Chapter Nineteen
Ben
I needed to get out of Cedar Springs. I’d known it for a long time, but it grew more and more apparent by the day. My lunch hour became a montage of vacation spots—many of them recommended by Iris—and apartments in nearby cities. I didn’t need to run to the other side of the country or anything. I loved my family and wanted to be able to visit, I just needed a new start, a place where I could be who I was and not the kid everyone remembered from twenty years ago or more.
I started with Indianapolis, but I knew a lot of people left Cedar Springs and ended up there. I wasn’t sure I wanted to be just another one of them. Not to mention that I’d been keeping an eye on the cost of apartments there over the past few years and the prices were getting uncomfortably high. I had a decent savings set aside, but I didn’t like the idea of dipping so far into it. Unfortunately, that phenomenon didn’t appear isolated to Indy.
“Daydreaming again?” Iris teased as she passed my desk to return to hers toward the end of lunch.
“Problem-solving,” I corrected, frowning as I continued scrolling apartment listings.
She leaned over to take a closer look at my screen. “Wow, those are pricey.”
“That’s the problem.” I leaned back turning to face her. “If I take too long to drum up clients in a new city, I’m going to have to raid my rainy day fund.”
“Then get the clients before you move,” she suggested.
I opened my mouth to dismiss the idea, but then I really considered it. And realized it wasn’t terrible. In fact, it had real potential.
“Seeee,” she pressed, using every ‘e’ in the word and then some. Her dark eyebrows wiggled playfully. “It would totally solve your problem.”
“It might solve my problem,” I allowed, still thinking over the details at the speed of light. “But then I’d be driving down to Indy several times a week, which I don’t love either.”
Iris shrugged her shoulders. “It would only be until you were ready to move. And then you’d have some clients to break your transition.”
“You mean my fall?”
Her elegant features smooshed into a grimace. “Let’s hope not.”
Shaking my head at her snark, I checked my phone. Again.
I’d texted Mom almost an hour ago to see if I could bring the purchase agreement over, but I still hadn’t heard back from her. And I wasn’t stupid enough to actually tell her that was the reason I wanted to stop by, so it wasn’t deliberate as far as I knew. Mom always replied, usually in less than two minutes. An entire hour of radio silence was alarming.
I hit the green call button and listened to it ring until it went to her voicemail.
Her voicemail .
“I’m going to go take this purchase agreement to my mom,” I told Iris as I packed up.
She nodded, but didn’t look away from whatever project held her attention. We didn’t have set work hours, exactly, since we needed to come and go for showings and meetings almost daily. We just all shared an office space and used it for closings, printing, and the occasional team meeting.
I was standing on Mom’s front porch minutes later, thanks to the miniscule size of this town. Raising a fist, I almost knocked before I remembered Mom’s request to just come on in.
“Ben?” Her voice wavered as she called out. “Is that you?” She sounded different, an odd note in her words.
Setting down my bag I sought her out, following the question. “Yeah,” I called back. “I just brought over—”
I stopped talking the moment I set foot in the kitchen, instead rushing over to where my mom laid on the kitchen floor, propped up against the back of the sofa.
“Mom! What happened? Are you alright?”
“Oh, I’m fine. No need to fuss.”
I frowned at her with a look of deepest skepticism. “Then why are you on the floor ignoring phone calls?” Finally looking at my surroundings, I quickly pieced together the most likely scenario. A fallen ladder under the kitchen pendant light. A broken light bulb. And an irritated Mom.
“You tried to change the light, didn’t you?”
“There’s no earthly reason a woman can’t change a light bulb!” she argued vehemently.
“Mom, you have vertigo!” I reminded her, not so gently. “A woman, yes. Anyone with vertigo, no.” Inspecting the odd positioning of her leg, I helped her up gently. “We need to get you to the hospital.”
“I’m fine,” she protested again, this time without any fire behind the words. “I just couldn’t get to the phone is all.”
“Because you broke your leg.” We made slow progress toward the door, and she winced every time she had to put weight on her right foot.
