The Boots My Mother Gave Me (30 page)

Cassidy’s arms folded over her chest in a defiant stance. Danny watched, seemingly unbothered, as he ate a cupcake from the refreshment table. Upon seeing them, I pulled away from Jeremiah, motioning him in their direction. Dancing with me certainly did nothing to ensure his chances with Cassidy.

“Harley,” the sound of my name jerked my mind back to the present at Benny’s. “We’ve got a rear-end repair coming in, one of our contracts. You up for that?”

“I might need a little refresher, Pete. It’s been a long time,” I confessed.

Later that evening at Kat’s, I cleaned up from work. I heard the phone ring while I took a shower. Kat came charging into the bathroom. “That was Mom. We have to get her a plane ticket home.”

“Home?” I turned the water off.

“She’s crying. She’s sick to her stomach. She threw up all night. She can’t do this, Harley. We have to go get her, fly her home, something.”

“Calm down, Kat. Let me get wiped off and I’ll call her back.” I toweled off in record time, threw on a robe, and dialed her number at the resort.

“Hello,” my mother’s voice shaky.

“Mom.”

“Harley, I want to come home. Get me the next flight out of here.”

“Talk to me. What’s going on?”

“It’s the altitude. I’ve been sick all night. They said it would take a day or two for my body to adjust.”

“Are you alone?”

“No. The girl who lives in the dorm next to me, Molly, she stayed with me all night.”

“That was sweet of her. What about everybody else? Are they nice?”

“Oh, yeah, they’re great. Everyone I’ve met so far. I just want to come home.” With
home,
she cried.

I sympathized, “Mom, when I left home, the first time, I got so homesick, some nights I thought I wouldn’t make it, sure if I fell asleep the world would collapse by morning. But then, when I got up and the sun rose, I would think,
Yeah, I can do this.
And every night it got easier, until I wasn’t homesick anymore. I promise it will get easier. You just have to give it a chance.”

“I’m one of the oldest people here, Harley. Most everybody here is in college. They’re on summer break. I don’t belong here. I want to come home,” she reiterated tearfully.

“You’re a late bloomer, that’s all. Think of it as your second lease on life.”

“I’m a late bloomer, all right,” she shot back, self-deprecatingly. “I feel so out of place.”

“Everybody feels out of place the first time they do anything. You have to settle into it,” I spoke softly.

“What would you do?”

“I would stay, at least for a week, or two, give it some time, and then make my decision. I think you’re going to be disappointed if you leave, disappointed in yourself,” I said. “You know how it is. The harder something is, the more rewarding it is to conquer it.”

“No, I don’t know how that is, because I’ve always taken the easy way out.”

“There’s no better time to change than the present. You can do this, Mom. Just reverse the situation. If this were me or Kat calling you, what would you tell us?”

“I would probably tell you not to quit and give it some time.”

“Exactly! You know what to do. Just take your own advice, Mom.”

“I guess. I know you’re right. I would feel better if I saw it through. I don’t want to regret going home. I have enough regrets,” she said, her voice growing in strength. “Do you remember that time, in the laundry room, you told me someday you’d be the momma?”

“I was just thinking about that the other day.” I laughed, and so did she.

“Well, I guess you’re getting your big moment.”

“And I never once told you,
because I said so,
did I?”

“No. No, you didn’t.”

Mom made it through her first week and decided to stay. She was trying things she had never done before, even surprising herself with what she could do. She was living. I was so proud of her. More importantly, she was proud of herself for the first time in a long time.

I
gave my father a few weeks to process everything before going to see him. Pulling into the driveway of my childhood home, I couldn’t help but wonder why I was there. So often as a teen, I thought it best for all of us never to see Dad again. The only reason I kept coming back was because of Mom. She finally left, and I found myself trying to come to my father’s rescue.

I apprehensively got out of Charlene and walked to the front porch. The place looked desolate, the lawn so high, as though no one resided here, with the exception of a few snakes quite possibly, slithering around in the grass.

I stepped to the front door, peeping through the window as I knocked lightly. The living room in total disarray, things scattered about, the couch sat in the middle of the floor. The place was dark, every shade and curtain closed in the middle of the day, a summer day, bright and beautiful. Dad’s head popped up from the couch; he motioned me in. The place reeked of cigarette smoke. Mom would have had a canary.

“Harley,” he called, as I walked into the living room.

“Hey, Dad. I wanted to come by and see how you’re doing,” my voice dropped off as I fully entered the room. He looked like a skid row bum, the hair on his face and head long and scraggly, a far cry from his usual appearance.
What the hell was he doing?
Mid-afternoon, and he wore his white long johns that appeared not to have been laundered in weeks. The place looked a wreck; he looked a wreck.

“I can’t believe she did this to me,” he cried without tears. I read somewhere people can cry without tears and express true emotion, especially mentally and emotionally damaged people. I also read some deeply disturbed people don’t truly feel emotions, but they learn how to mimic them, according to societal standards to get what they want, and those people often have difficulty producing real tears. Was my father the former or the latter, damaged or deranged?

“You did this to yourself, Dad,” I spoke firmly. My father never told the truth about himself. I thought maybe I could tell the truth for him, setting him free by proxy.

“What did I do to deserve this?”

“Dad,” I said, agitated. Everybody has to know in the depths of themselves. Even liars have to know the truth, somewhere, don’t they?

“I know,” he said, followed by another, “I just can’t believe she would do this to me. I need her.”

