A week and a half later and I’d stayed over at Justin’s every single night since the day we had waffles. Justin and the kids and I did everything together. I did driving hours with Alex, took Sarah to dance, folded laundry on the bed with Justin while we watched movies. I spent a full day and took care of his mom’s plants in the yard, something he was stressed about. On Saturday Justin and I cooked dinner together and set up an ice cream sundae bar for dessert. We walked the dog holding hands, and I lay in bed watching him work after the kids went to school.
I don’t think I realized how smart he was until I got to see him working. He was a lead engineer at a tech company. During his stand-up meetings with his team, it was like seeing a whole new side of him. And then he’d take off his headphones, log out, and climb into bed with me and be so soft and sweet and focused on me.
I liked taking care of him and his family. I liked bringing Chelsea to school on my day off to give Justin time to go for a run and then going to Starbucks and surprising him with his favorite coffee. I liked rubbing his shoulders while he sat at his computer and hearing Sarah tell me about her day. But mostly I loved being there when he woke up. Not having to wait for a text. Seeing him the second I opened my eyes.
I’d planted the rosebush in his front yard and I liked seeing that too.
The summer was slipping into fall now. I’d picked up some mums for the front porch and I was just getting the last one out of the van when the phone rang. It was Maria.
I thought for a second she had maybe butt-dialed me? Or maybe a package had shown up at the house. I swiped open the call. “Maria—”
“Your mother has lost her mind! You have fifteen minutes to get here before I call the police!”
I froze. “What… what did she do?”
“She’s throwing clothes on the lawn! The whole backyard is covered, I’m not cleaning this up!” She yelled something in Spanish. “She sleeps for days, then she’s awake for a week straight, painting and painting her stupid wall all night long with the music blasting and she’s leaving the front door open and the whole house is full of dead bugs. Now this—I am done. You come get her or I call the cops.”
She disconnected.
Justin was in a meeting. I didn’t want to interrupt him and I didn’t have time. I just grabbed the keys, ran to the garage, and went and called Maddy on the way. When I got there, I threw the van in park and bolted around to the backyard to Maria just in time to see Mom chuck another armload over the railing.
I gaped at her. “MOM!”
She ignored me and went back in. A moment later she came out with more clothes.
“Mom, stop!”
Maria looked at me, exasperated. “I’ve had enough. I’m not a pinche babysitter. You deal with this, I’m leaving.” She stormed off and I ran up the deck to the French doors in the kitchen. By the time I got upstairs, Mom had managed to toss most of Neil’s clothes outside.
She was stalking back to his closet and I grabbed her wrist. “Mom!
STOP!”
She yanked her arm free, spun, and crumpled into a sobbing heap on the floor.
I looked around, trying to catch my breath. The room was absolutely destroyed. Like a tornado had hit it.
There was a trail of men’s clothes from the walk-in closet to the sliding glass door. Belts, shoes, ties, suits. A purple wet spot dripped down the wall with a shattered wineglass under it on the hardwood floor.
I looked back at my mother, heaving into her hands. She was in a stained white robe. Her hair was matted in the back like a messy bird’s nest.
My stomach sank.
I hadn’t seen her in weeks. She’d made zero effort to see me and I was
so busy with Justin I decided not to care. But now I realized my mistake. “Mom? What happened?” I said. “Tell me.”
She was hiccupping and gasping. “He’s kicking me out.” I blinked at her. “What? Why? What did he say?”
“He said it might be better if we take a little break,” she said, putting her fingers in quotes.
“Did you guys have a fight?” “He accused me of stealing.”
I pulled my face back. “He accused you of stealing?”
“I guess some watches are gone and some cuff links. It’s that maid. I know it. She hates me and they’re always taking things.”
I blew a breath through my nose.
I did not for one second think Maria took something.
“Mom…” I said, carefully. “Did you?” The question was tentative. But I had to ask it.
She glared at me. “What the fuck is that supposed to mean, Emma? You think I took it. Why would I take it?”
“It’s just—”
“Are you kidding me? You know what? If you’re here to talk to me about shit that happened twenty years ago, you can just go. Seriously. Go.”
“Mom… you do take things. I’m sorry, but you have.”
She pressed her lips together. “What the hell does he care? He has more money than he can spend. He can buy more.”
I squeezed my eyes shut. And there it was.
“Why do you always do stuff like this?” I whispered. “Like what?”
“Ruin things when they’re good.”
Memories pinged off me like little jagged barbs. This exact same situation, over and over when I was a kid. She’d have these eruptions, every time things were happy or we were somewhere stable. It was like she hated the calm and I didn’t know why. Why did she always need this? This chaos?
Her chin started to tremble and the indignant expression dropped off, and she became the sobbing little girl again.
I didn’t know what she was. But she was not okay.
I put a hand to my forehead and looked despondently around the room at
the evidence of her decline. Empty wine bottles and glasses, garbage on the dresser, burned-out candles on the nightstand. There was no way Neil was sleeping in here. If I had to guess, he was sleeping in a guest room when he was home and he had been for a while. He’d never said a word of it to me at work. He was just trying to deal with it.
Guilt overcame me.
I hadn’t been here. If I had, I would have seen she was struggling again.
I could have gotten ahead of it. I could have saved him the grief. “Mom, what time does Neil get home?” I asked.
“Who knows,” she sniffed. “He can tell me ten and it ends up being two,” she said, wiping her cheek with her sleeve. “He wants me committed, did you know that? He told me he’d pay for an inpatient program. It’s either that or I leave. He thinks I need help.”
