’s heart broke. “That’s what life is, Brandon. Loss and gain. Loss and gain.” He shook his head. It was more as if he was talking to himself, rather than to her son. “But it gets better every time. Each cycle brings you closer to who you are at heart. What you’re meant to be.” He glanced at Brandon again. “That’s why I want you to be sure that staying at St. Bart’s and fighting for a medical career is really what you want. Because to earn that privilege, you’re going to have to leave some things behind. I’m sorry, but it’s the truth.”

  A miracle had happened: Brandon had listened and he hadn’t bolted. He was crying quietly by himself on the bed, his back against the wall. But he was listening. He was trying to absorb it. He hadn’t shut down.

  Ashley went over and sat down by her son, hugging him. She’d never realized he felt so responsible for keeping in contact with his old friends from the neighborhood. Like it was his responsibility to keep the whole gang together. That was how she’d felt with her baby sister, growing up. That she was making up for her alcoholic mom’s failures, being a little mom herself. Brandon was being the dad, the ringleader to his old group.

  “I’ll take your phone tomorrow, honey, and when your friends text, I’ll let them know that you had to lose your phone for school for a while, while you get settled,” she said.

  “That is so lame, Mom,” he whispered.

  “I know. But i
t will work out. And it’s just for the short term, until you learn how to focus and then get all caught up with the rest of the class. You’re a smart person, so I have no doubt you’ll handle it beautifully.”

  He wiped his eyes with the back of his sweatshirt sleeve.

  “Have you made a decision?” she asked him, ruffling his hair.

  He gave a short nod, then got up and left. But he returned a moment later with a chair from the kitchen. Aidan nodded. He just switched chairs with Brandon. They both sat at Brandon’s empty desk, one she’d bought at a flea market for him when they’d moved here. It was a huge wooden desk, old-school, as Brandon had called it. But it was roomy, big enough for two people to spread out their papers and have plenty of elbow room. There was also great lighting overhead. The two of them would be fine. She hoped.

  Aidan gazed up at her. Whatever he was feeling, she couldn’t read his face. Everything closed inside. All business. Perhaps it was his “surgery face.”

  “Please leave us for an hour, Ashley. We’ll be fine.”

  She glanced at Brandon. He’d gotten his textbook out of his book bag and was opening it, eyes lowered.

  “Okay,” she said, trying to keep her voice from shaking. She cleared her throat. “But I’m leaving the door open.”

  Out in the kitchen, she started to clear up their supper dishes. She was shaking even harder. She ached for a drink. For wine in a plastic cup. The tart taste of the grapes. The ease in her mind and in her muscles when the alcohol worked its spell on her bloodstream...

  Of course she was stressed out. This was hard, watching her boy struggle. Fail. Cry. Try again. It broke her heart, every time. But this time was harder, not like before. He had beat cancer. He had flourished in his old school, even without a dad. He had taken his uncle Jon under his wing, had even played matchmaker of a sort between Jon and Lisbeth, Ashley’s prickly sister. But this...this was something he might not overcome. It didn’t look hopeful, truthfully. Maybe Aidan really didn’t know what he was doing. He was a doctor, not a teacher. Maybe she’d made a huge mistake.

  A bottle of water fell over, and water streamed across the kitchen table. Her hands were just shaking so much. She wished, oh she wished, she had some wine. Stay busy, she thought, mopping up the mess. Keep to your routines. You know the prescription.

  In rehab, she’d learned many tactics for keeping to her path. For not coming undone again. Brandon needed her now, more than ever. This was for Brandon. For herself.

  The kitchen cleaned, she went over to the stove, by rote. Reached up to the shelf overhead and found her tea boxes. She always found comfort in her tea ritual.

  * * *

  THE BATHROOM DOOR clicked shut, and Aidan was left alone in Brandon’s bedroom. Aidan leaned back in his seat, rubbing his eyes. He was exhausted. Brandon had done the best he could, but they’d had to go back to absolute basics. The rest of his class was working on Algebra I, and Aidan needed to get Brandon through pre-Algebra. In the two weeks before he left. Pretty much an impossible task.

  Aidan sighed. He’d started with stuff the boy already knew, just to get his confidence going, but that didn’t seem to have worked. Now Brandon was in the bathroom. Aidan had the impression he was exhausted and had reached his limit. The kid mumbling under his breath, “You’re not my father,” had been a pretty big clue. Aidan hadn’t known how to reply to that one, other than, “I never said I was.”

  The scent—the peaceful spa scent—he was fast associating with Ashley—wafted into his space, and he glanced up. She was standing in the doorway. “Aidan? I’ve made some tea, if you’d like a cup.”

  He lowered his head. Tea. In Afghanistan, after the bombing, after he’d changed clinics, he’d worked with a local man, a doctor trained in Miami, who had ended each day with a cup of tea. He’d gotten Aidan snagged in his routine.

  “Yeah,” Aidan said. “I’d love some.” He followed her to the kitchen table.

  But this wasn’t Afghanistan. He was home, in a kitchen like one he’d grown up with. He was working with people who spoke English again, and who lived in peace.

  His hand shook on the cup.

