“I’m asking you.”
I place the book where it belongs and glance out the window again as the late-afternoon sun filters through the maple trees lining the sidewalk.
“He’s probably seeing other women if he still has a profile up.”
“Really?” I hear her munch on something on the other end of the phone. “I just thought, well, never mind…”
“Thought what?”
“That you’d be happy for me.”
Oh. Right. My mom is, and always has been, allergic to the truth.
“I think you deserve someone who loves you.”
“No man will ever love me. Not really. I’m too much.” Then, after a quiet sniffle, “I thought Phil would be it for me.”
As long as I can remember, there’s always been relationship drama with my mother. But I’m twenty-eight, and I’m tired of my only dating experiences being through my mom’s secondhand heartbreaks.
I’ve witnessed her crushed time and again, which is how I know that love stories like the ones I sell are just that—stories. Not that I’ll ever admit that. I don’t need angry romance readers mobbing the Salty Romantic. But I know better. Love always leaves.
I think I’ve honestly been happier since I gave up the idea of dating. Fewer complications. Can’t be let down. It’s safer when it’s only me.
“Mom, you’ll figure it out. But you deserve to be with someone who loves you for you. Not someone who lies to you.”
“He’s been so great. He always drops off breakfast at the office, he even…” She lowers her voice: “He does this thing where he texts me and tells me the dirtiest?—”
“Mom!” I clamp my eyes shut, wishing I could bleach my brain. “I only want you to be careful. I know you’re…” I stop myself. “Listen, Peyton and Riley need you. Riley called me to pick her up from her soccer game in Marblehead last week because you didn’t show up. You can’t check out on your daughters because some guy won’t come through for you.”
“Riley won’t schedule her driver’s test, and something came up. And Peyton is twenty now, older than when I had you. She can manage fine without me.”
I wince, thankful she can’t see me. My sisters do still need her. I do too. Not that that’s ever mattered.
The line goes quiet. I know there isn’t a connection issue, so I keep my ear to the phone and let the silence drag between us. I’m tired of always filling the spaces to make others comfortable.
Finally, after a long sigh, she says, “We already talked about this. I just forgot about Riley’s game.”
I don’t remember my dad. He left when I was two. My mom was only seventeen when she had me. For a while, I bounced between living with her and with my grandparents in New Hampshire. Then she met Phil when I was seven. The man emptied her bank account and slept around, but he gave her Peyton and Riley, so she still swears he’s the love of her life.
My mom never forgets things until there’s a reason. It’s always the first sign that she’s drinking again. Missed appointments or pickups turn into days when she won’t get out of bed. She can’t hold down a job—or won’t—and needs me to step in to help.
“I need you to promise me that everything is okay.” I open the box of blank canvas tote bags I need to screen print before Saturday. “I know it’s easier to worry about Peyton because of Luca now, especially since she broke up with Mike. But Riley’s seventeen, and she really needs her mom.”
Peyton and her son, Luca, who’s fifteen months old, recently moved back in with my mother. I’d like to say having her grandson closer was welcomed, but my mom only seems to concern herself with Peyton.
“Riley is fine. She’s got a good head on hershoulders. Besides, I’m not going anywhere.” Her voice cracks, and her rough Boston accent gobbles up her sentences. She’s pissed, and the yelling isn’t far off.
“I’m sorry, but I really need to go. Call me if you need anything.”
“I can always count on you, Izzy boo.”
“Love you, Mom.” I hang up, collapsing against the bookshelves.
That sinking feeling I hate twists low in my stomach as my pulse pounds in my ears. Worry isn’t an annoying pinprick for me; it’s a deluge. It sweeps in and washes away everything I work so hard to keep neat and tidy.
It’s not that I don’t love my mother, I do, but it feels more like I’m her mother sometimes. I grew up and took care of her and myself, and then my half sisters, Riley and Peyton, after my mother married Phil in my grandmother’s backyard within just six months of meeting him.
When I opened the Salty Romantic, I thought it meant I’d carve out a little life for me to experience, but my family always blurs those boundaries. And if I’m right, and my mom is drinking again, there will be no more boundaries soon. Her mess will be my mess.
