Page 12 of The Affair
“That was nice of them,” she replied as I began setting things down.
“Who were you talking to on the phone?” I asked. Placing the extras I’d received directly into the fridge, I saved the pepperoni—my mom’s favorite—and placed it on the table before going back for a few other things.
“Your brother,” she answered, giving no further details.
“Did he make it back home okay?”
“Yes, all four of them are settling back into their normal routine very nicely.”
“That’s good.” I grabbed some plates for the two of us and set them down on the small table. Then, I went back for glasses. Taking the seat across from her, I opened the pizza box and pulled two slices out—one for her and one for me.
And then I waited.
“Mom?” I finally said quietly when I noticed her staring at the wall behind me. “Do you want me to say grace?”
“Oh, yes. That would be nice.”
I couldn’t remember the last time I’d actually done so, but I could give it a go. After all, we’d been saying the same one forever. Bowing my head, I closed my eyes and repeated the prayer I’d been taught as a child.
“God is great; God is good. Let us thank him for our food. By his hands, we are fed. Let us thank him for our—”
“I’m moving to Charleston,” my mother blurted out before I had a chance to finish the prayer, making my eyes immediately fly open.
“What?”
Her expression was unreadable, like she was both excited and full of anguish at the same time.
“I’m moving—”
“I heard what you said,” I explained. “I just don’t understand what you’re talking about, Mom. Are you feeling okay?”
Were hysteria and delusions symptoms of grief? Maybe I should call her doctor.
“Jack and I have been talking about it for some time.”
“Jack? You’ve been talking to Jack about this?” I felt a wave of betrayal settle around me. “For how long?”
My brother had been here for almost a week, and he hadn’t mentioned a thing to me about my mother moving, especially not to another state.
With him.
“A few months ago,” she answered.
“A few months …” I was bewildered. Shocked.
“Jack has that great big house down there on the water, and now that he has two little ones and one on the way”—Bethany was pregnantagain?—“they could use the extra help.”
“Mom,” I began, trying to remain as calm and clearheaded as I could under the circumstances. “Daddy just died. The flowers from his funeral are still in the dining room. Are you sure you’re not just reacting to the pain and grief? Maybe you should just sit back and give it some time—”
“I don’t need time,” she answered firmly, her gaze set on mine. “I need a change. I need to feel useful. Otherwise, I’ll be just like her—”
“Just like who?” I asked.
“My mother,” she explained. “Writing in a journal, year after year, with little to say … my life just an endless monotony of nothing.”
I opened my mouth to argue one of the many other points I’d managed to think up in the limited time I’d been given, but she held her hand up to stop me.
“I’ve made all the arrangements. I’m flying out at the end of the week. What I can’t take with me, Jack will arrange to have sent. I am meeting with the family lawyer tomorrow. The house and store are both yours.”
