Mommy Tracked

by Whitney Gaskell

  “Men like Noah don’t come around every day. You know, you won’t always be this young and pretty,” Margo continued mulishly.

  “So what are you saying? That I should run out and find a man before my looks fade?” Anna asked incredulously.

  “That’s exactly what I’m saying.”

  Anna rolled her eyes. Give me strength, she thought. “Mother. Stop it. My love life is none of your business.”

  “What a ridiculous thing to say. Of course it’s my business.”

  “No, it’s not,” Anna hissed. “And I’ve already told you, I don’t want to discuss this in public. Charlie, aren’t you hungry? Here, eat some french fries.”

  But Charlie, who didn’t share his mother and Gigi’s taste for greasy junk food, just poked disdainfully at his cheeseburger. “Grapes?” he asked hopefully.

  “Grapes? I give you french fries, and you ask for grapes?” Anna asked, with a laugh. “Clearly you are not my son.”

  “You’re my daughter, and the mother of my grandson. Whom you date is certainly my business,” Margo continued.

  Anna sighed, trying—and failing—to swallow her irritation. “Well, then, you have nothing to worry about. Because I have no intention of dating anyone right now or in the foreseeable future. In fact, well past the point when my looks start to go,” she said stubbornly.

  Margo looked scandalized. “I didn’t raise you to be a quitter.”

  “Quitter? I’m not quitting anything.” Anna set her half-eaten cheeseburger down, her appetite gone. “I’m simply choosing to content myself with my life as a single mother rather than risk exposing Charlie to the sort of men who—” Anna stopped, realizing a moment too late what she’d been about to say.

  “Go ahead. You don’t want to expose Charlie to the sort of men I exposed you to,” Margo said, her voice suddenly cold.

  Well, I’m in it now, Anna thought. She sighed.

  “Mom, for all that we joke about how off the wall some of those guys were, let’s face it: It’s dangerous to expose your child to strange men. You were taking an enormous risk bringing men that you barely even knew around me,” Anna said.

  “I can’t believe you’d say that to me. I would never—never—have risked your safety,” Margo said, her voice now quavering.

  “But you did.” Anna shrugged. “And luckily, nothing ever happened. But that’s just what it was: dumb luck.”

  “It was not dumb luck. I would never have dated the sort of man who would have hurt you! I can’t believe you’d suggest that I would!”

  “How would you know? Do you think pedophiles have a giant P tattooed on their foreheads?”

  “Do not patronize me, Anna Catherine.”

  “Mom—” Anna began.

  “No parent is perfect, but I can tell you this: I did my best, my absolute level best, to keep you safe and happy when you were a child. God knows, your father wasn’t any help, and I had to do it all on my own, but nevertheless, you were always my top priority. And so for you to begrudge me a life of my own—”

  “I don’t begrudge you anything,” Anna interrupted her. “All I said was that I wasn’t going to do the same. Aren’t I allowed to make my own choices, to live my life the way I think best?”

  “No,” Margo said, suddenly strangely calm. “Not if you’re going to be so stupid about it.”

  Anger pulsed in Anna. She struggled to keep her voice calm and level, so as not to upset Charlie. “I see. So you can question my judgment, but I’m not allowed to question yours?”

  “That’s right,” Margo said. She buttered a slice of bread for Charlie, who grabbed it from her and jammed it into his mouth.

  “Bread and butter,” Charlie chortled, as though he were a Dickensian orphan who’d been subsisting on little more than watered-down gruel.

  “And it’s about time you stopped being so rigid,” Margo continued.

  “What? How am I being rigid?” Anna yelped.

  “Like with Brad. He made one little mistake, and poof, you divorced him, just like that,” Margo said, waving an airy hand.

  “What do you mean, poof? He cheated on me! Besides, you hate Brad!”

  “I don’t hate him. Well, okay, yes, I do. But that’s not the point,” her mother said. “The point is you never give anyone a second chance.”

  Anna stood. “Mom, I’m sorry, but you’re out of line on this one,” she said wearily. “Come on, Charlie. You can eat your bread and butter in the car.”

