Page 4 of My Favorite Lost Cause
Dammit.“Yes, they are finishing up dinner then calling me on Zoom.”
The girls, whose names I still don’t know, make pouting faces but gather their things and say goodbye. Maren hugs them in that way of hers—easily affectionate and genuine—and they seem sadder about leaving her than me, but she’s been far nicer to them than I’ve been, which is fairly typical.
Maren wants everyone to love her but never seems to grasp that some people’s love isn’t worth earning. Like that of these girls she’ll never see again.
I wait until the door shuts behind them and turn. “What the fuck, Maren,” I groan.
“You deserved it after what I had to listen to last night.” She throws her head back. “Oh, God, Charlie, yes, yes, yes!”
“You’re good at faking an orgasm,” I reply, turning toward the coffee maker before she realizes exactly how good she was at it. “Not surprising. I bet Harvey gives you a lot of practice.”
“Would it kill you to have had breakfast with them?” she asks. “Would it kill you to get to know them beyond the moment you blew your load?”
Fuck. My favorite appendage was beginning to settle until she used the expression “blew your load.” It was unusual phrasing from Manhattan’s sweetheart. Is there porn involving Barbie or a Disney princess getting railed from behind?
Probably. I’ll check later.
“Maren, my life is hard enough without your bullshit. And you’ve broken every single rule I set, so it’s time for you to go impose on someone else.”
“Charlie, we need to talk?—”
“Not really a good time, since you’re leaving and I’m about to host a fictitious Zoom meeting at eleven p.m. in Tokyo.”
“I’ll go if you tell me what’s so hard about your life, and that wasn’t an opening for you to talk about your dick. Tell me what’s wrong.” There’s something genuine in her voice but firm at the same time.
Knowing I’ll regret it, knowing she’s still not going to fucking leave, I cross the room and grab the letter.
3
MAREN
Charlie thrusts a typed letter in front of my face. I half expect it to be a lawsuit or test results because I can’t think of anything else that would trigger his current distress.Dear Charlie, it begins,If you’re reading this, it means that I’m gone.
Immediately my gaze drops to the signature line:All my love, Mom.
My eyes jolt up to meet his. His motherdied? She wasn’t even old. And how could no one have told me? I mean, for fuck’s sake, Roger could have mentioned it when he sent me over here to do the welfare check. “I’m so?—”
He shakes his head, his jaw tight. “Read it.”
I don’t want to read the letter. I don’t want to see this painful thing in all its glory. Because even if Charlie didn’t see much of his mom after she left for South Carolina, I know he loved her. Roger has never been allowed to voice even the mildest complaint about her without Charlie leaping to her defense.
Dear Charlie,
If you’re reading this, it means that I am gone. I’m sorry tobe letting you know this way, but I didn’t want our final memories together to be sad ones. I’ve gone to the little retreat in Panama, where we buried Zoe. I’ve asked them to cremate me and spread my ashes over her grave, so there’s nothing to be done. My executor has been instructed to send this on to you as soon as he has word. There’s not much to leave you with, aside from Riverbend.
Do you remember that summer you spent here after high school? I loved that summer so much. You’d get up early and run on the path around the inlet, and you were so full of promise and hope. I don’t see that in you anymore. I didn’t push you because I was scared, but now that I’ve got so little time left, I know I was wrong.
That’s why I’m saddling you with this dying wish of mine, one I know you’ll resent. I want you to go down to South Carolina and make the house into everything I dreamed it could be. And don’t just hire a crew: go down there and be a part of it. Get your hands dirty.
You could ignore all of this—I’m not there to stop you—but if you ever loved me, you won’t. You’ll let me be the parent to you I wish I’d been all along. One willing to make you suffer a little in order to come out happy in the end.
All my love,
Mom
I’m crying by the time I reach the letter’s conclusion. No wonder Charlie’s been taking this so hard. In one fell swoop, his mother burdened him with this job he doesn’t want, and also let him know that she died disappointed in him.
She had a hard life—Roger said that she never recovered from the death of Charlie’s little sister years ago—so as much as it upsets me that she’s left all this on Charlie, I’m also heartbroken for her. She died thinking her son had failed, but also that she had failed too.
