Mom cleared her throat and tapped her pale pink nails against the steering wheel as she slammed on her brakes to avoid rear-ending a slow-driving car in front of us. “Dad and I are building a small house on our property for your grandmother to live in.”
I bent the navy paint chip in half. “What did you say?”
Mom nodded and turned right, nearly taking out the biker who was minding his own business in his lane.
“No.”
Mom grimaced. “I know. But she’s getting slower in her old age. We’re worried about her.”
“Slower? You mean she used to do more?” I shuddered to think of it. That woman was a menace. She’d left me a voicemail yesterday that she’d found four likely candidates as new employees. It didn’t matter that I didn’t want them.
“She is my mother,” she admonished. “She needs me. I want to take care of her.”
“But do you? What about Uncle Jim? Isn’t it his turn to pitch in?”
“If it were up to Uncle Jim, she’d be in a nursing home.”
“Yes, exactly.” I nodded, not sure what was wrong with Uncle Jim’s plan. Grandma made it her life goal to terrorize us.
“Imagine locking her away in a nursing home.”
I spent a minute fantasizing about just such an occasion…a grin threatening to burst forth.
“Now think about all those poor people stuck there with her,” Mom prompted.
I made a face. “You’re right. That wouldn’t be fair. Those poor people didn’t do anything to deserve her.”
Mom parked the car in front of the lighting store. “And that is why we feel it’s necessary to build a small house for her. Plus, I think you’re being unfair to her. She loves us all in her own way. She’s just not very good at showing affection the regular way. Which is why I want a little cottage close by where I can keep an eye on her.”
“Why not move her into one of the guest bedrooms?”
“Because I’m not an idiot. I want two sturdy deadbolts between me and that woman.”
We laughed as we walked into the store together.
It didn’t take us long to place our orders with the promise that the items would be delivered within the week. Yeah, not if they were relying on my mailman to deliver them…
We made our way to the shopping center where I then pulled out my handy little gift card and proceeded to pile my cart high. Full of things I didn’t need, but that I wanted. Things like another plush robe.
Mom convinced me to put back the adorable dog bed.
“You don’t have a dog,” she reminded me. “You’re scared of them.”
“But I could get over that fear. I could have a dog,” I argued. I could just picture a well-behaved golden retriever laying in the bed next to my gas fireplace. Then I pictured it biting my face like that dog at the park that gave me that scar on my eyebrow when I was little. My fists clenched around the dog bed.
Mom gently tugged the dog bed from me and set it back on the shelf. “Do you want to talk about it?”
“I’d have to research what type of dog bed would be best before I talk about it. I’m not even sure what I would need to have to own a dog.” A dog bed. Padded football gear and a helmet to protect me from sharp teeth.
She raised both eyebrows at me. “You know that isn’t what I meant.”
Yes, I did know that. I’d texted her the next morning after I broke up with Fletcher. I’d needed her virtual GIF hug at that moment. I grasped the cart and enthusiastically pushed our way out of the pet section and straight for the electronics section.
I picked up a new phone car charger, since Fletcher had stolen my other one to charge that pesky work phone of his.
My mother’s eyes were like Superman eyes, boring into me, forcing me to speak. “I guess there’s not much to say, really. We just didn’t work out.”
“Why?”
“Don’t you think you’re being a little nosy?”
“Did you forget that you’re talking to your mom?”
I grinned at that. “No, I could never forget that.”
I tossed an extra-long charger cable into the cart. “Honestly, Mom, it really hurt to break up with him. It was like he literally checked out of the relationship. I couldn’t do it anymore.”
“What do you mean by checked out?”
“Work became more important to him.”
“Didn’t you say he was starting up his own company?”
“Yes,” I conceded. “But I don’t want to compete with a bunch of computers, or whatever it is he does. How hard is it to fix computers for a living? Or install security systems? But it seems like that’s all he has time for. And I don’t feel included in his work. I try to show interest, but he only gives me vague answers like he doesn’t have time to explain it to me.”
“I don’t blame you, dear. I’m just trying to understand when it was that you realized that you didn’t want to stay with him.”
Thinking back, there were so many points I could bring up to tell her about, but ultimately, the final decision was made when he’d talked to that creepy man about me. When he didn’t claim me as something special. “You know, I realized he didn’t care for me the way I needed him too. He wasn’t invested in us. I’ve been listening to this podcast, and it has some really great advice—”
Mom groaned. She hated when I relayed my podcast advice to her. I think it was because she’d never figured out how to listen to podcasts or saw the fascination with them. “Anyway, it was a great reminder that I don’t need to settle.”
“And what was their advice?”
“That if they aren’t focused on you one-hundred percent then they’re