  Margo didn’t talk to Anna for two weeks, other than to exchange the necessary information about Charlie when Anna dropped him off or picked him up. Anna got so tired of the cold-shoulder treatment, she contemplated avoiding her mother altogether, but she didn’t have the heart to keep Charlie and his beloved Gigi apart.

  The price of motherhood, Anna thought, with a sigh. I can’t even avoid the people I want to avoid.

  Case in point: Brad. Once her temper had cooled, Anna decided to take Grace’s advice and didn’t file for a change in the custody arrangement. But Brad had been annoyingly eager to please ever since Charlie’s big escape. He’d even hired a company that specialized in childproofing to come over and make his house completely Charlie-proof, and he was so excited with the new child safety locks, door alarm, and oven lock that he’d insisted Anna come over to give her approval.

  “And look over here!” Brad said, gesturing toward the living room with a flourish. It looked…empty. The leather couches were still there, but not much else.

  “What did you do? Where did all of the furniture go?” Anna asked, frowning, as she tried to remember what Brad had kept in his living room. All she could remember was lots of glass and chrome.

  “The woman from the childproofing company had me put all of it away. She said that Charlie could easily pull something down on himself or fall on it and cut himself,” Brad explained.

  “Oh, right. You know,” Anna said, not able to resist, “I did mention that to you a while ago.”

  “Did you? Really? I don’t remember.”

  “Yes, I did. Really. Look, this is great, but you probably spent way too much money. You could have gotten most of this stuff from the Home Depot and installed it yourself.”

  “I know. But I wanted to make sure it was done right and that I didn’t miss anything. Anyway, now you don’t have to worry about leaving Charlie here again. This place is like a fortress,” Brad said. Anna recognized his tone and the swagger that accompanied it: Brad was just selling again. But instead of selling pharmaceuticals, he was selling himself as a responsible father.

  And the most irritating part of it was that it was working.

  Anna looked over at Charlie. He was playing with the train table Brad had bought and set up for him in the corner of his living room, giving the whole space a different atmosphere—suddenly it was more Nickelodeon, less Playboy Mansion. She had to admit: Charlie looked happy here. He was confident and relaxed, basking in the glow of his father’s attention.

  “All aboard!” Charlie called out happily, waving one of the trains in the air.

  Anna turned back to Brad. “Okay. You’ve convinced me.”

  “So does that mean…will you actually let me have Charlie over again?” Brad asked tentatively.

  And as much as her reaction irritated her, Anna couldn’t help but feel touched that Brad was being so deferential. It was just so thoughtful and considerate—and so completely unlike him.

  “Yes,” she finally said. “But I swear, Brad, if anything like that ever happens again…” Her voice trailed off, the implied threats unspoken.

  Brad nodded solemnly. “I know you hate it when I promise something, but on this I really and truly do give you my word. I’ll keep him safe, Anna. He’s my son too. I love him more than anything in the world.”

  Anna nodded in return, slowly, reluctantly. “Okay. But I’m going to hold you to that,” she said.

  When Brad smiled, the corners of his eyes crinkled up. “I wouldn’t expect anything less.”
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  Despite herself, Anna couldn’t help smiling back at him.

  “Come give Mama a kiss good-bye, Charlie,” she said. “Daddy’s going to take you swimming in the ocean! Won’t that be fun?”

  Anna did what she always did when she was stressed out: She cooked. A lot. Since the argument with her mom, Anna had made a frittata, two peach pies, carrot cake, a big pot of gumbo, moussaka, lasagna, and a sour-cream chocolate chip cake. She felt like the very hungry caterpillar from Charlie’s picture book, only instead of eating her way through the week, she was cooking her way through it.

  Finally, in despair, Anna turned to her fail-safe stress-buster: bread. She spent an entire Saturday morning mixing up two huge bowls full of dough, letting it rise, and then pummeling it, while Charlie and Potato romped underfoot.

  Is Mom right? Am I too rigid? she wondered, as she oiled her big stainless-steel mixing bowl, prepping it for another batch of bread dough. Was I too quick to end things with Noah?

