Chapter 35 Benji
The next morning, Mickey tells me we’re going to his mother’s house for lunch.
He doesn’t ask. He doesn’t frame it as optional.
He says, “We’re going to Mama’s. Sheila’s sending a cooler,” the same way he’d tell me the weather or the time, like meeting the woman who raised him is just the next thing that’s happening today.
My stomach has other opinions about how casual this is.
I spend forty-five minutes getting ready, which is thirty minutes longer than I need and fifteen minutes shorter than I want. Dante is on a video call giving me instructions from Miami.
“The light blue shirt,” he says. “Not the white linen. The white linen says I’m trying to impress you. The blue says I’m already impressive and I came anyway.”
“What about the eyeliner?” I ask.
“You’re asking me if you should take off the eyeliner to meet his mother?”
“I’m asking if it’s too much.”
“Benji. If you walk into that woman’s house without the eyeliner, you’re walking in as somebody else.
She’s meeting you. Not a version of you that’s been sanded down for approval.
You. The whole beautiful thing. If she doesn’t like it, that’s information you need.
And if she does like it, that’s the only approval that counts. ”
He’s right.
Mickey’s parents live in a small house twenty minutes from the Roadhouse. The house is white with green shutters and a ramp over the front steps that wasn’t there before the shooting.
“Tex built the ramp,” Mickey says from the passenger seat. “He came out on a Saturday with Stormy and they had it done in four hours.”
I pull the rental car into the driveway.
The ramp is solid, wide enough for the chair with room to spare, and the handrails are sanded smooth.
Tex-quality. I get the chair from the trunk and set it up beside the passenger door.
Mickey transfers himself, hands on the seat, one push, swing the legs.
It’s not graceful and it takes longer than stepping out of a car ever did but he does it on his own.
Mickey wheels up the ramp and through the front door.
There’s a man in a recliner in the living room watching the Weather Channel at a volume that suggests he’s been watching it for several hours and will continue watching it for several more. Mickey’s father. Silver hair, thin frame, eyes that are focused on the screen.
“Hey, Dad,” Mickey says.
His father looks at him. The eyes land on Mickey’s face and stay there for a second too long. The second where Mickey doesn’t know if his father sees his son or a stranger in a wheelchair. I watch Mickey’s hand tighten on the wheel rim.
“Mickey,” his father says. “You’re in a wheelchair.”
“Yeah, Daddy. For now.”
“Did you get hurt playing football?”
“No, don’t worry. It’s no big deal. I’m getting better.”
His father nods slowly. “Glad to hear it.” He turns back to the weather. A front is moving through the Panhandle. The weather girl is explaining it with a map and his father is watching like it’s the most important broadcast in history.
A woman appears from the kitchen. Small.
Silver-streaked hair pulled back in a clip.
Blue eyes that are Mickey’s eyes, the same shade, the same steadiness, except hers have lines around them from years of holding things together while things fell apart.
When she sees Mickey, she gives him a quick scan.
“You’re looking better, sweetheart,” she says. She puts her hand on his cheek. Then she looks past him at me.
I’m standing behind his wheelchair and I’m suddenly, acutely aware that this is Mickey’s mother. She’s been waiting to meet me and I’ve never in my life wanted to make a good impression more than I want to make one right now.
“Mama,” Mickey says. “This is my boyfriend, Benji.”
She looks at me. The same scan she gave Mickey, head to toe, except hers takes slightly longer. I hold still for it because this woman has earned the right to take a long look.
“You’re the one who put the air under him,” she says.
“Ma’am, I don’t know…”
“I heard it in his voice,” she explains.
“Weeks ago. He sounded different after you started coming around. Lighter and better. I told him on the phone and he didn’t know what I meant but I did.
” She reaches forward and takes my free hand in both of hers.
Her hands are small and the grip is strong. “Thank you for taking care of my boy.”
“He takes care of me too,” I say. Mickey’s mother is holding my hand and I’m about to cry.
“He’s a good one. Always was.” She lets go of my hand and points at the cooler. “Is that Sheila’s?”
“Brisket and ribs.”
“Perfect. I’ve been baking a cobbler. Come in and sit down. Tell me about yourself while I finish the crust.”
We sit in the kitchen. Mickey at the table in his chair, me on a wooden chair beside him, his mother moving between the counter and the oven. The cobbler she’s making is peach with a lattice crust. The kitchen smells like cinnamon and butter.
