2. Keaton Recipe for Disaster
As long as I can remember, my mother has blamed practically everything that has gone wrong in her life on her parents’ untimely deaths. She is, in fact, blaming something on their deaths right now, as I walk into her bright modern living room in her apartment on the forty-fourth floor of the retirement community where she and my dad just moved—a fact that everyone in our family finds totally absurd. But that’s Mom: an always-prepared worrier. I had hoped to find a little solace and compassion at my parents’ house, but, instead, I’ve walked into a situation between my mom and Uncle Lon that I don’t quite understand.
“I can’t go back to Beaufort,” she is saying to him as I sit down. “I just can’t.”
My mother is dressed in a chic pair of pants and top, always the height of fashion. She swims forty laps each morning, plays bridge twice a week, has perfect eyesight, and a memory so sharp she’s my first call when I can’t remember something. My father, one year her junior, still works as the manager of the hedge fund he took over when he and my mother moved to New York from Raleigh ten years ago, and he is consistently considered one of the best in his field.
It stunned me that my parents moved to New York and left my hometown not long after I did—not just for my dad’s job, but also because they insisted they wanted to be closer to me. My mother wasn’t exactly what you would call involved when I was growing up. She wasn’t on the PTA or planning class parties; she didn’t feel the need to be at my basketball games. She taught me to make my own lunch when I was in kindergarten, and by the time I was six, I was in charge of my own laundry. My brother and I were loved, and my dad did most of the parent-bonding stuff with us, but, in a lot of ways, we were on our own when it came to our mom. I used to wonder if it was because she was a solid decade older than my friend’s moms, or if maybe she was just tired from working all day. But that was just Mom’s personality, I guess. She was independent and wanted us to be too.
“What are you doing here in the middle of the day, sweetie?” Mom asks.
I hoped I would find some sympathy after my terrible day, but now I get the feeling that I have walked into another hornet’s nest. I’m fairly certain I haven’t heard Lon correctly as he, not waiting for my answer, says, “Well, Virginia, maybe Keaton could fly to North Carolina to put the house on Sunset Lane on the market.”
I squint, certain I haven’t heard him correctly. “You mean, like, the house you grew up in?”
He nods. “Well, yes.”
I shake my head, trying to piece this together. “Mom, I’m sorry. You still own the house you grew up in?” I had always assumed that it had gutted my mother and uncle to leave their parents’ house in Beaufort, North Carolina, the mythical house on Sunset Lane Harris and I had occasionally heard stories about but had never actually seen.
She looks as unfazed as I have ever seen her as Lon, who has Mom’s same hazel eyes, long eyelashes, and bow mouth, says, “We never sold it.”
“Does someone rent it or something?” I pause. “No. Forget that. How have you had this house my whole life, and I’ve never known about it?”
“We just—” Mom starts. But then she looks down into her coffee cup.
Lon fills in for her. “Your mom and I haven’t been able to bear to go back there since they died.”
I’m still squinting, I realize. I try to relax my face. “So, what you’re telling me is that you have left this house sitting there, without visiting once, for nearly five decades? You realize it must be a rotting pile by now, right?”
I’m really annoyed, namely because this is a classic Mom move. She managed to almost single-handedly start a domestic violence shelter in North Carolina for women and children who had to flee—often with nothing more than the clothes on their back—and ran it for thirty years until she handed over the reins to a new director and came to New York. She raised the money, hired the staff, and organized the therapists, many of whom volunteered their time. When she wanted to do something, look out world. But what she doesn’t want to deal with, she ignores. Her problems. Her small children. And, evidently, a house. But I hadn’t recognized that my uncle also shared this trait.
My mother scoffs. “It isn’t rotting, Keaton. You’re so dramatic.”
“We have a handyman who keeps things in order,” Lon says. “It’s cleaned every now and then. The exterminator comes.”
I can’t read my mom’s expression, but I swear she thinks this is normal. I have so many questions. “Okay… so is there a reason you want to sell it now?”
She nods, and her eyes glisten with tears. My breath catches. Is she sick? Is Uncle Lon? Do they need the money to move somewhere else? It isn’t until this moment that I realize how much I love having my parents in New York. With me. Where we can have dinner together on Wednesday nights and I can pop by after work and Mom and I can take walks on the weekends. I finally have the family I always wanted. “Well, Keaty,” Lon says, “real estate prices have skyrocketed, and with the re-estimation of our tax value, it doesn’t really make sense to hold on to it anymore.”
I want to say, But it made sense to hold on to it for all these years?
Mom picks up: “But, really, the bottom line is that Lon and I aren’t getting any younger. We feel like you and Harris co-owning the house with your two cousins would just be so complicated. We don’t want any controversy within the family.” Her voice cracks. “So we need someone to go down there and get it ready to put on the market. Your dad is so busy with work, and Lon and I just can’t bear to do it ourselves. So, we were hoping… well, you might be able to step in.”
She is clearly very upset. My grandparents have been dead since long before I was born, and, even as a kid, I had this sixth sense not to ask a lot of questions. On the rare occasion Mom mentioned my grandparents—or the car accident that killed them—she seemed so sad that I never pressed. But still, this is a huge ask.
I sigh. “Mom, this just isn’t a great time… Actually, can I stay with you tonight? And maybe… for the foreseeable future?”
