“Mom, I want to trust him too. I want that for you. But a grown man with no wife, no kids, no roommate, and no reason to be anywhere at 7:30 p.m. on a Sunday…”
“Maybe he has reasons I don’t need to know yet.”
“That’s exactly the problem.”
I noticed something beneath the defensiveness when she looked at me at that moment. Mom was also aware of it. She simply wasn’t prepared.
“That’s exactly the problem.”
“Please,” she uttered softly. “Let me have this. Even if it turns out badly, let me have the part where I still get to hope.”
I had no idea how to respond to that. I dried a plate as a result.
Later, Chloe sat with her knees pulled up on the top step of the porch. I took a seat next to her.
“Grandma knows something’s up. She’s just scared.”
“Let me have this.”
“Chloe. Whatever you’re thinking, don’t.”
“I’m not thinking anything.”
“You’re always thinking something. Your face has a thinking setting, and it’s currently on.”
My kid gave me a small smile.
“Richard has another woman. Doesn’t he?”
“We don’t know that.”
“Or another family. A whole secret family in a house with a plumber that only works at night.”
“Chloe.”
“Whatever you’re thinking, don’t.”
“What? I’m just saying what everyone is thinking. Grandma is thinking so, too. She just won’t say it because if she does, it might be true.”
I put my arm around her shoulders.
“Her birthday is next Sunday,” I said. “I’m asking you, as your mother and as a coward, to please just let us get through dessert. We’ll deal with Richard afterwards.”
Chloe was silent for a while. For so long that I believed I might have won.
“We’ll deal with Richard afterwards.”
Then she stated calmly, “I’m tired of watching Grandma be lied to.”
“Chloe.”
“I love her too, Mom. That’s all I’m saying.”
As if I were the adolescent, she got up, kissed the top of my head, and entered.
I continued to sit on the porch and gaze at the street where Richard’s taillights consistently vanished.
“I’m tired of watching Grandma be lied to.”
For the third time, Mom fiddled with her hair in the hallway mirror. She was clearly anxious. She wanted the evening to be flawless because it was her 72nd birthday.
“You look gorgeous,” I said.
“I look like a woman who’s trying too hard.”
Chloe said, “Grandma, you look like a woman who’s trying just enough,” from the couch. “There’s a difference.”
She was clearly anxious.
At six o’clock in the evening, the doorbell rang.
With a wrapped gift in one hand, a dozen roses in the other, and his leather tote tucked under his arm as though it were surgically attached, Richard stood there.
“Happy birthday, sweetheart!”
Mom brightened. To be honest, it was difficult to remain suspicious when she gave him that kind of gaze.
Richard held a dozen roses as he stood there.
Dinner was a success.
At the gardening club, Richard related a story about how he sliced a zucchini into a salad that almost killed
a man’s taste buds because he thought it was a cucumber. Mom snorted, something she hadn’t done since Dad was alive, since she laughed so hard.
She then produced the pie.
“Chocolate pie,” she declared. “I made it because my boyfriend said it was his favorite.”
Richard’s face took on a complex expression. Thank you. guilty. imprisoned.
Mom snorted with laughter.
He looked at his timepiece.
7:26 p.m.
“Grace, I am so sorry, sweetheart. I have to go.”
There was silence in the room. Mom’s smile didn’t instantly vanish. It gradually dimmed, as though someone were gradually lowering a dimmer.
“Can’t you stay for 10 minutes? It’s my birthday, Richard.”
“I really can’t. I’m so sorry.”
“I have to go.”
Before anyone could stop him, he bent down, kissed her cheek, picked up the tote, and left. The pie appeared to be a witness to a crime as it rested on the table.
Mom took a slow seat. She folded her hands in her lap, picked up her fork, and put it back down.
“Mom, are you okay?”
“I’m fine, honey.”
She wasn’t doing well. She was aware that I knew she wasn’t.
“Mom, are you okay?”
Through the glass, Chloe observed Richard.
My daughter suddenly got to her feet a moment later. “I need to run out. I’ll be right back,” she muttered.
“Chloe, wait, it’s dark out.”
“Don’t worry, Mom.”
The door banged shut. I gazed at it, then at my mother, and last at the unfinished pie.
“Well,” Mom responded, laughing a bit but brittlely. “That’s one way to end a birthday.”
“He’s an idiot.”
“Avery.”
“I need to run out.”
“He is! Whatever he’s hiding, he’s an idiot for hiding it tonight.”
In order to occupy my hands, I began clearing plates. Ten minutes went by. Fifteen. Twenty. I looked out the window, but I saw nothing.
“Do you think I should call her?”
Mom raised her gaze.
“Maybe give it a little more time. She probably needed to clear her head. She’ll be back.”
“Do you think I should call her?”
Chewing the inside of my cheek, I paced from the kitchen to the living room and back. Before leaving, my daughter gave me that look. The expression she gets just before she does something about which I will be
lecturing her for a week.
Footsteps pounded on the porch steps about forty minutes after her departure.
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