At least I have you when I’m here. Please don’t leave me. Don’t fade from my memories. Hold on to me like I’ve held on to you. I guess I’m wrong. I do miss you. I miss you, and it aches. I don’t just miss the idea of you. I miss you.
“I haveto warn you about my mom.”
James chuckles from the driver’s seat, his focus on the long gravelly road leading up to my mom’s house. “I’ve met your mom, you know.”
“I know, but she’s gotten comfortable with you now. She can be a little overbearing if she knows you won’t say no to her. Plus, she’s at home,” I explain, “and she’s a little different in her own habitat. A little loose and…toocomfortable.”
“You say that like it’s a bad thing.” He pulls to a stop next to my stepdad’s pickup.
Their home is more secluded than Sylvia’s. Yards and yards of space from her house to her neighbors, allowing for plenty of privacy and space. Space she and my stepdad fill with morning walks and weekend afternoons spent tending their lawn. The same lawn now littered with garden gnomes and lanky stone frogs.
The doors to our car shut as the front door opens, and the sounds are all followed by urgent footsteps and a high-pitched squeal.
“You’re here!” my mom calls, her arms meeting me before the rest of her body. She pulls me into a suffocating embrace, and I stand there, rocking side to side in her death grip.
“Hi, Mom,” I mumble into her sleeve.
One last strangling squeeze and she lets me go. And then it’s James’s turn. Though his embrace is filled with equal verve, he gives little protest.
I offer my stepdad a quicker, more painless embrace, and they’re ushering us toward the door.
“James, this is Javier,” I say just as James is free from my mom’s grasp. He and my stepdad exchange pleasantries, and we stand there, sort of unsure of what to do next.
“I made pasta,” my mom announces, happily slapping a hand to her denim-covered thigh. “And we’re growing our own romaine lettuce, so I made a salad too.”
“With homegrown tomatoes,” my stepdad adds.
I glance at the small garden splayed along the side of the house. Various greens join a small vine of tomatoes held upright using wooden rods, all of it contained in a large in-ground planter box.
The pinch in my mom’s brows show more than just an offer for pasta and salad. They’re filled with concern and a level of hovering she knows she shouldn’t infringe on. But she can’t help it. Twelve-hundred miles away and all it’s done is form a layer of guilt and worry to cast over the both of us. Her, being the mom who’s always been an arm’s length away, and me, the daughter who used to tell her mother everything. Things have changed.
“Come on, come on,” she urges. “Let’s get inside.”
“How are the chickens?” I ask as we walk up the steps to the door.
My stepdad chuckles. “We thought we lost one of them, but turns out, she flitted off to the neighbor’s coop.”
“I guess they serve better pellets,” my mom jokes before adding, “But you have to try some of the eggs while you’re here. They taste amazing.”
“Have you two been thinking about getting some?” my stepdad asks.
“Um, we don’t really have the space for it,” I explain.
“Apartments in San Diego don’t really offer the best accommodations for fowl,” James adds as we walk through the house.
The living area is like a shrine to my childhood. Pictures from school recitals, awards for silly things like “Kindness” and one that actually says, “For always doing her best.” Framed and all. Even a plastic trophy from my soccer days without a single particle of dust like my mom polishes it daily.
“Are we lighting candles for a vigil after dinner, or…” James points at one of the many school pictures, this one in particular made especially ridiculous with crooked bangs and a gap tooth.
I pinch his side, and he winces. “She’s…proud.”
“Of course she is,” James placates. He scoops me into his arms and kisses my cheek. “How could she not?”
“I think I remember a specific baby blankie still folded in someone’s childhood drawer back home.” I tease back.
“Hey, I love that thing,” he defends.
“Of course you do,” I say with a puckered pout, patting my hand on his jawline. I see a flat, oval rock with the words “I love you” written in purple acrylic paint, and I think I’ve had about enough. “Mom, don’t you think these…awards can be thrown away now?” I ask. “I think you’ve had them long enough.”
