Page 28 of The Good Guy on My Porch

“It’s not too late to come with us,” she said. “We’d love to have you.”

She was so kind and such a true friend that she’d invited me on her family vacation. I actually wished I could go with them. “You’re the best friend in the world.” I wrapped my arms around her in a tight hug. “Thank you, but I can’t get the time away from work.”

She stepped out of my hug, her eyes narrowed. “You never take time off, you must have years of vacation saved up.”

“We’re short-staffed this week,” I said, hoping she never fact-checked me. “You go. Have a blast.” I looked to the kids for escape. “Say hi to Mickey for me. And come visit Buddy when you get back. He’ll miss you while you’re gone.”

“We’ll miss him, too,” Jenny said.

“He’s a cool dog,” Simon said.

I hugged them both. The kids started bickering as soon as I closed the front door behind them. Poor Carrie.

***

“What took so long?” My mother asked from her seat on the couch, her legs curled under her thin form, her arms wrapped around herself. “Did something happen?” My mother had been gorgeous once, with big brown eyes, thick brown hair, and the bone structure of a super model. She was tall, where I was short and had been curvy where I was straight. Now, her eyes looked too big in her hollowed-out face, and years of fear and anxiety had twisted her features, carving frown lines and worry lines on her soft skin. Her curves were gone, buried under layers of baggy clothing, muscles melted from years of inactivity. Her beautiful hair was tangled and unwashed this morning, but she usually managed to at least bathe and groom herself. She had to be beyond upset.

“Carrie was visiting with the kids. I took a few minutes to say goodbye to them.”

“Well, you worried me to pieces. I was sure you’d had an accident on the way over.”

“I’m here and I’m fine, Mom. What’s going on with Aunt Melly?”

Her eyes went wide, and her lower lip trembled. “She wants me to move to New Hampshire, Daffodil. She says I’m a burden on you, that I’m ruining your life. I’m not ruining your life, am I, baby?”

“No, of course not.” Sure, I’d like to be able to leave town once in a while, but I had a good life. My annoyance with my aunt increased. “We don’t want you to go to New Hampshire because of me, we want—”

She gasped, and tears slid from her eyes and down her cheeks. “You want me to go to New Hampshire, too?” Her voice cracked like an old woman’s. “You’d never see me again.”

I sighed. There was no talking to her when she was this upset. “Why don’t I fix us some tea and a snack? Then we can talk about this reasonably.”

“You want to talk reasonably about sending me away to a strange place where I know no one and I’ll never see you again?” she asked, her voice rising and her whole body shaking with the exertion of her anger. “You want me to be reasonable when you’re planning to throw me away?”

I moved to the couch and sat next to her. She didn’t like to be touched, but I needed to be closer to try and get through to her. “No one’s throwing you away, Momma. We want to help you.”

“You don’t give a damn about me. If you did, you’d visit me without my having to beg you to come over. If you cared about me at all you’d never have left me.”

She was upset and irrational, but her words still hurt. I knew I was right to leave home and move in with my aunt when I was fourteen, because it was wrong for my mother to padlock me in my room. But I had been wrong not to tell her where I’d gone. I’d been wrong to leave her all alone when I knew how she worried about me. It was just one more thing I’d spend the rest of my life trying to make up for. “I love you, Momma. But you can’t be happy living in this tiny apartment, never seeing anyone but Aunt Melly and me, never—”

“I’ll tell you about never,” she said. “I never want to see your aunt again. She is no longer welcome in my house. I will call the police if she shows her face here again.”

She’d never call the police, because as much as she might be in denial, she didn’t want anyone to know the truth about how she was living, to see what she’d become. Not to mention it would involve allowing strangers into her home and maybe being forced to leave. She wouldn’t call the police, but she would call me and any relief I’d gotten from my aunt helping with my mom, any peace I’d gotten knowing I had back up, would be gone. I’d have to drop what I was doing every time Mom called, which would be often. I’d have to ask Oscar to take Buddy and he’d start to wonder where I was really going all the time. I never should have co-parented with him. I should have convinced him to adopt Buddy. I’d been selfish, and I was going to end up paying for it.

“Aunt Melly was just trying to help,” I said. “She wants you to be happy and well. It’s what we both want.”

She narrowed her eyes and glared at me. “I’m perfectly well, Daffodil. I am not crazy.”

“No one is saying you’re crazy, Mom. Can you honestly say you’re happy living like this? Can you honestly say you’re getting the most out of life?”

“I bet you wish I’d died with your father, don’t you? Then you’d be free of the incredible burden my life is for you.”

It wasn’t the first time she’d said those words to me, but it never got any easier to hear them. Especially since I’d thought it in the dead of night when I was exhausted and sad and being called to my mother’s side at three in the morning again. I never really wished for it, but I couldn’t help thinking that everything would be easier if I could remember her as the happy, carefree woman she’d been and not watch her die slowly, drowning in fear and misery. “I love you, Mom. Aunt Melly and I both just want what’s best for you.”

Her mood changed suddenly, as it so often did, and she started to cry. “I’m a burden to you both and you hate me. You want to send me as far away as possible, so you never have to think about me again.”

“That’s not what we want. No one’s going to send you anywhere unless you want to go.” I rubbed her back while she cried, wondering if anything I’d said had sunk in and doubting it.

Once she’d calmed, I made tea for us and pulled a couple muffins from her pantry. She didn’t eat, because she was worried about some chemical in the muffin that the news said would kill her, but she drank the tea and calmed down enough that I was able to help her to bed and watch her drift off to sleep.

I stayed until I was sure she was out, and then I left. I dialed my aunt as soon as I got back in the car, but she didn’t answer. Right. She was in Italy. She’d strewn the seeds for this mess and then she’d flown away and left me to clean it all up.

I wanted to cry, but I knew it wouldn’t do any good, so I pulled in a deep breath and headed home.

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