Page 19 of Left of Forever

I pull into Mom’s driveway and let myself in through the front door, surprising a strange “Oh!” out of her, already walking toward me. What starts as a brilliant smile on her face falters into something less convincing.

“Wren, sweets. Hi,” she breathes, a hand flattening to her chest. She’s looking at me like I’m a potential home invader and not her adoring (only) daughter. “What are you doing here?”

“I wanted to see you?” I chuckle awkwardly. “Are you busy?”

Her entire face, so different from mine with her hazel eyes and ultrafair skin, scrunches apologetically. “Sorry, sweets. I sorta have plans.” She flaps her hands around. “Oh, but I have time for a super-quick visit, I suppose. Did you want something to drink?”

I look back at the door and then at her. She’s got a full face of makeup on and a gray sweater pulled off one shoulder behind her apron. “Are you expecting someone or something?” I ask.

She pauses in her fidgeting and knits her hands together at her front. “I am.”

O-kay? “Do you have book club?”

“I do not.”

“Another coven meeting?”

She makes an unflattering sound and rolls her eyes like a gum-popping thirteen-year-old. “That was not acoven, Wren Salem. It was a holistic gardening group, and we were brewing herbal remedies.”

“You were stirring a cauldron and chanting in unison while passing around an expertly rolled blunt.”

“It was a spring simmer pot! And—” Another scoff. “And you had to be there to get it.” She shrugs.

I blink patiently. “Are you going to make me keep guessing, Mom?”

Suddenly, she sways a little on her feet, and her arms lift and freeze at her sides. She stares off to the side at a spot on the ground.

“Mom?” I say, choking on a quick rise of panic. Her gaze lifts blankly to mine. “Mom?” I say again, reaching for her.

“Ah,shoot,” she abruptly groans, spinning away and marching for the kitchen. “My alarm went off to put dinner in the oven earlier and I got sidetracked. Now we won’t be eating until late.”

She flutters off, and I have to stand in place and collect myself, gulping back a few heaving breaths. She’s been in remission for more than two years, but her symptoms had started with things similar to that—random freezing, stumbling—things that would often preclude slurred speech. She’d complain about tingling and suddenly would go numb. She’d blink strangely and suddenly she couldn’t see or walk straight. She’d have days where she slept more than she was awake. We were referred and redirected in a million directions throughout the health care system, were put off timeand time again and had to fight for answers. The time in which her disease was a mystery was the only time I’ve ever seen her truly rattled, which in turn, rattled the hell out of me. She wassoscared. Andangrythat no one could figure anything out, which meant I’d open my eyes some days suffocating beneath my anger on her behalf, too. I was enraged that this woman, who had never needed anyone, who had always been alone and overworked, yet willingly spread all her love and energy wide, was being robbed of her own agency before my eyes. It took almost a year to obtain a diagnosis.

But, in her typical way, once Mom knew the problem and knew what she was fighting, she didn’t waste any time screaming up at the sky over it. She carried on and fought.

I can’t say the same for myself. Not now, and not then, either. My husband had pulled away from me at home. He’d begun needing and wanting so little of me over the last few years. Other than my son, the only person who actually needed me was fighting something I was helpless to fix, and I was fucking mad about all of it.

I manage to compose myself and find Mom in her kitchen now. She slips a whole chicken into the oven, trussed up and garnished with a variety of things.

“You’reroasting, huh?” I ask. Cooking and baking are more different than you’d think, and her joy for both are far from equal. “Who are you having over?”

Her chin lifts primly. “I have a… Well. I have a man friend.” She sighs.

This is the last thing I would have guessed, and I’m sure my expression conveys it.

“Oh, don’t look so scandalized,” she says, flicking a dish towel my way. “And make yourself scarce. He’ll be here soon.” She starts herding me back toward the door.

“Where did you meet this…suitorof yours, Mother?”

“At the gym in Gandon. His name is David. We’ve been seeing each other for a few months now, and I really like him and this will be his first time staying the night,” she says in a rush, patting me forward. “I met him when my friend Diane and I crushed him and his friend in pickleball.”

“When did you join a pickleball league?!”

“Like three months ago!” she whines. “Honey, I love you, butplease.”

“All right, all right! Don’t get your panties in a wad.” I cut her a look when she ushers me out the door. “If you’re even wearing any, you old hussy.”

She whips the dish towel at me and catches me with the corner before she shuts the door in my face.