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“You’re here?”
“I am, and I have egg rolls.”
“I do love egg rolls,” I said, a smile curling the corner of my lips despite my mood. Mom made a kissing noise before hanging up and I opened the door to find her loaded down with bags.
“Oh my god.” I laughed. “Did you bring the Knicks’ full roster, too?”
“I couldn’t decide, so I just got one of everything,” she said with an impish grin, her blue-green eyes twinkling. I’d been so jealous of those eyes as a kid, resentful that mine were brown—and as far as I was concerned, not at all twinkly—and didn’t have the same wide, round shape, thanks to my Japanese father. About the only thing physically Mom and I had in common was the dusting of freckles across our noses and cheeks.
Aside from that, we were a study in opposites. Her skin was light porcelain, while mine held an olive tone. Her hair, once honey and now more of a silvery blonde, was a wild mass of waves. Mine was inky black and stick straight no matter what I did.
She had always been larger than life, thriving at the center of everything, while I was more serious and preferred the sidelines. Even though she drove me crazy a lot of the time, I still loved her fiercely and couldn’t live without her.
As we unpacked the food over the coffee table, I could feel Mom’s energy coming off her in waves, butting against my surly shore.
“Out with it,” I ordered, because her silence had always been worse than her incessant chatter.
“DerrickandIgotmarriedyesterdayandI’msellingthehouse.” The words tumbled out in such a rush that at first I wasn’t sure what she’d said. Or maybe I was just hoping I heard wrong.
“You—you’re—”
“Married!” She waved her left hand and the diamond adorning her formerly bare ring finger. Derrick wasn’t fucking around.
“You’re married. You got married. To Derrick.” She always did this, met someone new and got swept away until her whole world revolved around him and theirlove. She was constantly chasing the high of it. Until that love inevitably dwindled down to nothing and she was left depressed, eating ice cream in front ofSteel MagnoliasandFried Green Tomatoes. Right before she decided she needed a fresh start and we moved, again.
“That’s right.” She audibly gulped. “And… because his place is bigger and closer to the city, we figured it made more sense to sell mine.”
“Ours,” I corrected.
“Chase,” she said, her voice wrapping around my name like a hug. I couldn’t process this. Mom was married. And she was selling the house, the only house I had lived in for more than two years. The house we could only afford because of Aunt Peggy. No discussion. No warning.
Was this the universe playing some kind of joke on me? I was trying so desperately to keep all the strands of my life in my hands and yet they were all slipping away anyway.
Despite my appetite fleeing the scene, I kept forcing food into my mouth well past the point of being uncomfortably full. It felt like the only thing I could do to not focus on Maureen’s voice in my head, and the spiral she was attempting to lead me down.Too much is changing.
And then there was the worry over Mom. Had she not gone through this enough? How long would it be before I had to pick up the pieces? Because I would pick up the pieces when Derrick was gone. I always picked up the pieces when they were gone.
Why did she do this to herself over and over?
Saturday traffic was a disaster.Mack and I had been in the car for too long already, on our way to his niece’s fourth birthday, stuck in a permanent loop of start-stop-start-stop.
“Okay, now’s your chance,” Mack said.
“My chance to what?”
“To tell me what’s up. Or are you just thinking about the kiss?” His eyes darted to me then back to the road as the car in front inched forward and I choked on my mouthful of water.
“Excuse me?” We were not talking about the kiss, and certainly not right now when we were stuck in a car together for almost two hours.
“Not thinking about the kiss then?”
I cleared my throat. “I thought we established that it didn’t happen.”
“We did, but the thing is, I don’t want to act like it didn’t happen.”
“Mack—”
“Relax, I know how you feel about it, I’m just saying …” He shook his head. “So come on, what’s up?”
