Around the Bend (12 page)

My mother, however, had nothing in common with people like that. She was an attorney. She went to bar association events, cocktail parties, wine tastings, not church bingo and flea markets. Surely she was only biding her time until I could force-load Reginald into the van, and give her an excuse to ditch the Colorado Hillbillies.

“Ma,” I called, giving up on her stubborn pig. “Reginald won’t get in the car. Will you come over here and talk some sense into him?”

Ma waved a hand in dismissal. “Let him be, Hilary. We have time. Maybe he just needs some more fresh air. Besides, I’m enjoying myself. Carla and Louie said there’s a picnic area down the hill a little ways. We could stop and have lunch with them.”

I gaped. Had I heard her right? She was unconcerned about Reginald’s uncooperativeness and she was enjoying herself with these people? And what’s more, wanted to detour for an impromptu picnic with total strangers? “You want to have lunch? With them?”

“Sure. We’ll make some new friends, have some…” She looked at the Weggins couple. “What’d you say you were making?”

“Hot-dog casserole. My specialty. I won a yellow ribbon at the state fair last year for it. Would have won the blue if that Deanna Compton hadn’t come along and swept the category with her venison-and-parsnip stew.” Carla put a fist on her hip, which only served to raise her shorts and expose cellulite-dimpled skin I didn’t need to see—especially not just before a meal. I vowed to get myself to Gold’s Gym way more
often. “But I got a copy of Deanna’s recipe. You wouldn’t believe how easy it is to bribe an eleven-year-old. One Nintendo Game Boy and wham-slam-thank-you-ma’am, Vanessa Compton is singing her Mama’s secret recipe like a pet-store parakeet. Deanna’s never going to see the color blue again. Y’all just have to try my hot dog casserole. I’ve kicked it up a notch since last year’s fair, too.”

“We’d love to,” Ma said before I could refuse.

Twenty minutes later, I found myself sitting on the other side of a pine picnic table avoiding splinters while I pretended to enjoy something made with hot dogs and crescent rolls. Some kind of green vegetable also lurked in the cheesy mixture, but I decided not to ask its identity.

Nick sat down beside me and handed me a purple Tupperware glass of Mountain Dew. “This is not so bad,” he whispered in my ear.

“The food or the company?”

“Both.” He teased a bite under my lips, and I took it, but only because it was from Nick.

He was right, though I wouldn’t tell him that. Carla and Louie were not such bad company. Originally from Georgia, they’d traveled all over the country, after selling their house and trading the subdivision life for one on wheels. “We couldn’t stand being in one place,” Carla explained to my mother. “So Louie and I decided to become full-time road warriors.”

“Yep. We just pull up stakes and move on, whenever we feel like it.”

“That means we can see the grandkids any old time we want to. All totaled, we have four grandkids. We got Tyler and Leigh in Tulsa, Miranda and Catherine in Connecticut,
and another one on the way in Georgia.” Carla gave Louie’s arm an excited squeeze. “We’re going to be putting some more miles on the old Green Monster again soon.”

“I always wanted to do that,” Ma said, her sentence ending on a sigh. “Well, my husband and I did. We talked about doing exactly what you two are doing.”

I pivoted on the wood seat. “You did?”

She nodded. “It was our retirement dream. Your father and I thought we’d sell the house and travel for the rest of our lives.”

I glanced over at the big green monster, which didn’t exactly seem like my mother’s preferred mode of vacationing. “In an
RV?”

“Well…” Ma gave the Weggins couple a smile. “I’m not quite as adventurous as you two. I’m more of a hotel kind of girl, but if my late husband, Jack, had tried talking me into an RV, I might have given it a shot. He was the adventurous one, and he could be pretty convincing when he wanted to be.”

Carla snorted. “Oh, I don’t know about that, Rosemary. Look at you. You’re travelin’ clear across the country with a
pig.
That’s not what you read in your ordinary travel brochure, if you know what I mean. Though I bet he’s a pretty fun traveling companion and just cute as a button, to boot.”

