Page 48 of Still Yours
“If you finish that sentence withI don’t think you should, you will force me to explain to everyone that my son’s body is the new scarecrow in my backyard.”
“Point made. Let’s go for a bike ride.”
In the way mothers do, Ma has forgiven me for the Merc incident. The last thing I want is to cause her stress, so I guide her through the foyer and out of the house, grabbing our scarves and her puffy down jacket along the way.
The tires of our old bikes in the garage need air and I use the hand pump to get them ready while Ma zips up her coat and ties a kerchief around her thinning hair. Her expression is more alive than I’ve noticed lately, and I realize, with a pang in my heart, that I’d do anything to keep it that way, including taking her for a ride without the permission of her doc or nurse, and despite not getting on a bicycle since I was a teenager.
Bikes ready, I swing onto the seat, wincing slightly when my groin rubs up against my custom pants. I make a mental note that my life is more Wrangler than Tom Ford these days.
Ma gets on her baby blue Cruiser like she never left it, gripping the handles and zipping down the drive with her plastic flower basket leading the way. With a happy scoff, I follow her on my old, fire engine red Schwinn, wobbling, scraping the soles of my loafers, but then finding rhythm.
The bike tour is a welcome distraction, considering Ma’s clinical trial ended the week before and results are due any day. She doesn’t want to talk about it and neither do I. We keep to mundane topics while meandering through our street, commenting on the pumpkins, scarecrows, shrunken zombie heads, and (I grimace) hay bales.
“The neighbors are going more harvest chic this year,” Ma muses while we cruise past the corner house with an impressive gourd display.
I make a noncommittal sound in my throat to let her know I’m listening. Noa made breakfast for the house, then rushed out to take care of her other patients with an odd pep in her step. Did she have a date tonight? She had to be looking forward to something, what with the reinvigorated brightness to her jaded eyes, a cascade of sunlight I was all too responsible for taking away. She was different this morning than all others preceding it. I’d taken to studying her and predicting her thoughts rather than asking directly. She wanted me to leave her alone, so Idid, but that didn’t mean I had to stop watching her. Noa is an irresistible force, a reckoning of my soul I hadn’t considered I’d have to face when moving back here. I figured she’d be happily married with kids or living in Paris as an in-demand private chef. Last thing I expected was to find her taking care of my mother.
And now she’s moved in. We avoid each other in that mature way adults do when they don’t want to talk about their problems, but we’re still forced to see each other every day. She’s a constant, like a cut inside my cheek I keep tonguing to prevent from healing because I’m addicted to the textured ache.
“I, for one, prefer to scare the children and make them work for the turkey feast they’ll no doubt inhale in minutes while I worked for hours on it,” Ma says.
“Hmm?” I look across the road at my mother.
“You heard me,” she says primly, her eyes ahead but with a sly slant to them. “Back in the day, we had the scariest house on the block. You remember?”
“I mostly recall turning our home into the Boo Radley house because I lived in it.”
“That too. But those kids loved it when you handed out candy to them. It meant they got to meet the rebel of Falcon Haven.”
“C’mon, Ma.” I gently rib her. The wide-eyed kids I begrudgingly handed candy to are the same adults who poo-poo me when they see me in town today. “Maybe that’d be funny if those kids hadn’t grown into the assholes they are now.”
“This town isn’t full of assholes, dear. You only think that way because you still have the vision of how it was when you were a boy and thought the entire world was against you. This place is healing, if you let it be. Quiet, peaceful, friendly and involved. Close-knit and loyal.”
“That’s for damned sure,” I mutter as we turn into the neighboring street.
Ma rides closer until we’re side-by-side. The wind paints red circles on her cheeks and her blue eyes are clear, the colored leaves crackling under our tires. I spent a long morning corralling Rome’s cattle before the even the sun woke up. I’m exhausted and should nap, but I can’t think of anywhere I’d rather be than accompanying my mother through the quiet streets of her neighborhood.
Maybe Ma’s right. This town could heal if I let it. And it’s not wrong to hope it heals her.
“I bet we can come up with a nice, traumatizing front lawn display for the kids,” she says. I chuckle.
“You missed your chance on Halloween.” Ma wasn’t up to any Halloween celebrations, so Noa and I kept it quiet with the lights dimmed. “But I could call in a few favors, get some props that have been retired.”
“Sounds fabulous.” Ma beams. “You and Noa put your heads together, come up with something grand.”
My brows lower and my speed slows. “Ma.”
“Yes, dear?”
“I know what you’re doing.”
“You know nothing of the sort. She lives with us now. She deserves to be involved in the holidays.”
“What about her family?”
“She has no one besides that Carly, and we all know that girl is flightier than a bird changing seasons.”
“That can’t be true. What about her mother?”
