“I’ve got it from here,” she says, easing herself onto the toilet. “I’d like to keep a shred of dignity.”
“Too late,” I reply with a grimace.
If she hears me, she chooses to ignore me. “Go make the coffee. We have a lot of ground to cover on this trip down memory lane. Like the time Bart Sanders handcuffed me to?—”
“Can’t wait,” I mutter under my breath, closing the door behind me before she can finish. I trudge into the kitchen on autopilot to prepare the coffee. The clock on the wall lets me know it’s a little after 7 a.m.
I still haven’t called the kids to fill them in on what happened, and I was so tired when we got in that I didn’t even think about it. My phone catches my eye from the counter while I wait for the machine to brew, and I pick it up to dial Lindsey when I see I already have a voicemail from her.
“You still good in there?” I call out to my sister.
“Yep,” she shouts back. “Need another minute.”
I cradle the phone between my ear and my shoulder, pulling mugs from the cabinet as the message starts to play. I’m half listening until I hear the wordincident.
Within thirty seconds I’m in hysterics, and I practically carry Rose back to the couch, blubbering as I tell her what happened. I try Lindsey, Lucy, and Willow, to no avail, as I give Rose her coffee, a muffin, and her pain medicine.
“Lindsey, this is Mama, honey,” I say on my third voicemail two minutes later. “Please call me back. I’m worried.”
“What are you waiting for?” Rose asks, shooing me with her hand. “Go! Go check on her!”
“I can’t leave you here like this.”
She rolls her eyes. “You’re not fleeing the country. I’ll be fine.”
I nod and scramble back to the kitchen for my purse. “Don’t try to get up on your own. You have to promise me you won’t.”
“I won’t.”
“Rose, I mean it,” I say, pausing on my way out the door. “You cannot move.”
“Dammit, woman,” Rose snaps around a mouthful of muffin. “Will you just go already?”
“I’ll be right back.” The front door shuts behind me, and within seconds, I’m on the road.
“You know I appreciate this,but it really wasn’t necessary,” Lindsey insists as I help her up the stairs and into the room she grew up in with her bags and Catrick Swayze later that evening.
“Nonsense.” I place the cat carrier and a duffel bag on the floor. “This will be much better than staying on the sofa at Lucy and Willow’s. Especially with your fibromyalgia. You need somewhere comfortable to rest.”
She wheels her suitcase to a stop. “I can still stay at the inn or get a temporary rental. The insurance adjuster said they’d cover it.”
“It’s the holidays. Everything will be booked,” I say, though I don’t know that for certain. All I know is I want my daughter here. I want to take care of her. “It'll be like old times. We can make cocoa and watch movies and put up the tree together. You can keep me from strangling your aunt. It’ll be great.”
“Poor Aunt Rose. I still can’t believe she fell. You two have had a rough twenty-four hours.”
“So have you.”
“And you’re sure you don’t mind the cat being here?” she asks. “Lucy offered to keep himandJune Bug, but I think she’s going to have her hands full with that one and her own dogs. Ican take Catrick Swayze to work with me during the day if you’d rather.”
“I don’t mind at all,” I promise. “There’s no need to cart him back and forth. I’ve already cleared a place for his litter box in the laundry room. Hopefully he can get settled in here, and so can you. There are fresh sheets on the bed, and I put that old afghan of your grandmother’s that you used to love over the quilt because I know you get cold at night. Is the temperature okay in here? I can turn the heat up or I can bring you the electric blanket.”
“No, it’s perfect. Thank you, Mom.” She gives me a small smile. “It’s nice to be home.”
“Oh sweetie,” I say, pulling her into my arms, the corners of my eyes stinging. “It’s so good to have you here. And I owe you and everyone else an apology. I’m sorry for how I behaved on Thanksgiving. It’s been hard for me to think about doing things differently because the old ways connect me to your father and a lifetime of happy memories.” I pull back and smooth my hand over my daughter’s hair. “But when I got the voicemail from you this morning…it made me realize how silly I was being. What I’m trying to say is, I’m open to discussing it. I might not be ready to make the change this year, but Iamopen to making it.”
“I love you, Mom.”
“I love you, too.”