Ma laughed. “I suppose you’re right.” Then she sobered and looked out over the vast, exquisite view, nature’s beauty, an elegant backdrop for our simple, rustic picnic. “Still, I wish…” Ma’s voice trailed off, filled with a wistfulness I’d never heard before, the notes sharp and pained.

I looked at Nick, unsure of what to say. Seeing my mother vulnerable, needy, wasn’t something I knew how to handle.
His hand covered mine, and I leaned into his shoulder, needing him even if I wasn’t going to tell him that I did.

“You know what I say about wishes?” Carla butted in. “That they’re just sentences waitin’ to be finished. So you just get on out there, Rosemary, and find the words you need.”

Ma laid her hand over Carla’s and gave it a squeeze. Once again, I wondered about this new side of my mother, this woman who now easily made friends, connected with people who five days ago hadn’t even been in the same social solar system. “Thanks, Carla,” Ma said. “I think I really needed to hear that.”

“Anytime you need advice, you just come to Carla. I’m a regular Dear Abby, aren’t I, Louie?”

“Oh, she’s got the words of wisdom all right,” Louie said, rolling his eyes. “Tells me what to do every damned minute of the day.”

Carla swatted him, then dished up second helpings, before heading into the RV for a chocolate silk pie. She was like those clowns in the circus, just pulling one miracle after another out of the vehicle.

After everyone had been served another cholesterol-raising dish, Carla snuggled up to Louie and gave the three of us a smile. “You know, you three are more than welcome to hang out with us for a few days. Louie and are thinking of just camping in the Rockies. We have a few weeks till the new grandbaby comes along, and we were going to do some rock huntin’.”

“Rock hunting? Is that when you look for rare and unusual types of rocks?” Nick asked.

“Hell, no!” Louie laughed and drew Carla closer to him, pecking a kiss on her cheek. “Me and Carla, we get out the
air gun, and we shoot us some rocks. We can’t really shoot ’em ’cuz that gets the park rangers’ panties all in a wad, but we have our fun, don’t we, sweetie?”

“Oh, we do indeedy.” She laughed. “Never a dull moment around here.”

“Rock hunting
literally
,” Nick said, catching my eye. “Who’d have thought it?”

“You should try it. It’s fun you can’t find in a place like Boston.” Louie nodded. “I know, ’cuz I tried. Got myself arrested over it, too.” He shook his head and cursed under his breath.

“There, there, Louie. Don’t get yourself all worked up again.” Carla patted his back. “Let me get you a pill, baby. Make you forget those awful memories.”

“What I need is another slice of pie.” He gave Carla a smile.

“Of course. Rosemary, can I get you anything else?”

“Just show me the way to your ladies’ room.” The two of them headed into the RV, chit-chatting the whole way, immediate and fast friends. I watched her go, worried my mother was going to go back home with recipes for varmints and roadkill.

When they were gone, Louie turned to Nick and I. “I’m not one for butting in, but—”

Clearly, a sign he was going to do just that.

“—there’s a reason your mother wants to get to California. I know a stubborn woman when I see one. I been sleepin’ beside one for twenty-seven years. I think, no matter what mountains get in your way—” he chuckled at his own pun, waving toward the Rockies as he did “—you better keep on truckin’. That woman’s on a mission. Her and her pig, if you don’t mind me sayin’ so.”

“Actually—”

“No, we don’t mind,” Nick interrupted me, his hand holding mine tight, cutting off my objection. “And we appreciate your hospitality.”

Louie nodded. “I’m only saying somethin’ ’cuz my Carla, she had a bad scare five years back. Breast cancer. She don’t talk about it much, but it changed her, made her want to see the world, get out of the mud we’d been stuck in. So we sold it all, packed everything into the big Green Monster over there, and the Good Lord, he seen fit to give Carla lots more years.” Louie leaned forward and lowered his voice. “You just never know when your cards are gonna get reshuffled. So don’t worry too much about the hand you already have ’cuz the Dealer—” at this, he sent a thumb heavenward “—could change it at any moment.”

I wasn’t quite sure what point Louie was making here, and had to wonder how much of his post-drama stress was figuring into his convoluted advice. Either way, before I could get him to clarify, Carla arrived with his second piece of pie, and my mother emerged from the trailer, looking tired, and ready to go.