“It’s over, Dad. That part of our lives, it’s gone. Mom’s not going to accept it anymore. It’s done.”

“I wasn’t that way all the time. It wasn’t that bad.”

“That depends, whose point of view you’re looking through.”

“She’s my world. I don’t have anything without your mother,” he continued, clutching at his chest.

“You have us, Kat, Megan, and me. Now you need to pull yourself together and remember you have a granddaughter who thinks you hung the moon. I’ve seen you do it before, Dad. You can be a decent person, a good person. Get rid of all the crap, the alcohol, whatever else you’re holding onto, and get on with your life.”

“I can’t.” He groaned. “I just can’t.”

“Do you remember when we were kids, Kat and I, out in the hay field in the summertime, for hours? The sun heating through our clothes, sweat dripping down our faces, we thought we would surely perish. What did you tell us?” He would not answer. “You told us, ‘Suck it up, quit whining, and get back to work.’ You never let us get away with anything. You said you never wanted to hear
I can’t
in our vocabulary. We never got a cop-out. Why should you?”

“I just can’t do it.”

“Maybe you need some help. It’s all right to need help. We all need help. What about the VA? They’ll help. Kat and I will too. We’ll come see you, take you to and from, whatever you need.”

“Those programs never worked for me. I’m going to find someone to stay with me,” he hinted, “here at the house, until your mother comes back.”

Are you out of your ever-loving mind!
I wanted to scream.
If you think Kat or I will move into this house with you, to take care of you, pick up after you and take your tongue-lashings whenever you decide to hand them out, like Mom did, you’re freaking crazy! Do I look like I was born yesterday?
That’s what I wanted to say. He was so calculating. Did he think I was that gullible, that dumb? Or did he think he was that good at manipulating?

“The last thing you need is for someone to move in here with you. You need to get it together and start living your life, a healthy one. Start doing things for yourself. Go back to work, or pick up a hobby. Mow the lawn,” I suggested.
For crying out loud get up off your ass and do something productive,
I wanted to shout. “Live your life. That’s what Mom’s trying to do.”

“Where is your mother? You can tell me. I’m not going to bother her. I just want to talk to her. Make her understand. I want to tell her how sorry I am. I’m going to be different, Harley, I really am.”

I ignored his plea concerning Mom’s whereabouts, attempting to focus on the positive. “Good, be different. I’ve seen you do it before, Dad. You can do this.”

“Someday I’m going to get up the nerve,” he began, pausing, “to end it all.”

“What do you mean, end it all? What are you talking about? Are you planning on
taking us all out?
Is that another threat? Why would you even say something like that?” my voice on the rise.

I paced the carpet, calming before continuing, “You know what, I can see this is a total waste right now. Maybe you need some more time. All I know, we’re here, when you’re ready. You know where to find us.” I walked out the door.

I made my way to Charlene, hastily driving off, attempting to wrap my mind around the conversation. I probably could have handled it better. Maybe I shouldn’t have gone to see him at all. I didn’t want to leave him to himself, becoming more lonely and depressed, if he was lonely and depressed.
What was he?
I had no way of knowing, he cried wolf so many times, the master manipulator.

In his general pattern of things, first he would strong-arm Mom, threatening her to come back, or else. He had passed that phase. Then he would go to the remorseful stage, where he promised never to do it again and vowed his undying love. That’s where he lingered currently. The thing that bothered me, what was to come? He had never graduated from this point, because Mom always came back. What would he do? I had no idea what he was capable of.

Frustrated, I cranked the volume to one of the songs Adam and I wrote in Austin as I drove:

You always come to me,

With all your problems constantly.

You know, I really don’t mind,

You talk about it all the time.

We all make choices, everyone,

We have to own the things we’ve done.

You say it’s everybody else’s fault,

Better watch your back, you might get caught.

It’s not always about you,

What makes you think you’re the only one?

Do you ever think about anybody,

In anything you’ve ever done?

Go on and do the things you do,

But don’t be surprised,

When it’s not always about you.

M
ay passed to June. Kat faithfully phoned Dad, inviting him to dinner, Megan’s birthday party, and little things here and there. He declined or didn’t show up at all, every time. She was so good and understanding. I was not. I absolutely refused to call him, waiting for him to make the next move, convinced if he wanted to be part of our lives, he would make the effort. Otherwise, he would prove as uncaring and self-involved as I thought.

Mom did well in Wyoming. She sent us letters and pictures. Her latest feat, she climbed to the top of some mountain that stood fourteen thousand feet high.

I managed to sidestep Jeremiah most of the time, a permanent fixture around Georgia these days. After his injury, his recon unit couldn’t take him back. Adamant he did not sign up with the Marines for a desk job, he joined the state police department. Very bizarre, the two of us back in this town again. I always thought it easier never to leave a small town, because then you wouldn’t know what you’re missing, rather than break away only to return completely aware of all that’s out there.

Kat moved along with school. One more semester of junior college, and she could transfer to the university for fashion design. She worked on her clothing line, completing nearly enough pieces for a full show. She was so talented. Joey Harper resurfaced, much to my chagrin. He was Megan’s dad and Kat wanted him around. For some reason, she still loved that guy.

I played a few gigs, every now and then, in the next town over. It was twice the size of Georgia with a population of three thousand. I opened for a band at
Kelly’s Bar and Grill
one evening, when Kat showed up at the end of my set, primed and ready to party, in rare form. She came through the door at
Kelly’s
in some getup I just knew was illegal in most states, something she made, of course. She looked like Madonna, the Material Girl incarnate.