Butterflies—fucking pterodactyls—in my stomach.
Max:What if I was using the word “professional” in a very semi-loose manner?
Ash:Were you?
Max:There’s a strong possibility I was . . .
Max:So with that in mind, should I still bring the cheese?
There was another long pause on the phone and I waited in anticipation for her reply.
Ash:Depends on what cheese you’re talking about?
Max:Only the best kind.
Ash:Then there’s also a strong semi-possibility I won’t say no . . .
Max:Those are a lot of possibilities. And semis.
Ash:With a lot of possible outcomes.
Max:Indeed there are. I’m now very excited to see you.
I nearly typed “again”—thank God I didn’t. There was another long pause on the phone. I was smiling, my face awash with color, and even though I couldn’t see her, I could sense she probably looked exactly like I did now.
Ash:Me too.
Max:See you very soon, Ash.
Ash:See you soon, Max.
I put my phone down and stress-paced my room a few times. I was seeing her soon. I looked down at my watch, in twenty-three hours, soon. I had twenty-three hours to figure out exactly what I was going to say to her and how. I had a feeling, though, that no matter how it was said or explained, she would still be very pissed off.
A knock on the door made me turn.
“Mr. McAdamson,” the nurse called. They still called me by my old surname.
“Coming.” I walked over to my door and opened it. “What is it, Thuli?”
“I thought you’d want to know that your mom asked to go and see her animals.”
I nodded. “Thanks, I’ll be there soon.”
I quickly changed into a pair of sneakers I didn’t mind getting dirty. Taking my mom outside to see the animals was one of the few things we could still do together, and one of the only mother–son activities that actually made me happy. Because my main emotion when I was around her was sadness. When I’d moved back here, I’d chosen Noordhoek for its peaceful tranquility and country feeling. The properties and houses here were all huge, huge enough that I could have my mom stay with me, as well as around-the-clock nursing and care staff for her. I’d tailormade a wing of my house for her specifically. She had a sensory room, something that has yielded a lot of results in dementia patients. I’d also put together a small home gym for her to use with her physiotherapist to keep her muscles from deteriorating further. I’d tried to create a perfect little world for her here that she could enjoy for as long as she had left, and that included the animals.
When I’d brought her here for the first time, in one of her rare lucid moments, she’d looked at the huge garden and told me it reminded her of the family farm she’d grown up on. I’d made a joke about, “Well, it can’t be a farm without any animals,” to which she’d replied that she would love animals. When I’d asked what animals she’d wanted, I’d almost fallen over when she’d said llamas. She’d always wanted a llama, ever since she was a little girl and had seen their picture in a book. And so I’d fucking bought a llama! A llama! Of all the things she could have said.
She’d also asked for chickens and a parrot. The chickens had been easy. Everyone in this area had chickens and so I’d asked my neighbor if he had any he wouldn’t mind parting with. The parrot I’d gotten from Parrot Rescue; I thought it was the right thing to do. The woman there had warned me that since the parrot had not been particularly well cared for, it would probably not be able to talk, and probably not be as social as one that had been hand reared. Oh, how wrong she was . . .
I walked out of my room and down the main staircase to the bottom level. This area was luckily very big, and my mom’s section was at the furthest end of the house. I needed some space between my bedroom and her wing. Sometimes I would have guests over, and sometimes they’d get loud. I opened the door to her area and heard the very familiar, “Fuck you!”
“Shhhh!” My mom scolded the bird, who as it turned out was anything but quiet and unsocial.
“Who’s a naughty girl?” the bird squawked at my mother and then ran across the series of perches until he was right next to my mother, who he was very fond of.
“Sexy girl, sexy girl, sexy girl!” the bird said as my mom ran a hand over his head.
Out of all the parrots in the world, we’d landed up with a potty-mouthed pervert parrot.