“Wait, Hilary. I have one more thing to do,” my mother said. She turned to Carla. “Are you sure?”

“Abso-toot-ley.” Carla gave my mother a huge grin.

Ma crossed to the van, opened the side door and took out Reginald’s bed, food bag, and then Reginald himself, holding tight to his leash. My jaw dropped as she crossed back to Carla and Louie and handed all of it over to them. Reginald just stared up at my mother, not even aware he’d been handed over to a new owner. “Ma, what are you doing?”

“It’s not fair to Reginald to take him on this trip. He’s cooped up in the car all the time, and he’s not happy. With Carla and Louie, he’ll get out more. See the world.” A tear glistened in her eyes as she said the words, made her case.

“Ma, you love that pig.”

She bent down, took his snout between her two hands and gave him a kiss. “I do love him, and I want him to…” She didn’t finish the sentence, just rose and met Carla’s eyes. “Thank you,” she whispered.

Carla drew my mother into a tight hug. “It’s nothing, Rosemary. We’ll take good care of him.”

I looked at Nick, who stared at me, just as shocked. A battalion of aliens could have landed in the middle of the Rocky Mountains and we would have been less surprised. “Ma—”

“This is best for…” She swallowed. “For Reginald.”

I gaped at her. What the hell was going on? This was not my mother. Maybe her legs were bothering more than she let on? Maybe it was getting difficult for her to walk the pig? But still, giving him to total strangers?

“Is your mother all right?” Nick whispered.

“I don’t know anymore,” I said. Nothing was making any sense to me. Not my relationship with Nick, not my mother’s actions. I wanted to hit the rewind button, go back to Massachusetts and start all over again.

There was a flurried exchange of hugs, addresses and promises to write and keep in touch. Carla even cried, vowing to pray for safe travels for all of us, saying something about a road warrior code. Then she gave my mother one more tight, tear-filled hug and bade us all goodbye.

I walked my mother back to the car, noticing how she
leaned on me. I didn’t mention Reginald, sensing she wasn’t ready to talk about him, even though I still didn’t understand what had transpired—or why. Nick and I exchanged concerned looks over her head. “Ma, do you want to get a room and call it a day?”

My mother shook her head. “I think we should keep going. We’re running out of time.”

I helped her into her seat, and buckled her in, like a three-year-old. She didn’t complain or argue. “Ma, Uncle Morty isn’t going anywhere and Ernie said I can take as much time off as I need.”

My mother laid her head back against the seat and closed her eyes, her age showing in every line on her face, every wrinkle. The woman who had once seemed invincible suddenly looked as vulnerable as a child.

I came around to my side and climbed into the driver’s seat, then reached out and laid my hand over hers. “Ma, you need to rest.”

“I’ll sleep in the car.”

“No, you’ll sleep in a real bed. And we’ll push it further tomorrow. So don’t argue with me.” I caught Nick’s eye in the mirror.

“I think she’s right, Mrs. Delaney. We’ve all had a big day, making new friends in kindergarten here.”

Ma chuckled, her eyes still shut. She yawned. “All right, I’ll agree but only if you promise that we’ll make it farther tomorrow.”

“I promise.” I watched her sleep as I drove, no longer aware of the breathtaking Rockies, only of her. I kept casting worried glances from her, to Nick. I glanced in the rearview
mirror at Carla and Louie’s big Green Monster that held Reginald until it became a tiny dot, then finally disappeared.

My mother’s beloved pig, left behind. Why? What wasn’t she telling me?

It took a long time of driving—too long—to get us out of the Rocky Mountain National State Park, and back onto a road with an exit for a motel with a neon vacancy sign.

But by then, my mother was totally asleep, her face pale as paper. Nick kept his hand on my shoulder, comfort in his touch, support by my side. But the dread I’d felt miles before, temporarily alleviated by the hot-dog casserole and chocolate silk pie, returned anew.

Later that night, I found Nick in the dark, country-music-playing bar next door to the motel, nursing a glass of ice water and a bowl of peanuts. Nothing in my world made sense anymore and I needed him to help me set it to rights. “You heavy drinker you.”

