I’d had to warn him about my mother. I can no longer call her Mother or Mum or Mama, like I used to. If she’s having a hard time, where she doesn’t remember me, then it will upset her. So I have to wait and see what kind of day she’s having before I know who I’m going to be to her. Often, it’s best to just play along. There was one doctor who recommended trying to force my mother to remember who I am. But it only upset her. And I never want to distress my mum.
She has frontotemporal dementia and no one knows why. The doctors keep reassuring me it’s good that it was discovered so soon. But I don’t feel any reassurance. My mother will die younger than others who have Alzheimer's. Her body is already weakening at an alarming rate. And her mind…god, I’m losing my mother, ounce by ounce, memory by memory, and I don’t think anything will reassure me.
The nurses told me she was in the social room, where many patients spend their time, watching TV, playing games, sometimes reading to each other, or playing the piano.
Turning the corner, I see my gorgeous mother sitting in the sun, staring at the grand piano, frowning. Her hair has a lot of white to it now, but she still has a few strawberry blonde strands weaving through her crown that’s braided neatly and hangs heavy over one of her shoulders. Her frame is so like mine. We’re both lucky to be a little on the tall side, a little on the thin side, a little athletic. Much of what I look like is thanks to my mother. But I do have my father’s greenish eyes.
As I walk nearer, I see another damned dirty plastic bottle in her hands.
“What do you have there?”
My mother, glances up and beams at me. My heart stutters, hoping, praying she knows who I am.
“Margaret,” she says cheerfully.
My heart breaks and tears flood my eyes, but I fashion a smile into place and reach down to hug my mother, glad that at least she likes whoever Margaret is.
“Hello, Anna,” I say formally to my mama. It always feels like a lie to call her anything but Mum as I used to say when I was a kid before I was influenced by my American friends. But if I call her anything else, I know how frustrated she’ll be.
“Oh, Margaret.” She pulls away from me, looking into my eyes. “Ye look so pretty today.” Her accent has gotten thicker and thicker with her diminished memories. I don’t know why that is. Perhaps, in her mind, she retreats to the Belfast of her youth. “Why, look at yer dress.” One of her fingers softly caresses the peach fabric. “I bet when ye twirl, it feels like heaven.”
I blink my tears away, smiling even wider. “It does. It’s wonderful. I’ll let you borrow it whenever you want. And, Anna, you look so pretty today too. So beautiful.” I straighten. “How are you?”
She bites her lip, looking at Joe. “Yer husband is so handsome. The girls are goin’ to go wild over him.”
I choke back a laugh as I look at Joe. He’s not smiling mischievously like I expected. He reaches down, and when my mother extends her tiny hand in his, he kisses it. My mother giggles like a school girl, and maybe, in her mind, she is.
Still holding her hand, Joe sweeps down and sits on the edge of the piano bench. “Hello, Anna.”
My mother places her free hand over one of her blushing cheeks. “I’m so sorry, sir. I forgot your name.”
“Well, I’m easy to forget.” Joe smiles.
My mother swats at him playfully. “No, ye aren’t.”
Joe chuckles. “Joseph, but call me Joe, please.”
My mother bats her long auburn lashes. “Joe.” Mama reaches both of her hands out to me. Once I hold her, she ushers me to sit next to her. “Margaret and Joseph. Of course.”
I swallow, fighting through tears. I hate it when my mother doesn’t remember me. I hate it a little more that she thinks I’m married to Joe. But he’s playing along so nicely. And I should too.
“What do you have there, Anna?” I ask again, pointing at the dented water bottle that has a little green sludge at the bottom.
She smiles at me. “It’s a secret. I’m sorry, Margaret, I can’t even tell ye. But I will one day.” She rolls her eyes. “All right, I’ll tell ye this. It might not look like much, but it’s a present.”
“A present? For whom?”
She shakes her head. “I can’t tell ye.”
I nod, knowing that a nurse will eventually take it away from my mother when she’s sleeping. And I hope she’ll never remember her present. It upsets her so much when things are moved around, thrown away, or when she forgets. Not that I blame her. I might murder someone if I forgot my children’s names.
