Good Neighbors by Joanne Serling

Author:Joanne Serling
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Published: 2018-02-06T05:00:00+00:00

A NEW BEGINNING

WINTER DRIZZLED OUT THE way it always did, with fits of warmth followed by long stretches of numbing and miserable cold. The weather always about to deliver a new season, then failing in its promise. My mother calling to inform me that she was sick of waiting out the cold Midwestern winter and had finally saved enough to go on a warm-weather vacation.

“Don’t tell your sister,” my mother warned me. “She’ll just be jealous of me!”

“Lucas made corn tamales,” I said, hoping to change the subject. Our monthly conversations lately limited to the weather and the boys. Both of us eager to pretend there wasn’t something vibrating between us. Penny’s struggles, our helplessness to make everything better.

“Your sister told me I’m the reason she stayed with Bob for so long. That she had no male role model!” my mother hissed, starting to cry. I closed my eyes and tried to think about what to say that was fair and wouldn’t cause trouble.

“You hate me,” my mother sobbed before I could come up with a suitable answer. As if there could ever be a suitable answer to such a murky and explosive accusation.

“I don’t hate you,” I pleaded, bending down to clean one of the cupboard doors, to wipe away the dried food remnants and smudges of grease that seemed to forever accumulate there. Wondering if you were supposed to use a special wood polish, wondering if my mother knew what it was.

“Then why won’t you say I was a good mother?” my mother demanded while I scrubbed.

“I have. You were!” I said. Wishing we didn’t have to talk about this. Aware that Penny’s unhappiness weighed on my mother more than she let on. Aware that it would weigh on me, too, if I were in her shoes.

“You blame me for the past!”

“I don’t blame you for the past,” I insisted, exasperation creeping into my voice. Wishing that I could tell her the truth. Deciding to try it and bracing myself for the worst. I walked outside where the boys couldn’t hear me and said, “I blame you for the present,” waiting for my mother to start screaming, aware that if she did, I would hang up on her. Not willing to console her any longer.

“What? That I wouldn’t help Penny with the bedding? Is that it? I should enable her the way you do?”

“I’m helping her with tuition!” I retorted, resisting the urge to pull my hair or dig my nails into my wrist. Determined to be different, as if standing beneath sky and trees on the lawn of my home could make it so. Aware that it could and that I planned to make it true.

“You want money from me?” my mother asked, starting to cry again.

“I want you to stop destroying yourself,” I said softly. Aware that I hadn’t been thinking this until the words were out of my mouth.

“Your sister is killing me!” my mother began to wail, crying uncontrollably now.

“Penny is a smart girl,” I said.

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