He turned on the stool and grinned. “Hey, you drive me to it.”

I slipped in beside him and ordered a diet soda. The bartender made a face at me. Clearly, we weren’t making any friends here. “You coming to bed?”

“I was thinking about it.” He sipped at his glass, then toyed with the lemon. “Depends.”

My soda arrived, I thanked the bartender, and overtipped him, which made him stop glaring. “On what?”

“What’d you think of Carla and Louie?”

“That’s a bit of a conversational detour.”

“Just answer the question.”

I shrugged, picked a peanut out of the dish and popped it into my mouth. “I thought they were borderline insane, but harmless.”

“Did you think they were happy?”

Happy.

Yes, they had been happy, and I’d been envious of their happiness, as odd as it had been. I’d watched the way they’d cared for each other, laughed with each other, so easy with one another. No fences, no walls. Could it ever be like that with Nick and me?

That people like that existed should have given me hope, but all it did was piss me off, because Carla and Louie seemed like some mountain too impossible for me to climb.

“Aren’t all crazy people happy?” I said finally. “Especially the ones that don’t know they’re crazy?”

He gripped his glass with both hands, staring at the ice, as if it could provide the answers I wasn’t. “For once, Hilary, be serious.”

“I am, Nick.” I pushed the peanuts away. “What do you want from me?”

He turned to face me. Behind the bar, three plasma screens played three different channels of ESPN, the closed captioning scrolling black tapes of wins and losses across the bottom of the screens. Every male eye in the room was glued to those TVs—except Nick’s. “I want you to tell me you
really
love me. I want you to tell me that you want to have that same kind of happiness we saw today.”

“We’ve been happy, Nick. Haven’t we?”

He nodded. “Yes.”

“Do you remember the time we went to the New England Aquarium?”

A deep laugh escaped him. “Yeah. Not one of my most romantic dates.”

“One of my favorites, though. I love the ocean. Always have. It’s why I still live in Boston, even though I’m not much for winter.”

“All the more reason to snuggle up when it gets cold.”

How I wanted to just fall into his deep baritone voice, his strong, thick arms, the temptation of being with him, and forget what I needed to say. But these conversations were long overdue, so instead of meeting the warmth in his eyes, I fiddled with my straw. “Do you remember which exhibit was your favorite?”

“Sure. The seals.”

“The ones that lived outside, free and easy, in the ocean.”

“Yeah. And you liked the blue tangs. What does this have to do with anything?”

“It’s how I see marriage, Nick.”

He arched a brow. “As one giant fish tank?”

I laughed. “In a way. I don’t want to get married and feel like we’re stuck together, a couple of fish in the same tank, with no way out. No way to grow, either.”

He wrapped his hands around his glass, staring down at the ice. “I felt that way, Hil, when you first moved in. That’s what scared me. So I panicked. Like some animal in a zoo.”

“One of the pacing lions, huh?”

He chuckled. “Yeah.” Then he shrugged, turned his dark eyes to meet mine, and a smile crossed his lips, the smile that I could draw in my sleep, the one that had caught my heart the first time I met him. “Do you remember the trip you took to that restaurant convention in December?”

Ernie had sent me, to network with vendors, attend some training and grab freebies. There was nothing he liked more than
a few free neon Coors Light lamps to hang on his wall. “Nothing beats being paid to go to Orlando in the middle of winter.”

“It was the longest four days of my life.” Nick reached across the bar, took one of my hands in his own. I loved the way his hands felt. Honest hands, the hands of a man who worked hard. “When you were gone, I realized what it would be like without you. And it sucked.”

I laughed. “Always the romantic, Nick.”

“Don’t joke.” His face was so serious, it could have been a da Vinci painting. “Not every marriage ends in failure, Hil.”

“I know everyone walks down the aisle thinking the rest of their lives together will be wonderful, but…” I drew in a breath, let it out. “It doesn’t always turn out that way.”

“You’re talking about your father.”

Those five words sat between us, heavy and fat. I wanted to ignore them, to push them away, but couldn’t. “Yeah.”

