Chapter 22 - Sawyer
SAWYER
“Are you sure you don’t want to stick around a little longer?” my mother asked sweetly. “We could watch Jeopardy together. Like we used to.”
Her pleading expression melted my heart, and for a fleeting moment I saw her as she used to be. Young. Radiant. Loving. She was still loving, but there were more lines around her mouth now. More crow’s feet at the corners of those mist-colored eyes.
“Is this going to be another recording of an episode you watched last night?” I surmised. “One where you already know all the answers?”
She laughed, and her laughter reminded me of childhood. “Aww, c’mon,” she implored. “That was a joke. You know I was just kidding around with you.”
“Uh huh,” I smiled. “Except that you did it twice.”
My mother’s devilish grin even grew wider. “Twice that you know of,” she winked.
I shook my head and hugged her again. There was hardly anything to her now, and even less every time I came by.
So many little things in the house changed too; gradually, bit by bit, the decor I remembered was gone.
Some of it had been replaced by new, often grandiose things I didn’t recognize.
Other pieces just disappeared however, leaving an empty space in my heart, where they used to be.
“Stay,” she said again. “Just another half hour.”
Another half hour. My eyes shifted to the monstrosity over her shoulder; her grandfather’s grandfather clock. I noticed the time.
“You’re hoping I run into dad, aren’t you?”
Her body stiffened a little. We both knew what she was trying to do.
“He’d really love to see you,” she lied.
“Yeah. I’m sure.”
“No, Sawyer, I’m serious,” she pulled back to look at me. “He talked about you just last week.”
I rolled my eyes. “Last week.”
“The Murphys’ son is in the Army, and he just got stationed in Frankfurt. And your father was telling them about the time you were there, and, well…”
She went on, but by now I was hardly listening. As with most times she began talking about my father, my mind drifted intentionally elsewhere. There were a whole host of reasons why I needed to get out of here before he came home. My mother knew only some of them.
“And then, back when you were traveling Europe—”
“Hey, that reminds me!” I cried, happy to change the subject. “I almost forgot!”
I doubled back to the kitchen table, where I’d left a small brown bag. When I handed it to my mother, her eyes lit up.
“For me?” she clapped.
“Of course it’s for you!”
I loved this little game we played. Her excitement was always worth it.
“Ohh! Where did you go?”
Her little hands worked quickly to pull a wrapped object from the bag. Right away, I wished it could be something else.
“I know it’s not much,” I began apologetically, “but there wasn’t a big opportunity for shopping around. We were only in town for an hour or two, and we didn’t—”
“Sawyer, I LOVE it!”
She hoisted the ‘I’d Rather Be in Maine’ coffee mug up to eye level, twisting it in all directions. It wasn’t the greatest gift in the world, but it adhered to our long-running tradition of me getting her something from every new place I’d visited.
“I don’t drink coffee anymore, I drink tea,” my mother smiled. “Herbal tea. And only decaffeinated.”
I wrinkled my nose. “Why don’t I just go outside, and crush some leaves into a cup?”
“Very funny.”
“There was one with a moose on it, and another with a lobster. But I figured—”
“No, no, it’s perfect! Thank you!”
She hugged me again, so tightly I wasn’t sure she’d ever let go. For a few long seconds, I wondered if the hug would last twenty-eight more minutes.
“I’m not going to be drinking out of it anyway,” she said, walking over to her tchotchke cabinet. “I’m putting it right here, next to everything else.”
By now, ‘everything else’ was a fairly impressive collection. My past occupation had sent me to dozens of countries, cities, and places around the world, and I’d scored serious mom points by bringing back gifts from each of them. All without having to join the Army, too.
“Dad’s going to see that if you put it in there,” I warned her. “And you’ll catch hell for me being here.”
“So?”
“So if you put it in the kitchen cabinet, you can pretend one of your friends brought it over, and—”
“Bah!” she frowned. “You let me worry about dealing with your father. I have four whole decades of experience at it, anyway.”
I watched carefully as she walked back to me, favoring her left hip. I didn’t like how pronounced her limp had become. There were small flashes of pain in her face, too, with every step.
“Mom, we really need to get your—”
“How was Maine, anyway?” she smiled.
“Fun.”
“As beautiful as I’ve heard?”
At the word beautiful, my mind wandered back to Hayden. I’d been dying to call her. Or at least text her. Or better yet, see her again. But the agreement I’d made with Carter and Bodie was all about giving her some space.
Still, I was willing to shatter our little pact; if only to make certain she was alright. And if I ended up kissing her in the process? Hey, shit happens.
“It was gorgeous, mom,” I sighed wistfully. “Better than you see on your TV shows, more incredible than all the stories you’ve heard. You and dad really need to see it. In fact—”
My phone buzzed, and I looked down at it hopefully. But the message I saw from Carter wiped the smile from my face.
“Mom… I gotta go.”
“But—”
“I’m sorry,” I said, gingerly sweeping her into my arms again. “My friends need me. I’ve gotta run.”
My car was parked a few blocks down, a full five-minute walk away. If I hustled, I could get there in two.
“I love you, Sawyer.”
“Love you too, mom.”
As desperate as I was to get out of there, I let our last hug run its full, lingering course. One, because I loved my mother. Two, because I needed time to think.
But also, because the unfortunate reality was, that you never really knew when it would be the last last hug.