She’s still holding my hands and gives them a squeeze. “Oh, Margaret, I was just thinkin’ about ye. Do ye remember that song ye played for me?” She points with her gaze at the piano.
Fluttering a hand to my temple, I smile while shaking my head. “I’m so sorry, Anna. My memory isn’t the best. Can you remind me?”
She shrugs. “Sometimes I forget things too.” Her thumbs caress mine, and I want to cry. That’s my mama who’s holding me, caressing me. Only, it’s not. God, sometimes I want to scream at the whole world because it’s so fucking unfair that I’m losing my mother this way, especially when I need her, when I need her to be the shoulder I cry on but can’t. Not any longer.
She tilts her head, then looks at Joe. “Help Margaret remember that song she used to play. The one that went—” she begins to hum a tune. I thank god that I actually know what she’s talking about.
I smack my forehead. “Molly Malone.”
She smiles widely. “I knew ye’d remember, Margaret. Will ye play it?”
Joe glances at me, one of his dark blond brows arches. God, we really don’t know each other. But he’s learning so much right now.
“Ye want me to, M—Anna?” I almost called her Mum. Whenever I’m with her, her accent is mine. I’ve never stepped foot in Ireland. But I’m Irish with my mother. My father laughed about it when I was a child. I loved the way he spoke, the way his voice would dip with certain words. But it was my mother I took after.
She smiles and nods, waving her teeny white hand at the piano. Joe stands and grabs a chair, setting it close to my mother while I sit behind the piano. I stare at middle C while I hear my mother whisper to Joe. He murmurs something back, and I wish I was Margaret. I wish I knew my role. I wish Joe was my husband so I wouldn’t feel so bad that he’s not.
Then I play the song my mother wants to hear. It’s an Irish ballad, one of the songs most sung in Dublin, my mum once told me. But she’s a Belfast chit and proud of it. As a girl, she said she dreamed of living in cosmopolitan Dublin. I wonder if she thought Wyoming was cosmopolitan at all. She’s never told me the story of how she came to America, New York, without the rest of her family. But she used to tell the story of how she met my father, fell in love, and moved to Wyoming for him. I wish I could hear that story just one more time.
I end the song and glance up, a few of the staff and people who live with my mother have gathered around. Then I spy Joe, whose lips are parted, something sweet passing through his gray gaze. He blinks and smiles at me in a new way. He’s a tad impressed, I think. And I can’t help but shy away from his warm eyes, tucking some of my long hair behind an ear.
My mother claps as do some of the people around. “Again,” she says loudly. “This time sing it too!”
I glance back at the keys. Once, not that long ago, I resented my mother and the piano. My brother after four years of lessons, got to choose whichever instrument he wanted. So he turned to the saxophone and never looked back, my mother fully supporting him every step of the way. But I, being the girl, was told I could only sing and play the piano. I’ve had over twenty years of lessons. My mother would even steal from my father’s wallet to ensure I had my lessons. I tried to say no, especially as a teenager, but my mother would slap me and tell me I what I was going to do.
I always submitted to my mother. She never really hurt me with her slaps. But it would be a shock. I don’t think my father approved of that kind of discipli
ne, but he would only say that to me. And my mother would never slap my brother. He was a boy, then a man, and men weren’t to be slapped.
Mother-daughter relationships are always so complex. I love my mother. She was my rock when growing up. But she was also the instigator of unfair discipline. I could come home and cry if I had a broken heart from a boy who didn’t like me. She'd fret and comfort me with hugs and cookies. But she’d tell me repeatedly I wasn't feminine enough, telling me I should never be anything more than a mother.
What’s odd is how I am only a mother right now. I don’t have a job. Tony pays for everything, and I worry I shouldn’t be so dependent on him. Oh, but I love being home with my children. I love our days together. Even the bad days when Liv cries and throws her naked dolls at the walls…God, I cherish those days too. And the only thing I’ve ever trained for was singing and playing the piano. My major in college was music. So I’m a tad useless. I’m nothing like Eva, who I adore and respect so much for having a career and running her own business. Sometimes, I wish I was more like her.