I’d told Nick the story of my father’s suicide a long time ago. We’d talked about it that one time, then Nick had left the subject alone. He’d told me it was mine to open up again. But I never did.

In a way, I wished he had pushed me to talk about it more. Because all this dancing around the hard stuff was making my feet hurt.

“Have you talked to your mother?”

“About my dad?” I snorted. “No. Not really. That’s a taboo subject.”

“How do you ever expect to escape the tank if you don’t talk about what’s putting you there in the first place?” he asked. “Wasn’t that the whole problem in your house? No one ever talked about anything? Your father shut down?”

“He didn’t shut down. He just…” My voice trailed off. How to explain the way my father’s light had dimmed, then gone out? “Okay, maybe he did.”

“Remember the sharks,” Nick said, “how they circled and circled, and never stopped swimming? You wondered if they ever felt exhausted, and whether they noticed how beautiful the water was because they were so busy swimming and swimming. That’s you, Hil. You’re too busy running to slow down and notice what’s waiting for you.”

Suddenly, all his patience, coupled with the way he kept pushing me for more, came to a head. Nick kept waiting—and wanting. But what was he giving me in return?

I felt pulled in two hundred different directions at once, and I was sick of it.

“And what, you’re Joe Perfect?” I said, drawing my hands out of his. “All this time, we’ve been dating and you haven’t said word one about wanting a marital commitment until now. All of a sudden you want me to turn into Martha Stewart and you’re going to be Boy Next Door. But you haven’t changed a thing in your own life, Nick. You haven’t traded in the motorcycle, quit the band, bought a house, taken out an investment fund or done a single thing that screams grown-up, settle down in suburbia. Yet you want me to become a Stepford wife overnight.”

He recoiled. “I never said that.”

“You were the one talking about kids and a dog the other day. A picket fence, for God’s sake. But I don’t see you making any moves in that direction. It’s all, ‘Hilary, make some changes. Hilary, grow up.’ What about you, Nick? A man who wants to settle down needs to rearrange his priorities, too.”

“My priorities are just fine.”

I shook my head, angry not just at him but at all the pressure caving in on me at once. It seemed as if my head would explode, and part of me knew I was taking it out on Nick but another part wanted him to back off, to give me back my space and stop laying these heavy questions on my doorstep. “Yeah, that’s why you’re going out at night without me. That’s a man with his priorities in the right order. That’s why you’re still playing in a rock-and-roll band at forty.”

He jerked back, and I knew I’d hurt him, but the words were out and I couldn’t stuff those tissues back into the box. “So you think getting married is all about giving up your dreams? Staying home every night and watching
20/20?
”

“All I’m saying is you can’t have everything. You can’t expect me to be the only one changing here. You want the picket-fence life, Nick, you have to at least be willing to be home at night to latch the gate. That’s what marriage is about. Change and sacrifice. It won’t always make you happy, and the sooner you realize that, the better off we’ll both be.”

Hadn’t I seen that with Karen and Jerry? My parents? Sally from Sandusky? Even Carla and Louie had sacrificed and changed for each other.

“What about you? If I make these changes, these sacrifices, will you come along for the ride?”

I couldn’t answer him. What if I did that and we didn’t end up like Carla and Louie and instead ended up miserable? And fifteen years down the road, I was the one holding a gun to my head behind a locked door—or Nick was?

I did love Nick, but trusting him—forever—meant walking down a road I was too afraid to traverse.

So I reverted to my safety zone, the one where sarcasm and jokes were my best friends. “You want me to get in an RV with you and travel the country making blue-ribbon hot-dog casseroles like them?”

“That isn’t what I meant and you know it.” He shook his head and pushed the water aside. “I’m tired of this game, Hilary. I’m tired of asking you a straight question about marriage and getting a zig-zag answer.”

“Then quit
asking
me, Nick! You already know my answer. Why are you being so damned selfish? Can’t you see I have enough on my plate to deal with right now?”

“You think me wanting to spend the rest of my life with you is
selfish?
” A glacier formed in Nick’s gaze. He rose. “I thought I could stick with you until California, but I can’t. I’m done, Hilary. I’m going home. I’m sorry.”