“So you’re from Miami,” she says, sliding the cobbler into the oven and closing the door with her hip.
“Born and raised. My mom’s in Coral Gables.”
“And you plan weddings.”
“Yes, ma’am. Six years now. I run my own business.”
“How’d you end up all the way in the Panhandle?”
“I had a big wedding on 30A. I went to Tex’s bar because I wanted to watch the sunset.”
“And that’s when the trouble happened,” she says.
“Yes, ma’am. At the bar.”
She’s quiet for a moment. Her hands are still, the dish towel over her shoulder.
“And afterwards you went to see him in the hospital.”
“Every day I could make the drive.”
“Which was every day except for maybe a couple,” Mickey adds.
“That’s two hours each way,” she says. “While you were planning a wedding.”
I shrug and turn to smile at Mickey. “He was worth it. I needed to make sure he had something decent to eat besides hospital food.”
Mickey reaches over, takes my hand and holds it in his.
She glances at our hands and smiles. “He doesn’t eat enough,” she says to me.
“Never has. Even before. He’d come over after a twelve-hour shift and I’d ask if he ate.
He’d say he had a protein shake and I’d say that’s not food and he’d say it’s a food group.
We’ve been having the same argument since he was twenty-two.
If it wasn’t for Tex and Sheila, he’d never get fed. ”
“I have the same argument with him,” I say. “Nightly.”
“Keep having it. He needs someone who won’t quit on the argument.”
“Well, that would be Benji,” Mickey teases. “He never quits on anything.”
His mother turns back to the counter and checks the cobbler through the oven window. Her back is to us and when she speaks again her voice is quieter. She glances toward the living room where the Weather Channel is still going at almost full volume.
“I wanted to be there,” she says to me. “At the hospital. When Tex called me and told me Mickey had been shot, I was ready to drive us both to the hospital.” She folds the dish towel into a tight square.
Unfolds it. Folds it again. “And then his father wandered out of the bedroom and didn’t know where he was.
He thought he was at work. He was looking for his truck keys.
I spent an hour getting him calmed down and back to bed.
I knew I couldn’t take him to the hospital with me and I couldn’t leave him either. ”
I glance over at Mickey and he silently shakes his head.
Let her talk.
“Tex called me with updates,” she says. “And I called Mickey every morning. But it wasn’t the same as being there.
My son was lying in a hospital bed with a bullet wound in his spine and I was here making sure his father took his medication and ate his breakfast and didn’t walk out the front door at three in the morning.
” She puts the dish towel down and turns around.
Her eyes are wet. “I need you to know I would’ve been there if I could’ve. ”
She’s not saying it to Mickey. She’s saying it to me. Because I was there and she wasn’t. She needs the person who showed up to understand why she couldn’t. As if I would ever judge her.
“Mrs. Weaver,” I say. “Mickey knew that. He told me you were taking care of his dad and that’s where you needed to be. He said it like it was the most obvious thing in the world. Like there was no other answer. And there wasn’t.”
Her hand comes up to her mouth. Quick. Just a second. Then it’s down again and she’s smoothing the dish towel on the counter.
“You’re a good mother,” I say. “And he’s proud of you and how you take care of his dad. He told me that too.”
Mickey’s hand tightens around mine under the table. He hasn’t said a word. His mother and I have an understanding. We both care about Mickey.
“Well,” she says, and the word is thick for a second before she clears her throat and pulls the cobbler from the oven.
“The cobbler needs to cool for ten minutes. I’ll go get the nice plates for special company.
This is the first time Mickey has ever brought a boyfriend home. You’re special, Benji.”
My heart melts and it’s all I can do not to lean my head on Mickey’s shoulder.
Ten minutes later, the cobbler is on the table and his mother is moving again, setting out plates and forks.
The cobbler is extraordinary, the peaches soft and sweet under the lattice crust. I eat two servings because I can’t resist and because Mickey’s mother is watching me eat the way Mickey does.
Apparently, the watching is a family trait.
His father wanders into the kitchen during the cobbler. He looks at me then at Mickey.
“Who’s your friend?” he asks Mickey as if he didn’t see me come in the front door a few minutes before.
“This is Benji, Dad.”
“Does he play football?” he asks. “Is he the quarterback?”
His dad is clearly in another decade. I know enough about dementia to play along.
Mickey glances at me, and winks. “No Daddy, he doesn’t play football. That’s just me and Tex.”