I start replaying the tune and begin singing. Within a few beats my mother’s shaky voice joins me. From my periphery, I see she’s grabbed Joe’s hand and is holding it in the air, swaying it side-to-side in time to the rhythm.
A couple hours float by while I’m pretending to be Margaret and play her songs. This is what we do now. I’m Margaret and she’s Anna. I sing for her. She looks at me like I’m her best friend, but not her daughter. And my heart breaks a little more. Each time she doesn’t remember me, I fall apart. I wonder how much more I can take. But when I look at my mother’s face—pale now, due to her illness, deep wrinkles around her eyes and her lips, so frail I worry if she might snap at any second—I know I’ll find infinite strength. For her, I will be Margaret. For her, I’ll do this until we’re out of time.
As I make our excuses to leave, Joe holding my waist and kissing my mother’s hand again, I glance at him. He’s been incredibly kind to her. He’s been incredibly kind to me, not once looking at me with pity but with something warm and compassionate passing through those gray eyes of his. If I let go, I could fantasize about a future with him. If I let go, I could fantasize about so much with him. But I’m so scared to let go.
14
We’re almost out of Swaying Pines nursing home, when Joe grabs my wrist and pulls me into a bathroom. Locking the door, he looks at me, studying my eyes. And all I can do is take a shaky inhalation. His arms are around me faster than I can account for, but I hold onto him all the same. I’m sobbing into the nook of his neck and he’s letting me.
He picks me up off the ground, my sandal-clad feet dangling in the air.
“You’re so strong.”
I shake my head.
I can feel his cheek smile against me. “Ah, my stubborn girl. You are so strong, whether you like to hear it or not.”
“I’m bawling on your shoulder in a bathroom. I’m not strong.”
“Stubborn girl. I like how you pick up her accent when you’re around her.”
“Do not.”
“I like how cranky you are.”
“You do not.”
He softly chuckles, holding me even tighter. “I respect the hell out of you, Moira.”
I sigh. It sounds like one of those breaths Liv has after a tantrum—fast, short, and relieving. “So now you know.”
“Now I know.”
“I don’t know why you still like me. I live in a tornado of crazy.”
He puts me back on my feet, looking at me incredulously. “Seriously, you just witnessed my mom emotionally blackmailing my dad to talk to her. You helped my mom with her hangover. You know my dad wants to marry his mistress. You went with my mom when she graffitied my dad’s car.”
“You know about that?”
“My dad told Shane, who told me.”
I cover my face with my hands. “I didn’t think she’d really do that. I’m so sorry.”
Joe smiles, still holding my waist. “I don’t care. He kind of deserved that. I mean, he could have ended things not so…I know what my mom did during the marriage wasn’t right. And I’m not trying to pick sides. But my dad’s always been reasonable. Rational. I didn’t know he knew my mom had had affairs.”
“You knew too?”
He shrugs. “One of my first memories is being with Shane in the back of my mom’s car outside a motel.”
“Oh my god.” I softly caress his whiskers along his cheeks.
He shrugs again. “Shane was awesome. Best babysitter ever. But I remember him asking me not to tell Dad where we’d been. It would hurt Dad too much. Anyway, my dad didn’t have to have the affair too. He was always the thinker out of the two. And it sounds like I’m picking sides.” He shakes his head. “My whole point is you’ve seen my family at its worst and you still like me.” He takes my hands and places them on his chest. “I live in a serious tornado of crazy, Moira. I was just discharged. I’m used to being really respected and thought of as highly trained. But I’m a civilian now who has fuck-all for credentials. I don’t have a job yet—”
“You were discharged three seconds ago. You don’t need a job—”
“Thanks but try telling that to the part of me that’s screaming I’m a failure for not having a job already.”
“What part is that?” I lean closer to his shoulder. “Here?”
He smiles and something wicked passes through his gray gaze. “Shit, if this weren’t such a serious conversation, one I really want to have with you, I’d tell you it’s much lower. But we’re in a bathroom that smells like boiled urine.”
I wrinkle my nose. “You noticed too. How is it we both can guess what that could smell like?”
