Page 4 of Room for Us

She avoids my eyes—her signature nervous tell. A recent theme around me. Everyone’s waiting for me to implode. Or explode. Whatever. No matter how much I tell them I’m okay, they don’t believe me. I don’t believe me, either, but that’s beside the point. Who has time to have a mental and emotional breakdown? Not me.

“Just say it, Mom,” I urge. Silently, I add, So I can get back to what I’m doing.

Permission granted, she lets loose. “I know you don’t want to hear this, but you need to. No matter how much you dust and clean, or update the decor and the reservation system, Rose House has been going under for a long time. Just a few months ago Barb mentioned to me she was thinking about selling it.”

“No. No way.” The vehemence in my voice surprises me, and my mother, whose brows shoot up her forehead. “We’re not selling,” I reiterate more calmly. “Aunt B left this place to me.”

It’s all I have.

My mom sighs. She knows how stubborn I am. But she’s stubborn, too.

“You’d be surprised how much these historic places go for. You could get out of Sun River. Go back to New York if you wanted to.”

I scrunch my nose. “Ew. Not a chance.”

I’ve been gone from the city a month and don’t miss it at all. Sure, I miss… things. But not the city itself. Everything was too loud. The people, the smells, the pigeons. The feelings.

Mom’s gaze bounces around the bathroom with its faded wallpaper and pedestal sink.

“I don’t want you to chain yourself to a sinking ship, Zo. I know things feel hopeless right now, but you have options.”

My eyelid twitches. “Do you hear that, Mom? That high-pitched whine? That’s the sound of me nearing my boiling point.”

She’s undaunted.

“Eventually you’re going to have to talk about everything that happened. Emotions need to be processed not repressed.”

“Thanks for the pep talk, Doc.”

My psychologist-mother winces at the thick sarcasm. “Fair enough. Let me put it to you this way—in your entire life, I’ve only been seriously worried about you twice. We both know when the first time was. Right now is the second.”

Just like that, my anger snuffs out. Tossing my rubber gloves into the bucket, I stand and face my tiny, formidable mother. I’m not as tall as my brother—thank Bigfoot—but I still tower over her.

“Let me have a year,” I say, desperation seeping into my voice. “One year to see if I can bring Rose House into the black. For Barb. Please.”

My voice cracks. I pull back on the feels, coughing and shaking my head like I have something stuck in my throat instead of lodged in my heart.

“Oh, sweetie,” murmurs my mom. “Of course you can have a year. Take as much time as you need. I didn’t mean to pressure you. I just… I feel helpless when you’re unhappy.”

“I know.”

If moms had their way, we’d all be floating around on pink clouds of bliss and farting bubbles our whole lives. But they can’t protect us from the real enemies.

Ourselves.

The choices we make. The mistakes. The lessons life force-feeds us over and over until we finally pull our heads out of our asses and walk a new path. If you’re lucky enough to find one.

I don’t know if I’m on a new path, yet. Most days I still wake up confused, not recognizing where I am, not understanding why my husband isn’t next to me. Consciousness is cruel that way. No gradual transition to reality… ohhh no. The blinders are ripped right off me every morning when I open my eyes and smell the roses. Literally. The master suite isn’t called the Rose Room for fun. It smells like roses.

One more thing on my to-do list: keep hunting for where Aunt B hid all the perfumed sashays. I’m starting to think they’re in the walls.

“Earth to Zoey,” sings my mom.

Blinking, I return to the present. “Just thinking.”

She takes a breath to speak.

“Yeah, yeah, I know,” I cut her off, rolling my eyes for good measure. “Be careful of sinkin’ in your stinkin’ thinking.”

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