  Noah. Her heart squeezed. She missed him more than she’d thought possible. It had been so amazing to have something in her life other than Charlie, work, and her friends. She hadn’t even realized there was something missing until Noah came along. And now that he was gone, the hole was back. A Noah-shaped hole.

  Yes, it was true he had a worrying history, what with his four ex-fiancées. But that was just it—Anna had believed Noah when he’d explained the scary-high number to her. She had. So if it wasn’t that…well, it wasn’t that. It was her. Her—and Charlie.

  Anna looked down at her son, who was now lying on his stomach in the middle of the kitchen floor, happily scribbling in a coloring book with a thick orange crayon. Potato lay next to Charlie, in a nearly identical position, chewing on a blue crayon she gripped with her front paws.

  What was it Grace said? Anna wondered as she leaned over to take the crayon away from Potato. Charlie will be fine. Kids are adaptable. Was that true? Was she avoiding Noah not for Charlie’s sake but because she was frightened of being hurt?

  This thought startled her with how true she immediately knew it to be. She was afraid. Afraid of being hurt, afraid of being left. Afraid of another Brad. Afraid of taking a chance and being let down again.

  The doorbell rang, interrupting her thoughts.

  Noah! Anna thought, her heart lurching. Could it possibly be him? Had he somehow sensed that she was thinking about him?

  Anna wiped her hands on a dish towel, stepped over Charlie, and hurried to the door, anticipation swelling inside her. She yanked the door open, and—

  “Hi, honey,” her mom said.

  Of course it wasn’t Noah, Anna thought. She didn’t know why she felt so disappointed. She’d told him to stay away, and he was respecting her decision.

  “Gigi!” Charlie crowed happily, rushing forward and flinging his arms around his grandmother’s legs. Potato cavorted after him, yipping happily.

  “Hi, Mom,” Anna said.

  “I don’t want to fight anymore,” Margo announced. She was holding a plant with a big white bow wrapped around the pot, which she thrust at Anna. “It’s a peace lily. Peace?”

  Anna laughed. She shifted the plant to her left arm and hugged her mom with her right, breathing in the familiar scent of her Joy perfume. Margo had worn it for as long as Anna could remember, and the fragrance clung to all of Anna’s childhood memories.

  “Peace,” Anna agreed. “Come on in.”

  “What smells so delicious?” Margo asked, shutting the front door behind her.

  “I’m baking bread,” Anna said, leading Margo—who had picked Charlie up and perched him on one hip—back to the kitchen. “Would you like some coffee?”

  “Yes. Black, please.” Margo sat down at one of Anna’s cane-back kitchen chairs and fixed her daughter with a penetrating look. “So what’s wrong?”

  “Wrong? What do you mean? Nothing’s wrong,” Anna said. She poured a cup of coffee from the drip pot and put it on the table next to Margo. “Do you mind if I work while we talk? I have to knead this dough.”

  “You only bake bread when you’re upset about something,” Margo said. She blew on her coffee and took a careful sip. Charlie brought over his coloring book to show his Gigi and beamed happily when she said, “That’s a gorgeous picture! What a talented boy!”

  “No, I don’t,” Anna said.

  “Yes, you do. You don’t think I know my own daughter?” Margo asked.

  “It’s nothing.” Anna shrugged. “It’s just been hectic at work. And you and I haven’t been speaking.”

  “Mmm-hmmm,” Margo said, clearly not believing this was the whole story.

  Anna sighed and tucked her hair behind her ears. “And…well. I’ve been wondering…” This was hard to admit. “Maybe you were right. About Noah, I mean. And about my being too rigid.”

  Margo’s face lit up with a huge, self-satisfied smile. “Really,” she said, drawing the word out.

  Grrr, thought Anna.

  “Look, never mind,” she said grumpily, and went back to pounding her dough.

  “Anna.” This time Margo’s voice was gentle, and when Anna looked up, she saw the concern on her mother’s face. “Just don’t make the same mistake I did.”

  “What mistake?”

  Margo sighed and wrapped her hands around her coffee mug. “After your father left, I swore I’d never let another man do that to me. Desert me, leaving me alone and wounded.”

  Anna stared at her mother, not comprehending. “What are you talking about? You dated all the time,” she said.