He walked out of the bar. The ice in my glass cracked.

And so did my heart.

I raised my hand and rapped on the door, hard enough to hurt my knuckles. It took a while before it was opened. There she stood in her robe and slippers, the last person in the world I’d ever expected to ask for advice.

“I need to ask you a question.”

Ma waved me in without a comment. The room seemed so silent without her pig. She looked lonelier than ever before and again I wanted to ask why she had given him away, but she still didn’t look ready to talk about it.

We took up seats at the little round maple table by the window. Below us, Colorado blinked and flickered, a city view—a city whose name I had forgotten after all these days
on the road. It was beautiful out there, beautiful in a much different way from the Rockies. Typical city in the night, lights twinkling, cars rushing by, the red-and-white parade of evening traffic. It could have been any city anywhere in America.

Ma poured us each a glass of ice water, crossing her legs as she always had, then uncrossing them, as if she’d suddenly remembered the doctor’s warnings about doing anything that might mess with her circulation.

I hesitated. This was new territory, me asking her for advice. More often, she gave it without being asked, and I ran from the words, doing the exact opposite of what she told me to do.

I drummed my fingers on the table. Sipped from my glass. Glanced out the window. Watched several cars go through a stoplight. Admired the stars. The moon. In short, looked at everything.

And dealt with nothing.

“What is it, Hilary? Why are you here, at half past ten at night?”

I sighed. I’d come here for a reason and avoiding it wasn’t going to make the reason go away. “Nick.”

My mother didn’t say anything, just waited.

“He asked me to marry him.” She already knew this, and I knew it, but it seemed easier to bridge the subject by offering up something everyone already knew. And it helped me delay getting to the meat of things. I was very good at the delaying part. I’d done it with Nick for four years—delaying the answer to why I didn’t want to get married, why I had never committed to him beyond plans for next weekend.

Heck, I’d delayed giving my mother answers, too, for
thirty-plus years. I hadn’t talked about the hard subjects, the bad choices I’d made.

The choices I hadn’t made at all.

Like why I’d never used my psychology degree. Why I’d never advanced beyond working at Ernie’s. Why I hadn’t advanced in my life in general.

I drew in a breath, held it, then let it go.

“I don’t want to get married.”

My mother nodded. “I gathered that. You telling him no was a pretty big clue.”

“It’s not that I don’t like the idea of marriage, for other people. Just not for me.”

“And not with Nick.”

“I don’t mind the idea of marrying Nick,” I said, and as I did, I realized that was true. The idea of Nick in general was a good one. “I love Nick. And he loves me. That’s never been the issue.”

My mother put out her hands. “Then what is the problem?”

I sipped at the ice water, looked out the window some more, and glanced down at the traffic for an answer. But I didn’t find a solution in the Mazdas and Toyotas below me, or above us, in the stars, or even gleaming back in the scuffed finish of the table.

The answer, I knew, was inside myself.

It wasn’t a place I liked to visit very often.

I sat in the uncomfortable armchair for a long time, silent, waiting for Ma to butt in, to give me her two cents. But not a word came. I turned, surprised. “What, no answer for me? No listing of all the reasons I don’t want to get married? I would have thought you’d be ready to tell me. That’s why I came here. So you could tell me what to do.”

My mother sighed and rose. She seemed to be in pain again and took her time crossing to the bed. She sank onto the corner of the double, eased into it really. She splayed her hands across the comforter, glancing down at her neat, no-nonsense manicure for a moment before catching my gaze. “Hilary, I’m not going to tell you what to do, not anymore. You’re old enough to make your own decisions. And frankly, I don’t know if I have the right decisions for you anymore, or the right advice to give. I don’t even know if I have it for me anymore, either. Not really.”

I sat back against the chair, the hard wood hurting my shoulder blades, almost cutting into the skin beneath my T-shirt. “What do you mean you’re not going to tell me what to do? That’s your specialty, Ma.”

A weak smile swept over her face, not the full version of herself. “That hasn’t worked out so well, now has it? All my advice hasn’t actually led anywhere.”