Page 47 of The Good Guy on My Porch

“Want to talk about Oscar?” she asked, when she’d finished her stories about Disney and put her empty mug in the dirty dishes bucket.

“There’s nothing to talk about. We’re friends. He took me hiking, I took him to see a play at the university. That’s all.”

She shook her head. “Do you know that your eyes light up every time you say his name?”

I snorted. She was even more of a romantic than I was, but she didn’t hide it as well. “Wishful thinking.”

“You could do a lot worse. He’s a good guy.”

“One of the best.” The words were out before I could stuff them back in. I hadn’t meant to say them, but they were true, maybe the truest thing I’d said all day. And, because he was such a good guy, I would never subject him to my current and future baggage.

She grinned like I’d just told her we were getting married. I rolled my eyes.

“Come on, matchmaker,” I said. “Let’s shop for books.”

That worked. She was like a bloodhound on the scent as we browsed the store together, egging each other on and making suggestions to one another, so that by the time we got to the register, our arms were full and we’d spent more money than we should have. “Maybe don’t mention this to Cody,” Carrie said, when Liddy rang her up and she saw the total.

“What happens in a bookstore, stays in a bookstore.”

We said goodbye to Liddy, took our bags outside, and hugged. Before Carrie walked away, she turned to me. “You know you can tell me anything, right, Dilly?”

“I tell you everything.” I pretended confusion, even as my stomach roiled with worry and fear.

She nodded, but she didn’t look convinced. I started toward home but turned at the last minute and went to my mother’s apartment. It was late, after eight, and I figured she’d freak when I knocked at the door, but…I just needed to see her.

I had to do our secret code knock three times before I heard the deadbolts slide free and the door opened. My mother’s hair was a wild, tangled mess and her face was pale. She was wearing an over-sized men’s t-shirt and nothing else. Without her usual full-coverage clothing I could see just how thin she’d become, her legs and arms frail and not much more than bones. How had she gotten this bad? I always made sure she had food to eat and it was always gone from the cupboards on my next visit.

I walked in and shut the door behind me. “Dilly,” she said. “You scared me out of my wits. What are you doing here?”

“I was in the area. I wanted to stop by and see you.”

“Please tell me you drove here. You shouldn’t be walking around downtown Catalpa Creek so late at night.”

“Of course, I drove.” The lie slid off my tongue easily. I sat on the couch and patted the seat next to me. She took it, but her smile was brittle, forced.

“I was just about to go to bed, Dilly.”

“I won’t be long. Have you been eating the food I bring? You’ve lost more weight.”

She looked away, toward the kitchen and, for the first time, I wondered how often she lied to me. I’d thought her illness made her incapable of lying, as it made her incapable of moderating her fear or hiding her emotions. “I eat it, Dilly. I do. It’s just that some of it…Well, that box of oatmeal you brought last week had a tiny corner of the lid lifted away and I couldn’t be sure…” She looked at me. “People are crazy, Daffodil. They will put poison in anything.”

I wanted to drop my head in my hands and cry. How had we gotten to this place? “Okay, Momma. I’ll check the packaging more carefully from now on.”

She nodded and pulled her legs up under her. “Now, what did you stop by for?”

I almost told her it was nothing and stood and walked out, but then I remembered the look on Carrie’s face and I steeled my resolve. “It’s just that a lot of people have been asking about you lately, Momma. I think maybe it’s time we told them the truth, let them come visit you once in a while.”

Her face twisted, and I braced myself for impact. “Tell them what, Dilly? That I lost the house and my job because I was so distraught about my own daughter leaving me all alone after I’d already lost her father? Is that what you want to tell them?”

“We can tell them that if you want. It’s just that maybe seeing people would help you—”

“Help me?” she screeched. “I don’t need help, Dilly. I am the only one who realizes all the danger there is this world, but they wouldn’t listen to me. They’d look at me the way Melly looks at me and they’d think I needed drugs and try to send me to an insane asylum just like you and Melly are doing.”

“It’s not an insane asylum—”

“No.” She got to her feet, her whole body straining with the force of her emotion. “No. I won’t be laughed at by them. I was the wife of one of the most well-loved men in this town. I was invited to all their parties and told how beautiful and kind I was every day I went out. Then your father died, and I wasn’t anyone special anymore. Everyone abandoned me.”

In truth, she’d pulled away from her friends and not the other way around, but I knew better than to point that out. “They want to see you now, Momma. They’re worried about you.”

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