He kisses the tip of my nose. “We’re meant to be, baby. You’re so cute. I can’t stand how cute you are, you know that? I get discharged into the middle of my parents’ insane Real Housewives divorce and there you are, staring up at the stars. I hurried out of my mom’s party faster than I knew I could move, straight to you, looking up at the night sky. I meant to ask you if you were making a wish, but you seriously threw me off my game when I looked at your face.”
“You have a game?”
He winces. “I did. But I couldn’t play it with you.”
I bite my lip. “I like the games we play.”
One side of his lips curls up. “Fuck it. I’m going to tear off your panties and have you here.” He grabs at my hips, making me giggle.
I push at his chest, which easily stops him. “It smells…weird in here.”
“In the car, then?”
I nod. “But before—” I swallow, trying to summon courage to say what I know needs to be said. “My kids are coming home tonight.”
He nods and smiles.
I can’t look at him when I say, “I—I don’t know if meeting you…now…”
“Yeah, I totally get that.” He squeezes my hips. He’s smiling when I look up at him. “It’s fast. What we have is fast. But we’ll be slow with your kids. That’s what you want, right?”
I nod. “But—but I’m going to miss you.”
“I’ll just be a few houses away, at my mom’s. But…”
“But…?”
“I was thinking of moving in with Shane. He’s a lot less drama than my mom right now. However, he lives too far away from you.”
“But I want you to live where you’ll be happiest.” Although, I say the words, and I mean them too, I can’t help but feel that I want him close. Even closer than the few houses away he’d be at his mom’s.
That one-sided smile of his shows up again. “I’m happiest when I’m inside you.” He grimaces. “I mean, when I’m with you. This isn’t just about sex. Although, damn, that’s good.”
I sigh dreamily. “It really is, isn’t it?”
“I can’t believe I’m getting hard in this disgusting bathroom.”
I cup his erection, making him hiss and close his eyes. “In the car?”
He slowly no
ds as I stroke him up and down. But he stops my movements, looking at me with something far more serious in his gaze. “I—I want to keep seeing you, Moira. I want to figure it out so I can meet your kids. Eventually. When you’re ready for it. But I want to keep seeing you. This stuff with your mom…I want to—fuck, I want to hold you through it. And I haven’t even talked about the hailstorm that is me right now—not just my parents’ acting like idiots and I don’t have a job. I—I walk with ghosts every day. All the brothers I lost. I haven’t even come to terms with that. But through it all, I have to keep seeing you. Were you making a wish when I first saw you?”
I swallow and smile, slightly shaking my head. “You’re so much better than anything I could have ever imagined or wished for.”
“Fucking good answer.” Then he slams a kiss against my lips.
As we stumble to my car, kissing and chuckling, somewhere in there I say, “We’ll figure this out.” And I wonder if we somehow really will.
* * *
After an afternoon of leisurely making love to Joe—well, sometimes it was fast and hard too, I only get to spend a few minutes with Eva before I wait for my kids to arrive back from their father’s. Joe and I had said our goodbyes before I’d stepped foot into Eva’s house, and the last time we had sex felt like it truly might be the last. He’d kissed me with such sweet longing, his cock so deep inside me, and I wondered if I might cry.
I didn’t have long to chat with Eva, and Joe was somewhere in the house, distracting me senseless with thoughts of what we’d done all weekend. Eva looked good. Cheerful, even. And she shooed me out of her house when I told her my kids were on their way.
Or I thought they were. Like usual, Tony is late. I waited for that man in so many ways. What I find bitterly ironic is how he goes ape-shit when anyone else makes him wait.
An hour of sitting in my house, the TV on to keep me company, and I’m nearly insane with thoughts of how I fucked my best friend’s son, and how all weekend I hadn’t had a drink. Which is good. But Joe distracted me from the sticky need to have a wine in my hand. I have another meeting this Wednesday that I’m not prepared for. Last time, Eva watched my kids, but I know if I have her babysit again, she’ll want to know what I’m doing every Wednesday. And I’m not ready to admit anything.
Awake: Book 3 of the Wild Love Series Page 13