Page 111 of No Contest
Mom appeared in the doorway. No dish towel this time. She sat down across from me, hands folded.
"Sloane called again." She twisted her wedding ring. "She says there's room."
I set the photo face down. "Yeah?"
"There'd be room for you, too."
It was like my mom delivering a gutpunch.
"In Nipigon," I said. Not a question.
"Yes. There's a house three blocks from hers. Four bedrooms. Good bones. Needs work, but you could—" She stopped. "You'd have room for a workshop."
The kitchen clock ticked. Dad had installed it twenty years ago, slightly off-center because he'd hit a stud and refused to move it.
"I have the business here."
She pulled out a manila folder. "I know you do, but Rhett, I can't manage the mortgage and the medical bills alone. Twenty-three hundred a month, plus taxes, plus the furnace is dying. Even if I sell, I'll need help. And after—I need someone nearby."
"Sloane's there."
"Sloane has two kids and a full-time job. She can't do this alone." Her voice was patient but firm. "You could sell the business. Someone local would buy it. You'd get enough to start fresh."
Start fresh. Did I want to start again?
"You've always been adaptable, Rhett." She delivered the words like a compliment. "When things changed, you adjusted. You didn't complain. You did what needed to be done."
Memory took over. I was seventeen again, at this same table, holding a letter from Ryerson with ACCEPTED stamped acrossthe top. Dad set his coffee down:That's not practical. We need you here. You're adaptable.
In the present, Mom was still talking, outlining timelines and logistics. She wasn't trying to hurt me. She was solving problems the way she always did.
I stood, and my chair scraped against linoleum.
"I need time."
"Time for what?"
"To think." I grabbed my jacket. "To breathe for a second."
"Rhett." Frustration bled through. "I don't have time. The mortgage is due—"
"I know, Mom. I just—" I shoved my arms through the sleeves. "I need to breathe."
She stood, hands flat on the table. "What's really keeping you here?"
"The business and Hog," I said, meeting her eyes. "I've built something here. It's mine. I chose it."
"Did you? Or did you stay because we needed you?"
I stared at her, and she continued. "Staying when someone needs you isn't the same as building, Rhett. That's just being adaptable."
I walked out before the weight of thirty years smothered me.
The truck started on the first try.
I drove without a particular destination in mind. I needed somewhere that I couldn't hear my mother planning the rest of my life.
You've always been adaptable.
