Page 123 of Direct Action

“It’s time, Chloe,” she told me gently.

“I can help more.”

A flicker of remorse flashed in her eyes.

“Sweet tart, you already help too much. I should be the one getting a second job.”

Over my dead body would my sixty-year-old mother get a second job when she and my dad should’ve been planning their retirement.

“Absolutely not. I can move in—”

“Absolutely not,” she parroted. “I love you more than breath, cupcake, but you are not moving in with me. You’re thirty-five, you have a life to live. And by that I mean live, not work yourself to the bone to take care of me and your dad. And I have a feeling Ryan would agree with me.”

Cupcake.

Shot to the heart.

My mom called me sweet tart and had for as long as I could remember. My dad called me cupcake. Ditto on the memory part.

And she was right about Ryan. I didn’t officially live with him, but I hadn’t spent the night in my apartment since that last night he’d spent the night there with me.

“I don’t mind helping.”

A sad smile quirked up my mom’s lips. “I know you don’t. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to let this continue. You’ve done enough—too much. I’m selling the house and downsizing. The profit from the house won’t pay for your dad’s care forever, but with my cost of living substantially lower and the funds from the sale, I can pay for your father’s care by myself.”

I shook my head, not willing to give up the fight.

“Please listen, Mom.”

“I’ll always listen to whatever you have to say. But I’ll warn you now, you won’t change my mind.” My mom paused and leaned in closer. “It’s just a house. Selling it doesn’t mean we lose the memories. It doesn’t mean we lose the love that was created there. Those are ours, Chloe; we take them with us wherever we go. And somewhere locked away in your dad, he still has them with him. He no longer recognizes us, but I have to believe he can still feel our love. The love him and I share and the love he has for you.”

God, I wanted to believe that too. But it was getting harder and harder when I was on the receiving end of my dad’s blank stare.

I now introduced myself to my father—not as his daughter but as Chloe. I didn’t touch him lovingly. I didn’t hug him, unless on the rare occasion he offered one as a farewell.

Three times a week, the man who’d taught me everything worth knowing called me Chloe—not cupcake. I’d never again be that to him. But he was still and would always be my dad, it was just now I called him Hank.

Three times a week, I watched him shake my mom’s hand. She was no longer sweet lips (a nickname that had never failed to make me gag when I was a teenager, which meant he used it more often than not just to tease me). Now I’d give up everything I owned to see him swat her behind and call her sweet lips. To see him twirl her around the kitchen—she’d feign annoyance for being interrupted while cooking, but she’d do it with a huge smile. I’d sell my soul to the devil to buy back my father’s memory.

I was Chloe.

My mother was Andrea.

My father was Hank.

So, yeah, it was getting really hard to believe.

“And I say this with love,” she went on. “But you’re a slob. You were one as a teenager. You’re one now. If you moved home, we’d kill each other. I’d complain about the mess you leave in your wake, and you’d be sick of hearing about it within a week. And you know I’m a worrier. I’d constantly ask you where you were going and when you’d be home. And don’t get me started on that car of yours and how fast you drive.”

Ah, yes, some of the reasons why I’d been working myself to the bone. I loved and adored my mother, but she was a ballbuster and had an opinion about everything. I mean everything. And she was stubborn—case in point, she wasn’t going to budge about the house, no matter what I said. Not that I had a say—it was her house, even though that house held all my childhood memories.

I had to dig deep to remind myself this wasn’t about me. As hard as it was on me, it was a thousand times harder for her.

“Whatever you need to do, Mom,” I told her with what I hoped was conviction and not dejection. “Do you want me to go with you to look at new houses?”

I saw the tears gathering and her lips wobble before she expertly recovered. That was Andrea Baughman—at least it was the Andrea Baughman who no longer had her husband to lean on. There had been a time when my mother would’ve allowed her emotions to sweep her away, knowing she was safe to do so, because my dad would stand tall and strong and hold her while she wept. Now she sucked up every blow life punched her with.

I hated it. But I understood.