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A dull pain thuds behind my forehead. I stop scrolling and call Ma. Rita Towles always manages to lift my spirits, even when they’re in the dumpster.
“Sugar plum!” she yelps in delight. “Your daddy and I were just talking about you. He’s right here beside me. Were your ears burnin’? He asked if I remembered the time you tried to walk in my heels when you were a kid and broke your ankle. ’Course I remember. I was the one to drive you all the way to the hospital while you were screamin’ to the high heavens.”
I still have a little scar on my ankle to show for that.
“It was a lesson well learned. Never wore heels again,” I say with a wistful smile.
“Other than on your wedding day,” she reminds me. My mood wilts again. All roads always lead to Paul.
“They were platforms, not heels, Ma. And I only wore them for the membership.”
Paul and I had married in my local church in Mulberry Creek. We buried a bottle of bourbon upside down at the wedding venue and danced into the night, barefoot. When he whisked me off to my dreamhoneymoon in Thailand, I got on the plane in pj’s he’d packed and bought for me ahead of time, my feet still muddy from the wedding. He rubbed them in his lap until I fell asleep on the long flight. It was just another way Paul was amazing. Considerate and always thoughtful.
Other than the times he wasn’t.
“Lizzy’s coming over for dinner tonight. And you know Georgie’s always here. So I’m making peach cobbler,” she says about my sisters.
“Darn. I wish I could be there.”
“Oh, but you can! Just hop on a plane and come see us.”
“About that ...” I trail off. “I’ve news of my own.”
“What is it, sugar plum?”
I gather oxygen in the pit of my lungs, preparing for my announcement. “I got a job! A new role. I’m going to be Nina fromThe Seagull.”
The line goes quiet. For a second, I think maybe I lost reception.
Dad is the first to recover. “That so? Broadway and all?”
I wince. “Not exactly Broadway. But it’s an established theater in Manhattan.”
“How long’s this gig gonna run for?” he continues.
“One year.”
“How nice.” Ma clears her throat, disappointment coating her voice. “This is ... I mean, it’s what you wanted. I’m happy for you.”
I can see my Hell’s Kitchen brownstone from the corner of my eye. My feet feel like lead. I know I saddened my parents, who thought I was warming up to the idea of going back home. There’s still a part of me that wants to go home too. It’s not small either. But this role is important for so many reasons. One of them I can’t even utter aloud.
“Please, now. You’re making me blush with all your excitement,” I murmur, but there is no real bite in my voice. As much as it pains me to admit, I understand them. They want to nurture me, help get me back on my feet. Keep an eye on me while I’m close by.
“I just don’t think it’s a good idea that you’re all alone out there,” Ma says with a heavy sigh. “Maybe I should come? Just for a coupleweeks? Make you that peach cobbler? I won’t stand in your way at all. Don’t worry. This old lady can find entertainment all on her own.”
“Don’t, Ma,” I beg, panic taking over me. “I’m okay. I promise.”
Our apartment—I guess it ismyapartment now—is a modern two bedroom. With an open kitchen, eastern view of the Manhattan skyline, and what Realtors like to call character. I love everything about it. The quilted leather stools by the black granite island in the kitchen, the art pieces Paul and I collected from small flea markets on our honeymoon, and most of all, the way the place is still soaked with his presence. Swollen with the promise and expectation he will be back any moment now.
That he’d push the door open with his daytime-show-host smile and announce,Honey, I’m hooooome!
Sweep me off my feet, kiss me hard, and ask me how his favorite girl is doing.
His running shoes are still by the door. His toothbrush is tucked in a cup by our Jack-and-Jill sink, the bristles bent out of shape like a ripe dandelion. Paul scrubbed his teeth to the point of bleeding.
It gives me strange comfort that his yogurts are still in the fridge, arranged by now-expired dates, though I know they shouldn’t be. That his spare contact lenses are still perched by the faucet of his sink, waiting expectantly to be put on.
It’s why I don’t want my parents to pay me a visit. I’m not supposed to keep these things. The everyday oddments he won’t be using anymore. His orange-bottled prescription pills, the reading glasses on his nightstand, complete with the open newspaper he’d been reading, the article he never finished glaring back at me. “Mining the Bottom of the Sea.”