  Margo nodded. “That’s right. I dated. I went out and had fun, and as soon as I sensed the man was getting too attached—or, even worse, if I was getting too attached—I stopped seeing him.”

  Anna struggled to make sense of this new perspective. Her mother—her vain, flirtatious mother—was a commitmentphobe? Even more disturbing, her mother’s confession that her fear had kept her from getting too close to another man mirrored Anna’s own revelation about herself.

  “I never knew you felt like that,” Anna said.

  “Oh, yes. Then you grew up and moved out, and now I’m all alone,” Margo said sadly.

  “You’re not alone. You still have me. And Charlie.”

  Margo smiled fondly down at Charlie, who had dragged his toy xylophone out from his room and was now banging away at it. She had to raise her voice to be heard above the cacophony.

  “Yes, of course I do. And I have my work.” Margo was a nurse and worked part-time for an orthopedist. “But still. It would have been nice to have someone to come home to. Someone to travel with.”

  “I can see that,” Anna said, thinking, Oh, my God, is this how I’m going to end up? Lonely and miserable because Charlie’s grown and I don’t have anyone to go on a Caribbean cruise with? And I’ll just get older and older, and Charlie will probably marry some awful woman who won’t want me to move into their in-law suite, and they’ll stick me in some horrible retirement home and only visit me once a year on Mother’s Day?

  It was such a depressing vision of her future that Anna felt wobbly for a minute, and she had to draw in a deep, steadying breath and grip the counter.

  “Are you okay?” Margo asked, her brow knitting in concern.

  “Fine. I’m fine.” Anna took in one more deep breath and then decided what she had to do. She’d made a mistake—a terrible mistake—and now she had to see if she could make it right.

  “Mom, would you mind watching Charlie for a bit? I have an errand I have to run.”

  “Of course,” Margo said, with a knowing smile.

  “Thanks.” Anna pulled off her apron and smoothed down her pink oxford shirt. Should I change? Slap on some makeup? And, oh, God, what’s going on with my hair? Anna raised a self-conscious hand to her chopped locks, which were still in the growing-out stage.

  “You look beautiful,” Margo said. She stood and wiped some flour off the tip of Anna’s nose. Then she placed a cool hand on Anna’s cheek. “You’
ve never looked lovelier.”

  “Thanks, Mom,” Anna said. She took in another shaky breath and wondered why she suddenly felt like she was going to cry.

  “Now go get him,” Margo said. She picked up the peace lily and handed it to Anna. “Give him this.”

  “Really?” Anna asked, looking at her lily doubtfully.

  “Yes, really.”

  “Okay, I’m going. Wait—what about Charlie?”

  “Charlie will be fine. I’ll take him over to the playground.”

  “I know he’ll be fine now. But what about later?” Anna asked.

  “He’ll be fine, Anna. He’ll be fine because he’s your son.”

  And suddenly Anna’s eyes were blurring, and her nose got the tingly feeling it always did when she cried.

  “Okay. Wish me luck,” Anna said. And then, the peace lily tucked under one arm, she walked out into the glittering Florida sunshine.

  The bell tinkled as Anna walked into Bacchus, clutching the plant to her chest like a safety blanket.

  “Hi, can I, like, help you?” a young woman behind the counter asked. She was pretty, with lots of dark eye makeup and hair dyed the color of maraschino cherries. She was also thin, with—Anna couldn’t help but notice—very large, very perky breasts.

  Oh, God, Anna thought. What if Noah’s started dating his store clerk? Suddenly her imagination began to spin out of control: Noah noticing the nubile young woman, admiring her as she stocked the shelves…The two of them kissing and clutching at each other in the back room…Noah’s newly found appreciation for young, pert breasts not made saggy by breast-feeding. Oh, no, no, no, Anna thought, as an even worse possibility occurred to her. What if he’s proposed to her? He does have a track record of doing that.

  She was just about to back slowly out of the store and bolt to her car when Noah came out of the back room, holding a heavy crate in his arms. He stopped when he saw Anna, his eyes looking very dark and guarded behind his metal-framed glasses.