“He is pretty cute, huh?” It’s like she’s a teenager all over again.
“Well, sure. If you like salt and pepper hair, a chiseled face and a muscular body, I’d say so!” I raise an eyebrow as I take a sip of my coffee. Swatting my arm, Mom’s cheeks turn pink.
Over the next hour, we catch up on pretty much everything. It turns out that she’s been seeing Evan since the end of December. He’s never been married and doesn’t have any kids of his own, so both he and Mom were good with taking things slow to start. As she tells me about him, I can see her face light up. I seriously hope that things work out for them.
“So then do you see a future with him or are you still in the ‘taking it slow’ mode?” I ask cautiously. I don’t want to scare her from sharing.
She sighs and slumps in her chair a little. “Oh, I don’t know. It just seems like such a fuss to change how things are. He’s got his life and I’ve got mine. That’s good enough for me.” I can tell that her words belie her true feelings.
“But what if your life and his life came together somehow. Maybe it could be some kind of ‘our’ life.” I use air quotes around the word “our” and she laughs at my silliness.
Pulling her mug up to her lips, she mumbles against the rim of the glass, “Ehh, who knows? Maybe, someday.” Knowing all too well how it feels to be pushed into talking about something that you just do not want to talk about, I leave well enough alone.
I get up to pour us another cup of coffee. As I begin making some English muffins, I ask something that’s been on my mind since last night. “How old is he anyway? He seems kind of young to be retired already.” I push the button on the toaster and lean against the counter, waiting for her to answer.
“He retired early,” she says curtly, but sadly.
“Oh, how come?” I question as I walk the two steps to the refrigerator to put back the bag of muffins and get out the butter.
“9/11.” Her words come out at the same time that the toaster pops, but I sink into my seat rather than finish making our breakfast.
“Was he hurt?” I place my hand over hers as a sad look takes up residence on her face.
“Yes, but not how you’re thinking.” In true ‘mom’ fashion, she gets up from the table and finishes making me breakfast. Sliding our mugs back in front of us and sharing the plate with our English muffins, she tells me Evan’s story.
“He wasn’t even working that day, actually. He was out for a run that morning. You were only five at the time, so I’m sure you don’t remember, but it was a beautiful fall day.” She’s right. I don’t remember.
All I remember was being picked up from school early; I was in kindergarten. When I saw Mom walking down the hallway to me, I thought it was the best day ever. And it was in a lot of ways. We had ice cream for dinner and cuddled on the couch for hours. It seemed like she didn’t want to let me go. When I asked her to read me another bedtime story, after she had already read four of them, she didn’t argue. She just grabbed another princess book, held me on her lap and read to me until I fell asleep in her arms. Looking back on it, I now realize why those things occurred, but at the time, I just thought it was like getting an extra birthday or Christmas.
“Well, when he came home from his run, he saw the news and immediately left for work. By that point, all of the bridges and tunnels into Manhattan were closed for traffic, so he had to walk through the Lincoln Tunnel. By the time he got there, the buildings were already gone. So were thousands of people.” A stray tear streaks down her cheek, which she quickly wipes away.
“Evan spent the next few weeks at The Pile. That’s what the firemen and volunteers called it, even though the rest of us only knew it as Ground Zero.” Mom tucks a piece of hair behind her ear and takes a bite out of our now cold breakfast. “Sorting through all of that rubble damaged his lungs. Finding the remains of his co-workers, the people who were his only family, well, that took a toll on his soul, too.” Mom blinks back a few more tears, and with an emotion-filled, wobbly voice, she continues. “He was lucky enough to beat the lung cancer, but the stress of digging up body parts, that’s what he couldn’t handle. He eventually filed with the medical office and was cleared for early retirement.” Unable to hold in her emotion any longer, the sobs take over her small body. I immediately move to hold her, unable to contain my own sadness.
After we’ve both calmed, I hand her a napkin so that she can blow her nose. “You’ve both been through so much.” My words are barely a whisper, but I know she hears them.
“What do you mean? He’s been through more than anyone should ever have to go through,” she says as she wipes a final tear from her eye.
Taking a deep breath, I garner the courage to ask something that has plagued my thoughts since I was old enough to think them. “You lost Dad so long ago, though. And then all you had was me. Weren’t you sad all that time? Weren’t you always missing something?” Thick emotion chokes the last few words in my throat.
Mom wastes no time and pulls me into her arms. Brushing her fingers through my hair, she shushes me, but lets me cry until my eyes are dry. Pulling away from me, she looks into my eyes, which I’m sure are puffy and red from all the crying. “Of course I miss your father. I love him very much and he’ll always have a piece of my heart, but I don’t ever want you to think that my life wasn’t complete because it was just the two of us.” Pushing my curls behind my ear, she presses her lips to my forehead and smiles lovingly. “You are the best thing that has ever happened in my life. Being your mom has brought me so much joy and happiness that I can’t ever imagine doing anything more important with my life.” She kisses my forehead again as I wrap my arms around her and hug her with all my love.
We stay like that, comfortably wrapped in each other’s arms, for a few more minutes until the sadness evaporates. Breaking the embrace, I tell her that I love her. “And I love you more than you’ll ever know, Melanie.” It’s the look in her eyes as she says those words that mends another piece of my broken heart. Over the years, I really did feel like she was wasting her life on me. I felt like she deserved so much more happiness than the life we had together, like her life was on hold because of me.
It turns out that
What about now, though? With that though in my mind, I hit reverse on the conversation and loop back around to an earlier point.
“So don’t you think you deserve all of that happiness that you missed out on with Dad? I mean, Evan is pretty great from what I can tell. And I know that he makes you happy. Why waste all of this time saying things like ‘maybe someday’.” I use the air quotes again and she laughs, again. But then she sighs in a rather resigned fashion.
“What if he doesn’t feel the same way though?” Wait a damn second! Did my mom, the greatest woman ever made, actually just voice an insecurity?
“Mom,” I say the word with added emphasis just to make sure that she’s really listening to me. “I saw how he looked at you last night. Hell, he freaking made dinner for all of us and acted as if he’s always been a part of this crazy-ass family. And don’t think I didn’t see you two hold hands under the table.”
She opens her mouth to protest and I just waggle my finger in her face. “Oh, don’t even think of denying it. I saw you.” She moves her mug to her lips again knowing that anything she says will just be used against her anyway. “And I think he feels the same way about you that you do about him.”
“But what about you, Melanie,” she says hesitantly.
I hold my hands out to the side as I shrug my shoulders. “What about me, Mom? I’m good. I’ve got great roommates and a life of my own away at school. You don’t have to worry about me; I promise.” For added assurance, I make a crossing motion over my heart. Holding out my pinky to her, I say, “Pinky swear.”
“Okay, fine,” she laughs as she hooks her pinky around mine and we ‘shake’ on it. “So you’re going to go for it with Evan?” Giddiness accompanies my words as I bounce in my chair.
“Yeah, I’ll give it a shot,” she mumbles, but I can see the excitement in her eyes.
Mom stands to wash out her coffee mug and she asks, “Speaking of boyfriends, how’s Bryan? What’s going on with you two?” Yep, I’m that jerk of a daughter who doesn’t even keep her own mother up to date on what most would consider a fairly important piece of information.
“We broke up.” I opt for the “rip the Band-Aid off in one fell swoop” approach and hope she doesn’t prod too much. But this is my mom, after all.
Her face falls as she sinks back into her chair. “Oh no! What happened? When? Why didn’t you tell me? Are you okay?”
