To Hell With Your New Shit

The sun was just setting over Arizona as I turned onto Park Street, the tiny, quiet, cul-de-sac road on which I had grown up for most of my life. The headlights of my rusted pickup flashed along the houses before I turned into my parents’ driveway and cut the engine.

The first thing that caught my eye before I stepped down from the cab of my truck was her window, and the light that shone from it. It was a warm, familiar light, but one that I had not recently seen. As I slammed the door, my eyes glanced, as they so often did, to the second-story window for just a brief moment, before I averted my gaze. She had been standing there, illuminated by the soft glow of her lilac room, staring at me just as I gazed at her. I stuffed my hands into the front pockets of my jeans, hurried to the front porch, and yanked open the screen door.

“Ma, I’m here,” I’m called into the house, kicking off my flip-flops in the hallway before venturing into the kitchen. I found my mother bent over the oven, sticking a pie of some sort or another into the heat.

“Hi, dear,” she greeted me, moving around the counter to hug me and place a kiss on my forehead.

“Hey, Mom,” I replied, taking a seat at the kitchen table.

“Thank you so much for helping me out so often, John,” she spoke quietly, wringing her hands around a damp dishtowel. “It means so much to me, you know, that you can be here.”

“I know,” I said with a smile. “I don’t mind doing it for you. How’s Gram?” I asked, touching on the delicate subject. My mother sighed and placed the towel next to the sink.

“No better, but no worse, I suppose,” she muttered with a small shrug. She had been to the nursing home every day for the past two weeks or so, visiting with her own mother and keeping a watchful eye over her. She didn’t trust the doctors, it seemed.

“You really ought to rest, Ma,” I told her, running my hands wearily over my face and through my knotted hair. “You don’t have to do so much work here when you’re so busy with Gram all the time.”

“Don’t you worry about it, darling,” she said, patting me gently on the shoulder. “Are you getting taller?” She asked, with a desperate attempt to change the melancholy subject.

“I’m sitting down,” I pointed out. “How can you tell if I’ve gotten taller or not?”

“I don’t know,” she said, shaking her head. “You just seem bigger – ganglier, perhaps. Or maybe you’ve just gotten even thinner. Are you eating, John?” She bustled back to the refrigerator, opened the door, and began pulling out various ingredients.

“Of course I’m eating, Mom,” I told her with a sigh. “I’m not hungry, either. Don’t go cooking for me now or anything.”

“Nonsense,” she laughed. “You’re a growing boy, you’re always hungry!” I smiled as I watched her heap leftovers onto a plate and stick it into the microwave. She was ridiculous, this woman. “So I see Lindsay’s back,” she started, glancing at me with a grin. “Have you seen her yet?”

“Ah, no,” I muttered, scratching the back of my head, “I didn’t know she was back,” I lied. My mother nodded.

“I spoke to her parents this morning before the left to pick her up at the airport,” she explained. “Not sure why she’s back, you know. Why don’t you find out?”

“Yeah, I’ll be sure to do that,” I lied again. My mom looked at me with a worried look on her face.

“Are you all right, John? Have you been feeling sick?” She asked, coming towards me with her hand outstretched, only so she could lay the back of her hand on my forehead, checking for any signs of a fever or some incurable malady.

“I’m fine, Ma, I swear,” I insisted, swatting away her hand. “Would you quit worrying about me?”

“I’m your mother,” she said with her hands on her hips. “It’s my job to worry about you constantly. You’ll know what it’s like when you have children.” I rolled my eyes. This was the lecture I always got; it was the explanation for any absurd act of my parents. “You won’t understand until you’re a parent,” they would tell me, excusing their actions.

“All right, all right,” I told her. “We’ll see when that day comes.” It scared me a little when my parents talked like that. Me? Kids? That idea wasn’t on the horizon for the next few years, and they knew it.

“Well, if you insist…” she said softly, before starting a new topic once more. “Your father’s in the garage, working on that old car again, if you want to go say hi after you eat,” she added, placing a steaming plate of food in front of me.

“Yeah,” I said with a nod. I picked up the fork that she had given me, and stuck it into a pile of mashed potatoes, but didn’t attempt to eat them.

“Make sure you go next door and give Lindsay a proper homecoming, too!” She added. I stared blankly at my food. Your Lindsay, she had said. My Lindsay. As if I owned her. As if she belonged to me. As if I ever had the chance of making her mine.