“And you said no? You do need help!” “I’m not crazy, Emma!”
“Well you’re not okay either!” I snapped. “Look at this! Look what you did! We need to clean this up. You know that, right? We can’t let him walk into this.”
“Fuck him.”
“Mom! What do you want? You want the cops to drag you out of here? You’re stealing from him, and this is destruction of property. This isn’t your house!”
She collapsed again into a heap and wailed.
I stared at her, feeling completely overwhelmed. Maddy was right, I should have warned him.
I didn’t know what to do.
Where would I take her if he kicked her out? She was back in one of her episodes, I couldn’t leave her alone. She couldn’t stay with me and Maddy. They wouldn’t admit her at a hospital unless she was a danger to herself, which she’d never own up to, she turned down Neil’s offer of help. So what? What do I do?
I get her off the floor.
I was an adult now, not an eight-year-old kid. If I could do this then, I could do it now. Just… get her off the floor. De-escalate her so she cooperates and stops making it worse.
“Mom,” I said, trying to keep my voice steady. “Let’s just take a warm
bath. Get you out of these clothes. I’ll make you some tea, okay?”
I ran the water and managed to put her in the tub. Lit one of her candles, then went downstairs to make her something to drink.
Maria was right about the house.
For all the long nights Maria said she’d worked on it, the rose wall wasn’t even half done. It looked like Mom had painted over it and started again and the restart was sloppy. The herbs Mom had brought home all those weeks ago from the farmers’ market were crispy on the windowsill. The house was full of decaying flowers. Vase after vase.
While I waited for the kettle to heat up, I wandered around collecting them. I dumped the water and tossed the wilted bouquets. Threw away the brittle herbs. Then I finished making her tea and brought it upstairs.
By the time I’d gotten back to the bathroom, Mom was calm, but she still looked awful. Her eyes were hollow. She was puffy, the way she got when she was drinking too much. But worst of all, the smell of her perfume was gone. There was nothing but the scent of rotting blossoms and stagnant water still in my nostrils and the smell of the candles she used to hide it all.
I set her mug on the tray over the tub and I leaned on the sink. “Mom?” She stared glassy-eyed into the bathroom.
“Mom, have you still been seeing your therapist?” She didn’t answer.
“When’s the last time you had a session?” I asked.
“Yesterday,” she said finally. “Venus is in retrograde. I’m supposed to practice self-care. Opal should help.”
“Okay.” I nodded. “But what did your therapist say?” “That is what my therapist said.”
I stilled. “Why would your therapist talk to you about retrograde?” I asked carefully.
“What else would she talk to me about?”
My stomach bottomed out. No… “Mom, you said you had a therapist. A real one. You said—”
“She’s a spiritual advisor, and she’s helped me more than any doctor I’ve ever seen.”
I stared at her. I didn’t even know what to say. Nothing was different.
It was all the same circle again and again. Maddy was right. Maddy was
always right.
I felt sick. My breathing started to get shallow.
I had to leave before I had a panic attack. I got up and walked out of the bathroom without another word.
I felt like the house was spinning. I could barely make it down the stairs. I knew what would happen now. The same things that always did: Mom, leaving in a blaze of glory. The police escorting her out if she wouldn’t go, her making a scene, or them coming later to take a report of all the things
missing when she slips out in the night.
Or maybe she’d just stop getting out of bed altogether and then Neil would call me to ask what he should do. I’d get her up and take her to the hospital with opals in her pockets and then three days later she’d check herself out against doctor’s orders and vanish again.
I was devastated.
The inevitable hadn’t happened yet, but it would. It had already started.
I felt defeated and stupid, and horrible for Neil, whose clothes were on the lawn and cuff links and watches were missing because I hadn’t told him what Maddy said I should have told him from the very beginning.
And I couldn’t even cry about it. I didn’t have time. Because I would not let Neil come home to this mess, when it was all my fault for hoping and believing her when she said she was better. It was my fault she was even here.
I felt myself start to get small, the edges pulling in. The humiliation and disappointment making me want to isolate and disappear. I already knew I wouldn’t go to Justin’s tonight. I wouldn’t want to see anyone, wouldn’t want to socialize or be around the kids. It would be hard enough to see Maddy.
I grabbed a laundry basket and made my way outside, trying not to cry.
When I got to the lawn, Maddy was there. She was bagging up the clothes into trash bags.
“Hey,” she said, grimacing at a pair of Neil’s underwear that she’d picked up by the corner. “I didn’t take him for a Hanes guy.”
I was so relieved to see her, I almost broke down right then and there. “You don’t have to do this,” I said.
“I know. I’m gonna anyway.” She shoved the underwear into the bag. My chin quivered.
She didn’t want to help Amber. She didn’t care what became of my mother. But Maddy knew I’d be the one cleaning up the mess because Neil would be the one injured if I didn’t, and that would weigh on me more than any of it. So she came.
Maddy watched me look over the heaps of clothing, despair swallowing me.
“I wish I could not care,” I whispered.
Maddy saw my face and dropped the bag and closed the distance between us and hugged me.
My best friend was a docking station. Same as Justin. And I cried right into her hair.
When I got it together enough to pull away from her, she put her hands on my shoulders. “I want you to know that your empathy is beautiful, Emma. I hope you never lose that. I do hope that one day you get some boundaries though.”
I laughed a little but she didn’t smile.
“You cannot keep caring about her more than you care about yourself.” When I didn’t answer, she took a deep breath and let me go.
“Come on,” she said, picking up the bag. “Let’s get Neil’s shit off the grass.”
