West of You by Christina Metcalf

Author:Christina Metcalf [Metcalf, Christina]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Ember Lane Books
Published: 2020-05-25T16:00:00+00:00

Call me once in a lifetime

My father used to tell his friends and parents of my friends stories about me. They started off as concerns but sounded more to me like complaints of a weary dad. He always waited until I was out of the room but I was never out of hearing distance from his booming voice in our small cape cod.

He told them that he disabled our doorbell because every time it rang I’d run to the door expecting my mom. If every time was around five times, I guess what he said could pass for the truth. It wasn’t because I wanted to see her. I just had a hard time believing she could stay away forever.

It seemed like obligation would turn her around like what happens in RomComs. They play a montage of both people after the breakup. It’s usually some awesome Van Morrison song and our hero and heroine are walking through parks by themselves soaking in the beauty surrounding them but feeling miserable. Then they see some tree or flower or little kid that reminds them of their beloved. Next they realize they can no longer spend a moment without that person. So they take off in some romantic gesture and pick up the whore in a limousine...well, you get the idea.

Until I was about 13 I was sure that my mom would run into a little girl with pigtails and freckles like mine and she’d feel compelled to go find her little girl. And she’d run up to our door and then hesitate before ringing the bell, unsure of what to do. And I would sense she had come back because the sun would suddenly be piercing the darkest depths of our house and the music would swell into a crescendo. And the birds would sing and the teapot on my little table in my room that I hadn’t been able to fit in since I was nine but didn’t have the heart to tell my dad I no longer wanted it would spring to life and follow me to the door. I would fling it open and she would take me into her arms and say all those things she had meant to but was saving up. And I would have my Annie moment and she would love me. Or she would remember how much she loved me.

And a limo would be waiting because in the time she had left us she had developed a trillion dollar doll company, no scratch that, fashion empire, and wanted me to be her one and only model because she had done it all for me, very Jay Gatsby style.

And she would look at my dad who would come to the door wondering why everyone was singing and the fawns and unicorns were on our lawn. And she’d remember how she had once loved him too.

And they would smile shyly and I would know at that moment that there would never be a Cash or a Mike or any man who I would cling to way past the expiration date of our relationship.

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