Page 67 of Elijah's Hope
I stood outside the diner for what felt like hours, but in reality was only minutes. I saw her through the windows, moving back and forth between the tables. She was tall, and still had great posture.
There was an elegance about how she moved I always figured was a by-product of her spending her nights strutting down a catwalk, but now I realized that’s just how she moved.
Gracefully.
I watched her chat with people. Watched her smile. My mother had been beautiful ten years ago and she was still beautiful to this day.
Had I ever told her that? Had I ever given her anything but grief over what she did to make money?
After leaving Shelby, I had driven around at a loss as to what to do next. I thought maybe I could come up with some grand gesture that would change Shelby’s mind. Win her over.
It was then that I found myself heading south on Route 5 toward Portland. I knew my mother’s address, even though I had never been to her apartment. I knew where she worked, even though I had never sat at one of her tables.
I knew she made enough money to afford a decent apartment, a midsize car. And I knew she was grateful for the money I sent her because every year on my birthday I got a card from her that always made a mention of how thankful she was.
Never once in the years since I had left her, had I sent her a birthday card.
Digging up my courage, I walked into the diner and took a seat in one of the empty booths. She started toward my table with a coffeepot in her hands and a welcome smile on her mouth, but stopped abruptly a few feet away when she realized who I was.
“Elijah?”
“Hi, Mom.”
Tears immediately filled her eyes and she turned her back to me so I wouldn’t see them. Yes, it had been this awkward the last time I had come to visit. I thought that was because I made her uncomfortable. Because last time, I didn’t take the time to see through all that awkwardness.
Eventually, she moved toward the counter where she dropped off the pot then took the seat across from me. She pulled napkins out of the dispenser and wiped her eyes.
“I’m sorry to bother you at work,” I told her. “I can come back at the end of your shift.”
“No,” she said, reaching for my hand. I stretched it out for her to hold. “I can take a break. What are you doing here?”
“I was in Tacoma and realized how close you were. I wanted to see you.”
Her shoulders slumped then as if I had put some heavy burden on them. Another time I might have thought I was that burden. I was the thing making her sad. Now I wondered.
“Are you well? Are you happy?” she asked.
“I’m well. I don’t know about happy. I met someone, Mom. And I screwed it up.”
She leaned back against the booth. A sad smile on her lips. “I see. Love can do that. Make you do stupid things. Can you fix it? How did you screw up?”
“I’m going to try. But thinking about it, about what I did, it made me realize it wasn’t the first time I screwed up with a woman in my life who I cared about.” I swallowed and looked her directly in the eyes. “There were times I treated you… There were times I treated you like I didn’t respect you. Because of what you did. And I’m sorry for that.”
She sighed and looked at me like she’d been waiting a long time for me to apologize.
Then she shook her head. “You were always such a little man. Never a boy, just a man waiting to grow up. I knew you hated what I did, and I knew why you hated it. Because you always thought you should have been taking care of me. Protecting me. You never saw it was supposed to be the other way around. What I did was about your pride and ego, and maybe…I didn’t consider that enough.”
“I believed…you resented me for it. For doing what you had to do to support me. That you were angry I wasn’t more grateful for what we had and more forgiving of what you had to do to provide for us.”
Her eyes grew wide. “Now you tell me this? After all this time? I don’t know who this woman is, Elijah, but I would like to meet her. We can commiserate over what an idiot my son is.”
“Mom, I’m trying to be real here.”
“Elijah, once again you’re taking yourself too seriously. I’m not going to sit here and tell you your attitude didn’t hurt me. But I never resented you, honey. Not for a minute, not for a second. And I would do everything all over again if only it meant you were still my son.”
“An ungrateful son,” I admitted.
“Yes. You leaving and never looking back almost killed me but I told myself that knowing you, I had to understand why you did it. Then you started sending me money, every month like clockwork, and I knew you still cared. Knew you still had me in your heart to want to protect me. It helped me to cope with living without my son.”
