On Second Thought by C. Spencer

Author:C. Spencer [Spencer, C.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781635554168
Publisher: Bold Strokes Books
Published: 2020-01-19T16:00:00+00:00

* * *

My workweek is short and drags me into a less eventful weekend, given it happens to fall on Mother’s less than spectacular sixty-seventh birthday complete with two invitees: her and me. Because steel, I keep telling myself. That’s what I’m made of. So why after one brief overnight in her presence do I feel more like a crushed ball of foil in her fist?

She being my trusted, constant source of criticism.

And thus would explain this brief yet essential sanity break upstairs to call Andi in this sun-filled room complete with that so-not-me floral duvet on my twin-sized adolescent bed where not even a shadow on the wall has changed since the day I turned sixteen. Even that desk I left behind, that poster—now framed as if my youth was something to hold on to or cherish. And the exact same view outside my window.

“Just think of it this way,” Andi’s saying, ever so hopeful. “You might enjoy yourself this time.”

“You act as if I could ever let my guard down low enough,” I say, gazing down at this chemical lawn. “You’re so fortunate not to know her the way I do.”

“Take her out for lunch, have a few drinks, loosen her up.”

“She’s fourteen years sober,” I say. “And not an alcoholic. Seriously, how do you not remember that?”

“I remember that you both love Brooks Brothers.” And this is when it hits, that too much of Mother creeping up in me, my shopping for therapy, my reason enough for an occasional visit if only to remind myself how not to be. “Why didn’t you bring Rae?” she says.

“Because that would only make matters worse,” I say.

“So just a mother-daughter day?”

“Hold out,” I say, “she might be screaming.”

“Screaming?”

“Lord, make that crying,” I say. “I’ve got to go.”

“So full report when you’re home?” she says as I dash along the hall toward those sharp jarring echoes rising from the kitchen before taking a seat at my end of the island where Mother is bleary eyed, her trusty phone by her side.

“They’re bringing it?”

“No,” she says. “They hung up on me.” Quietly angered. “They told me to call back when I calm down.”

“Jesus Christ, it’s not a big deal,” I say. “It’s just the Sunday paper. Perhaps the carrier’s sick.”

“It’s called doing your goddamned job,” she says. “That’s what it is.” Then she’s making her way off in a silent huff, setting her mug at the sink, brewing the next pot. “She needs to be fired.”

So I check my phone.

Rae: Morning, beautiful.

For an instant mood lift.

Dodging from across the room that gaze now simmering on the national news as she orchestrates whatever it is she’s heating on the stove—Egg Beaters from a carton. And all the while, political pundits head off, reminding me of all the conversations we won’t be having today.

“Work?” I hear as I study her unrumpled PJ’s, the button-up style you’d see on some old man, only feminized in navy with pipe trim in white, fashionable as always with hair once blond now gray, in a style that’s never been long like mine.

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