Simmons’ Sweating to the Oldies with a dash of Emeril’s trademark “Bam!”
I clicked my phone shut without finishing the sentence. If I’d known Nick’s voice mail password, I would have called back and deleted the message entirely.
Idiot .
I smacked myself in the head with the Motorola. But it didn’t feel any better.
I didn’t know what I wanted out of our relationship but it definitely wasn’t this limbo, this uncertainty. This pain.
I didn’t do pain well at all. I was my father’s daughter, after all, which meant I liked things fun and light, not deep andmeaningful. None of the straitjackets that came with commitment.
My mother had married my father hoping he’d loosen her up. If anything, marriage had made her tighter than a ball of twine. If I married Nick, would I end up the same way? Would he?
If Nick would just leave well enough alone…then we could stay the same. I didn’t want to mess with our recipe and sour the batter.
But that didn’t stop me from missing him like crazy and wishing he’d just answer the damned phone. I cursed again. I hated that I needed the reassurance of his voice. It meant I cared. That I was vulnerable.
That I could be hurt. And that was the one road I tried never to travel.
After a shower and a change of clothes, I realized I hadn’t heard from my mother, either. It was nearly nine and this was the second day in a row when she hadn’t been at my door, bright and early, ready to go. I packed up, loaded my bag in the van, then headed over to her door. “Ma? You ready?”
No response.
“Ma?”
Nothing more than some grunting and shuffling from Reginald. I knocked harder, calling her name louder. I paused, pressed my ear to her door. Reginald, making every noise a pig was capable of—and a few I didn’t know he could make—was scraping at the door now. Damn thing probably desperately seeking a shrub.
“Ma! Answer me.”
“Hilary?” She called my name so faintly, I almost didn’t hear it.
“Let me in.”
No response. Just Reginald and his oink-bark-scrape noises. Dread returned with his haunting grip, curling around me with familiarity, rooting me to the concrete stoop for one long, terrifying second. I thought of my father, of how I’d called to him and how he hadn’t answered with his voice, only with that terrible click, and then the explosion—
My mouth went dry, my hand still fisted against the door. Time ground to a halt, and it seemed even Reginald stopped moving.
“Help me, Hilary.” The words, faint, almost childlike, caught in a sob.
I threw myself against the door, but the cheap motel had scrimped on everything but the damned locks. Reginald let out a yelp, and I could hear his hooves as he scrambled backwards. Again, I slammed into the wood, but the door held, a steadfast pine soldier between me and my mother. My vision clouded, obscured by the memory of my father behind another door that wouldn’t open and me, too late, too slow.
“I’ll be back! I have to get a key! Don’t move. Don’t do anything!”
I hoped she knew what I meant. I could only pray she listened.
I spun so fast, my flip-flops flew off my feet, scattering onto the concrete like sparrows. I shot toward the motel office, blasting through the glass door, screaming on my way in for help, for somebody with a key and an ambulance, knowing without being told that whatever was behind that door—
Wasn’t good.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
We’d been sitting in a semi-private curtained area in theemergency room of what I was relieved to see was a large and bustling Indiana hospital for two hours, while the hospital staff tended to people who had more pressing needs.
As much as I wanted to grab the nursing staff and force them to help my mother, even I had to admit that a woman who had impaled herself on a kitchen knife—I didn’t ask how—was more of an emergency than my mother’s cut leg, which had been bleeding like a sieve until now. She’d
I clicked my phone shut without finishing the sentence. If I’d known Nick’s voice mail password, I would have called back and deleted the message entirely.
Idiot .
I smacked myself in the head with the Motorola. But it didn’t feel any better.
I didn’t know what I wanted out of our relationship but it definitely wasn’t this limbo, this uncertainty. This pain.
I didn’t do pain well at all. I was my father’s daughter, after all, which meant I liked things fun and light, not deep andmeaningful. None of the straitjackets that came with commitment.
My mother had married my father hoping he’d loosen her up. If anything, marriage had made her tighter than a ball of twine. If I married Nick, would I end up the same way? Would he?
If Nick would just leave well enough alone…then we could stay the same. I didn’t want to mess with our recipe and sour the batter.
But that didn’t stop me from missing him like crazy and wishing he’d just answer the damned phone. I cursed again. I hated that I needed the reassurance of his voice. It meant I cared. That I was vulnerable.
That I could be hurt. And that was the one road I tried never to travel.
After a shower and a change of clothes, I realized I hadn’t heard from my mother, either. It was nearly nine and this was the second day in a row when she hadn’t been at my door, bright and early, ready to go. I packed up, loaded my bag in the van, then headed over to her door. “Ma? You ready?”
No response.
“Ma?”
Nothing more than some grunting and shuffling from Reginald. I knocked harder, calling her name louder. I paused, pressed my ear to her door. Reginald, making every noise a pig was capable of—and a few I didn’t know he could make—was scraping at the door now. Damn thing probably desperately seeking a shrub.
“Ma! Answer me.”
“Hilary?” She called my name so faintly, I almost didn’t hear it.
“Let me in.”
No response. Just Reginald and his oink-bark-scrape noises. Dread returned with his haunting grip, curling around me with familiarity, rooting me to the concrete stoop for one long, terrifying second. I thought of my father, of how I’d called to him and how he hadn’t answered with his voice, only with that terrible click, and then the explosion—
My mouth went dry, my hand still fisted against the door. Time ground to a halt, and it seemed even Reginald stopped moving.
“Help me, Hilary.” The words, faint, almost childlike, caught in a sob.
I threw myself against the door, but the cheap motel had scrimped on everything but the damned locks. Reginald let out a yelp, and I could hear his hooves as he scrambled backwards. Again, I slammed into the wood, but the door held, a steadfast pine soldier between me and my mother. My vision clouded, obscured by the memory of my father behind another door that wouldn’t open and me, too late, too slow.
“I’ll be back! I have to get a key! Don’t move. Don’t do anything!”
I hoped she knew what I meant. I could only pray she listened.
I spun so fast, my flip-flops flew off my feet, scattering onto the concrete like sparrows. I shot toward the motel office, blasting through the glass door, screaming on my way in for help, for somebody with a key and an ambulance, knowing without being told that whatever was behind that door—
Wasn’t good.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
We’d been sitting in a semi-private curtained area in theemergency room of what I was relieved to see was a large and bustling Indiana hospital for two hours, while the hospital staff tended to people who had more pressing needs.
As much as I wanted to grab the nursing staff and force them to help my mother, even I had to admit that a woman who had impaled herself on a kitchen knife—I didn’t ask how—was more of an emergency than my mother’s cut leg, which had been bleeding like a sieve until now. She’d
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