AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Worry is a wasteful emotion,” she said. “This woman is threatening you, but it sounds like you’ve got a way out of it. If she’s stupid enough to say no to several million dollars, then you deal with that then. But it takes a certain kind of person to throw that kind of money away.”
Rebecca may not have been that kind of person, but Marty was.
“What if we’re dealing with that kind of person?”
“Then you figure it out when that happens. Life isn’t chess. You’re never only playing with two people and a limited number of pieces. You’ll never be able to predict exactly what’ll happen, so just go with the flow and hope for the best.”
It was amazing to see how calm she was about this.
“But what if—?”
She cut me off. “What if this or what if that? I don’t care. Tell me about this girl.”
“I don’t want to talk about that,” I said. “I’m worried about what’s going to happen.”
“I know. And I don’t want that worry to get in the way of you appreciating something wonderful.”
My mom’s heart was in the right place. I could see that. But I couldn’t just will the worry away. Besides, I wasn’t worried about losing my job. Or, rather, I was worried about that, but it wasn’t the main thing I was worried about. It wasn’t the reason I was there.
“I’m scared of turning into dad,” I told her.
“Good,” she said. “You should be.”
“What?” Why hadn’t she said that to me before? Was this something that was obvious to her before, and she’d never told me?
“Everybody should be afraid of turning into that man. He was awful.”
“I mean I don’t want to fail over and over again like he did,” I said. “I don’t want to fail at this job only to fail at something else.”
She shook her head. “Your father wasn’t a failure because he couldn’t keep a job. He couldn’t keep a job because he was a failure. At being a decent human being. If you’re worried about turning into your father, there’s an easy way to avoid it.”
“And what’s that?”
“Don’t be your father.” She said it like it was so simple and obvious. “Don’t be an absolute prick to everyone around you. Try to bring joy into the world instead of misery. Focus on the good in your life instead of the things that aren’t working. We only have so much time here, you know.” She patted her legs, atrophied from lack of use. “I never got the chance to run a marathon or hooked up with the cast of Magic Mike. Those are things I might have enjoyed, but I missed that opportunity.
Her voice took on an unexpectedly serious tone.
“Time ticks by and, at some point, you’ll run out of chances to do anything at all. Stop and smell the roses. Appreciate what life has to offer you. I promise you: one day, everything you think is so important right now will no longer matter. Even if you don’t do anything about it.”
She rolled her way towards the door, pressing a button on the wall, which automatically opened it. I thought I wanted to talk to her more, but I realized there was nothing more to say. My mom was right. She was always right.
“Come on,” she said, “It’s not as fun as the whole cast of Magic Mike, but let’s have a little fun and play some backgammon.”
I followed her out.
“Backgammon and gin,” I said.
* * *
After two games of backgammon and a full game of gin to 100 points, I headed back to the office. The time had flown by with my mom and, when I left her and returned to my car, I was surprised by how I had briefly forgotten about the worries that brought me there in the first place. The problems, of course, were right where I’d left them, and they would have been regardless of whether or not I’d been thinking about them. One might have thought that I hadn’t taken any steps forward in solving them, but I’d felt refreshed and energized to solve them in a way that I hadn’t before.
I turned the radio up on the way back to the office and hummed along with the tunes. By the time I’d returned, I was ready to handle the paperwork related to the house sale.
Everybody had already left, which would give me the peace and quiet I needed to work on it — aside from the occasional hum of a janitor’s vacuum cleaner —and, once I’d finished, I would be rid of Marty and Rebecca forever.
When I opened my office door, however, I learned that not everybody had left. Sloane was sitting there, playing a game on her phone, and waiting for me.
She immediately stood up and turned to me when I walked in.