  “How did it go?” Ashley asked.

  He honestly wasn’t sure.

  “I guess we’ll start with basics,” Aidan said.

  “That sounds good to me.” She sat at the table across from him and picked up her own cup. “We’ll start with basics.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  ASHLEY SET OUT for Aidan’s apartment, humming. He’d just spent five nights in a row with Brandon, working hard at the desk in his room. And in response, she was seeing a different son. More confident. Quieter. His expression more serious.

  It had shown her a very sobering truth. After Jon and Lisbeth had left for San Francisco, Ashley had worried that Brandon no longer had a significant male influence in his life. And as he entered adolescence, it would be even more important for him to have that influence. That first night Aidan had come to the house to work with Brandon, she’d worried that he might not be the right person for the job. But now, five days later...

  Brandon was showing real progress. Not the false bravado he’d had his first week of school, but a true confidence that he was building from within, slowly but surely.

  Not once had he asked her about his phone. He had, however, taken a call on her phone, from his friend Cho one night during dinner. She hadn’t discouraged it. And she’d been secretly pleased when she’d heard Brandon explain the answer to an American history question to Cho.

  Then Aidan had arrived and he’d focused on Brandon, and she was grateful for that, too. He set a schedule and he was reliable.

  She owed him a lot for that, and she wanted to show him her very real gratitude.

  She went to his apartment building near the water, where he’d mentioned he would be this morning, “taking care of business,” as he put it. It was a clear, warm, September Saturday, and crowds were mingling, taking selfies and eating sausages from the gourmet food trucks that lined the greenway. Somehow the Boston waterfront had turned from the slightly dumpy, almost seedy space she remembered from her youth into a fantastic, world-class city of parks and majestic buildings and open spaces. A gleaming, bustling city, the pride of the region.

  She hummed as she waved at Bill, the attendant in Aidan’s building. He smiled and waved back.

  “Well, if it isn’t the hairstylist.”

  “Ashley,” she said.

  “Hello, Ashley. Are you going up to see Dr. Lowe?”

  “Yes, please.” She smiled and stepped inside the penthouse elevator. “What kind of mood is he in today, Bill?” she asked.

  “There’s a real estate agent in his apartment with him. Is he selling?”

  Oh no. She crossed her fingers, hoping that Aidan wouldn’t move away too soon. He’d only promised her one more week with her son, and units in Boston tended to sell very quickly, with cash payments, if they were priced right. If Aidan were given the freedom to leave the city so quickly, then Ashley’s plans would be ruined.

  “I hope not,” she answered. “I hope he isn’t selling.”

  All things considered with Brandon—the magic Aidan was working with her son, the improvement he’d shown so far—she really needed Aidan to stay longer. In fact, she’d hoped to convince him to stay even longer than his original commitment. If he could just stay until Brandon’s next big math test in mid-October, that would be ideal.

  “Well, then for your sake, I hope he doesn’t sell, either,” Bill said. “But tell him that if he knows anyone else in the building who’s looking for a good real estate agent, then let me know. I know all the good ones.” Bill pressed the button to Aidan’s condominium.

  “So...you don’t know the particular agent with him today?” Ashley asked politely, feeling off-kilter.

  �
��No, I can’t say that I’ve seen her before, and I thought I knew all the local agents.” Bill gave her a look that let her know he saw all the comings and goings within his building, and that he kept track of everything.

  “You must know a lot of people in the city,” she murmured. It was weird, but she’d felt a kind of partnership with Aidan. It must have been the sharing they’d been doing with Brandon. As if they really were a small family. She was oddly hurt that he hadn’t mentioned the real estate agent coming, not that he owed her anything beyond the tutoring.

  She glanced at her toes; a fresh coat of coral nail polish peeked out beneath her warm-weather sandals. She’d planned on being optimistic today.

  “I do have a lot of experience.” Bill smiled at her. The elevator dinged and drew to a stop. “Ah. We’re here. Have a good day, Ashley.”

  “Thanks—you, too, Bill,” she said, trying to be cheerful.

  On the landing beside Aidan’s front door, a woman waited for her to exit the elevator, hand on her hip, tapping her foot. She had an e-cigarette in her mouth, and was inhaling and exhaling furiously. A plume of water vapor wafted over her.

  Ashley nodded to her, but the woman ignored her and got in the empty elevator beside Bill. “First floor,” she snapped. Bill caught Ashley’s eye and winked as the elevator doors closed.

  O-kay.

  Prepared for anything, Ashley knocked on Aidan’s door, and he opened it quickly. Without looking at her, he growled, “What part of no don’t you under—”

  He finally noticed it was Ashley standing there and stopped speaking. A tired smile crossed his face, and he leaned against the doorjamb. He had bare feet beneath his cargo pants. His hair was damp from a shower, and she could still smell his soap.

  “How,” he asked, “did you slip up here again without them calling me first?”

  “Bill thinks I’m your personal hairstylist and that you’re already expecting me.” She stepped past him into his apartment.

  He laughed shortly and followed her across the great wide space with the floor-to-ceiling windows that took her breath away. “It appears that you’ve thoroughly charmed my doorman.”