Page 14 of Trustfall

She smiles, and there’s no hint of disappointment in her eyes. I breathe a sigh of relief as she stands and wraps me in a tight hug, like she’s trying to tether our souls together. “I missed you, baby boy.”

“I missed you too, Ma.”

I soak up her scent as we embrace. She smells like warmth—tea leaves and basil. When she lets me go, her gentle smile quickly turns into a more serious expression. She gives my shoulder a slap. “Don't ever stay away that long again,” she says firmly.

“Ow! I just saw you in New York a few months ago,” I protest.

“It’s not the same. Look, I know you have your issues with Dad, but this is your home. You can always come home. I need you to know that.”

“I know. I just—needed time.”

Then I ask the question I don’t want to ask but have to. “How is he?”

She smiles reflexively, but it’s not sincere. Not like the smile when I first walked up the steps. “He’s getting a little better every day. I had no idea he had stopped taking his meds. He was so good for so long. Other than that night…before you left, he had no outbursts. No episodes. I don’t get it.”

“None that you saw,” I mutter.

“I know you two butt heads, Luke. I’m not blind. But that night…” She trails off. “He was so angry. And then you left, and he seemed to be back to himself.”

“So it was my fault?” I can’t help the anger creeping up my chest.

“No! No. None of this is your fault. Don’t ever think that.” She stands on the tips of her toes and takes my cheek in her hand. “Your father has a mental illness. It’s not your fault or mine. But it’s also not his.”

“I find that hard to believe, considering he's the one who quit taking his meds.” I pull away from her grasp. I don't want to break my mother's heart, but I'm angry. “If a heart patient stops taking their meds and has a heart attack, isn't that their fault? Just because you're sick doesn't mean you get to neglect your own care.”

“I get that,” she says softly. “But refusing care ispartof the illness sometimes.”

“Yeah,” I say dismissively. “Just tell me what I need to do. I'm here for you. I meant what I said a few weeks ago. You've got your own business to worry about. I won't let you take this on too.”

When my mom first called me to tell me dad had relapsed and was in the psych ward, she said she’d take over his construction business until he got better. I immediately shut that shit down. No way in hell would I let my mom’s business suffer. Growing up, my mom had always worked—she was the lead accountant for a big company in North Carolina. My dad and grandma stayed home with me until I was old enough for preschool. I always wondered why my grandma had to be there. I loved her, and she made me fun lunches and let me watch cartoons in the afternoon, but my dad didn’t work. So why couldn’t he watch me? Then, when I was four, I found him sobbing in the bathroom one day, holding a razor blade against his wrist. He hadn’t done anything, but he had a look in his eyes I’ll never forget. It was haunted. He was shaking and repeating something over and over, like a chant, but I couldn’t make out what it was.

Then, a few days later, he snapped out of it as if nothing had ever happened. One morning, he woke up and announced we were going to the new train museum. As a kid, I was obsessed with trains, so I was super excited. Mom and Grandma had a miscommunication, and my grandma thought she had the day off work, so she didn't come to the house. It was just me and Dad. We had an amazing time, building tracks and playing with the boxcars. After a while, I started to get tired and hungry, but Dad said there was still so much more to see. After a while, I sat down on a bench to rest my feet. Dad said he wanted to check something out and would be right back.

He never came back.

I waited and waited.

The museum started clearing out, and I really had to pee, but I held it. Finally, I saw my mom rushing in. She held me so tight I thought I was going to piss my pants. When she released me, tears were glistening in her eyes. She carried me to the car in her arms like a newborn.

Never again, baby boy.

I realized later that my dad had simply forgotten about me. He got sidetracked by something, lost track of time, and then headed home for dinner. He was so caught up in his own thoughts that he completely forgot he had come with me.

That's when the doctors and hospitals started. Over the next few years, my dad went through a revolving door of therapists and psychiatrists, often being admitted to psychiatric in-patient programs. When I was eight, he finally got a definitive diagnosis of Bipolar Disorder. However, it took another few years to find the right combination of medications to keep his manic and depressive episodes under control. When my dad had been stable and steadily employed for a couple of years, Mom decided we needed a fresh start. There were too many bad memories in our old house. We had gone on a weekend trip to Connecticut to see the foliage that past fall, and my mom fell in love with the quaint little towns. It meant leaving my grandma behind, but Mom promised we would visit often. So we packed up and headed for Emberfield.

“Luke,” my mom calls from the kitchen, snapping me back to reality. I hadn't even noticed she'd gone inside. “Let me walk you through this week’s schedule. We've pushed back all the jobs from the past two weeks, so it'll be a bit chaotic, but most of my clients are morning appointments, which means I'll be free in the afternoons to lend a hand.” After years of working for others, my mom took the leap and started her own accounting firm when we first moved here. A year later, my dad launched his construction business. With years of experience under his belt, he felt mentally prepared to take on more responsibility. Starting two businesses in such a short span meant things were tight financially for a while, but we managed to make ends meet.

Then, about six months ago, Dad decided to stop taking his meds and started having manic episodes again. It got so bad that Mom decided he needed to be admitted, so here I am, giving up my carefree life bartending in New York to take over his business while he’s out of commission. Luckily, my dad has shown me some things over the years, and I’m pretty handy in general. I’ve been fixing and customizing my bike for the past three years since I bought it. Dad has a few employees who are competent, so I only need to oversee the job sites and manage estimates and customer relations. Mom takes care of the billing and financial side of the business.

Mom hands me a folder labeledJob Info. “Marco and Tim will meet you at the job site tomorrow morning at eight. They are retiling a bathroom. They may need an extra set of hands, but they will show you what to do. They’re our best guys.” Most home contractors have an area they specialize in, like painting or tiling, but my dad insisted on being full-service, so now I have to learn every aspect of updating a home.

Perfect.

I grab the folder and kiss her cheek. “I got this, Ma. I won’t let you down.”

“You never have, baby boy,” she says gently. “Hey, maybe you’ll get a girl out of all this. A lonely single mom falls for the broody, handsome handyman…” she narrates as if she’s reading the description for a Hallmark movie.

“Okay, first of all, I am not broody. I’m super fun and light-hearted. And secondly, you need to stop watching those ridiculous movies.”

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