She looks at me with a mix of compassion and, well, self-satisfaction. “Jonathan-and-I-broke-up-and-I-got-fired,” I say, super fast, like if I don’t breathe it won’t be real.
To Mom’s credit, she doesn’t gloat. “I’m sorry, sweetheart,” she says.
“Yeah. So I kind of have a lot going on here. What about Harris?”
Mom laughs, as if the idea of my busy, important brother taking a moment off work is simply absurd. Yes, technically, his job—CEO and president of his own celebrity PR firm—might have a bigger title than mine, and, yes, he could get any ungettable ticket or invitation at a moment’s notice. But I am also quite successful, which my mother well knows. Or, well, I was, I remember with a sinking feeling. I want to point out that Harris, a trained pilot with his own plane, could fly himself to North Carolina and it would take way less time than me fighting lines at JFK. But once she gets an idea in her head, there’s no stopping her.
“This is fate!” she says firmly. “You need a place to live. You have some unexpected time off work. Don’t you see how perfect this is?”
I shake my head. “Mom, I will go with you if you want some help, but I am not taking this on by myself. No way.”
The warm, tingly feelings I get just thinking about that surprise me. Have we ever taken a mother-daughter trip? I know we haven’t.
“Fine, darling, fine. I understand. Lon and I will simply have to hire someone to dismantle all that is left of our treasured family memories.”
I know what she’s doing and it’s kind of working. The idea of my grandparents’ belongings, any vestige of the people they once were, being packed up and shipped off to the Salvation Army doesn’t sit well with me. I’m being given a chance to piece together these people who, combined, are half of me. Am I just going to toss that to the curb?
“Please, honey?” Lon says. “We know you’re busy, but you can figure something out, right? Everyone wants a piece of small-town coastal charm. And selling the house for a record price would obviously behoove you too.” He pauses. He’s a realtor, so he would know. “Look, your mom and I are emotionally ill-equipped humans who can’t face our childhood home. If you could get the house cleaned up and organize a few updates, I’ll give you ten percent commission on whatever the house goes for.”
I raise my eyebrow. Commission. I haven’t considered this. It would certainly help ease the transition of looking for a new job. Just the thought of it relaxes me. “What do you think you can sell it for?”
He tells me, and I almost fall off my chair. Even with a ten percent commission, I could start over again, buy myself some time to figure out what I want to do next. But, unlike Allison, I am an excellent businesswoman and recognize the need to negotiate here. “All right, commission king,” I say, calling my uncle by our family’s nickname for him, “I’ll consider your offer, but I won’t do it for a penny less than thirty percent.”
“Fifteen,” he counters.
“Twenty-five.”
“Twenty.”
“You’ve got a deal,” I say, standing and sticking out my hand.
“Keaton, have I taught you nothing?” He doesn’t move. “Stand your ground. I would have given you twenty-five.”
“I would have done it for fifteen.”
He laughs. “Touché.” He removes the key from the ring in his pocket and gives me a hug.
“Do you want to have lunch, sweetheart?” Mom asks. “Talk through your terrible day?”
“Forget lunch,” Lon says. “The girl needs a drink. But on the bright side, maybe you can take up water aerobics or tai chi while you’re here. Get them to puree your food for you. Chewing is overrated.”
I laugh. Mom and Dad’s part of the building isn’t like that, and Lon knows it, but he finds it endlessly hilarious that his younger sister has moved herself two steps away from a nursing home despite even a remote hint of a medical problem.
“Hey, Keat?”
“Yeah.”
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” I say as he kisses my cheek. “Love you.”
One of our family rules is that no matter what happens in life, even if you’re in the middle of a life-altering fight, you don’t leave without telling everyone how much you love them.
“Love you. Want me to help you look for flights?”
I scoff. “Yeah. Right.” I hate to fly. I mean, hate it. Obviously, a thirty-three-year-old who has been places in life has had to fly on numerous occasions. But getting me through requires Xanax for days, cortisone for the welts I get, and visualization meditation—and sometimes, even all that doesn’t help. I have been to therapy to try to get to the root of why I am so terrified to fly. But it seems I am one of those special cases where there is no real reason.
“I’ll drive,” I say definitively.
“It’s a ten-hour drive, Keaton,” Lon says with an eye roll. Lon knows I’m scared to fly, but he finds it absurd. Now that I know he’s never sold his childhood home, I feel a little like the pot and the kettle.
“You should drive in case you want to take a few things from the house,” Mom interjects.
I highly doubt that I will, but I appreciate that she has saved me. I’ll take the vintage Bronco Jonathan bought me as a birthday surprise—the one that, I’ll be honest, I was hoping was going to be an engagement ring. Whatever. I’m not giving it back. Severance.
After Lon leaves, I have another thought. “Do I need to get a hotel room in Beaufort?”
Mom looks out the window distractedly. “No. There should be a bed left for you to sleep in.” She pauses. “You’ll love it, Keaton. It’s downtown, right on the water, surrounded by the most beautiful houses and shops and restaurants…”
She trails off and I watch her, wishing I could read her mind, wondering why she never went back if she loved it so much. My stomach turns. If my mother could keep a secret as big as a whole house, what else has she been keeping from me? As she turns and smiles with her mouth but not her eyes, a feeling deep in my gut tells me I’m not sure I want to know.