“Maybe the doctor can take a quick look,” she allowed, “but I’ve got work to do. I need to get the house ready for the party.”
Mom was always an optimist. A dreamer, even, seeing the best in everyone and everything. I’d always admired it about her, as the rose-colored glasses she seemed to wear never quite fitted me properly. But denying that she’d broken at least one bone and insisting she could still host a massive party for twenty people bordered on delusional.
“You’ve still got time, Mom,” I deflected. “It isn’t for another few weeks.”
The only hospital in Cedar Springs sat on the eastern edge of town, about five minutes from Mom’s place. It was like every other hospital I’d been in. Cream-colored cement on the outside, various shades of grey, green, and beige inside with the occasional splash of orange in an attempt to lighten the mood. It had a small gift shop, a coffee place, and a cafeteria along with all the usual things you go to the hospital for.
The strong smell of sanitizer assaulted my nose the moment the doors slid open. Only one other person sat in the ER intake room, a man I didn’t recognize who looked entirely uninterested in company.
“Mrs. McKinley!” A petite woman with big, auburn curls waved us over to the clerk’s window. I vaguely recognized her as someone I’d seen at the gym, where Mom takes yoga classes a couple times each week. “What did you do?”
“It’s like I told Ben,” she shook her head, “it’s nothing, really. Just a little bump.”
“Well, let’s get you signed in and the doctor can decide whether it’s something.” She smiled at Mom and slid a clipboard across the counter.
When Mom tried to grab it, it fell to the floor with a loud clatter.
The woman hurried through her side door to pick it up since I was keeping Mom standing. We both looked at her, but I voiced the question first.
“You can’t use your arm, either?”
With a heavy sigh, her gaze fell downward. “I might have broken it.”
“Let’s sit you down and I can fill it out,” I told her.
After all the paperwork and all the shuffling between rooms, Mom turned to me while we sat waiting for the doctor to come talk to us about the x-rays,.
“Thank you, Ben,” she said softly. “I don’t know what I would’ve done without you.”
I pulled her into a delicate hug, not wanting to hurt her. “You would’ve figured it out,” I assured myself as much as her.
Because as much as I was grateful I showed up when I did, I didn’t like the idea that she still needed me. The guilt at my plans to flee town crept silently through me.
“What was it you came over for, anyway?”
I’d completely forgotten about the purchase agreement. “It was nothing that can’t wait until you’re feeling better.” I lied.
Mom got that look, a dog after a bone, and opened her mouth to put me in my place about babying her, but Dr. Rodriguez saved me from a tongue-lashing. She had a broken ankle and a broken arm, but no head injuries thankfully. Her mood sobered noticeably after the doctor told her she was to do nothing but rest as much as possible for the next six to eight weeks. I helped her into the car, waiting for her to say something because I didn’t know what to say. She sat in silence until we pulled onto her street.
“I think I might have to cancel the party.” Her voice was so small that it made my chest ache.
Maybe it was the guilt of planning to leave town. Or maybe it was the guilt of knowing the house was about to sell. Or maybe it was just that I really loved my mom and hated seeing her this way. Whatever the reason, I spoke my next words without giving them much thought aside from the relief they’d offer.
“I’ll do it.”
Her head spun toward me. “No.”
“I’ll handle everything.”
“I won’t put you out.”
I knew my mom well enough to know how this was going to go, unless I made it clear I meant it. “Look, I’m going to host a giant party, complete with dinner, at your house on July 4th. You can come or not, but it’s going to be awesome.”
“Ben,” she began, clearly searching for another reason not to let me take up her project aside from not wanting to burden me.
“I’ll come over for breakfast tomorrow and we will make a list of everything you were planning to do, then I’ll do it. No problem.”
“I’m still paying for it all.”
I grinned. I had her. “If you insist.”
It wasn’t until the following morning, as I reviewed the mile-long list of dishes she planned to make for the dinner that I realized I was in over my head. Roasted chicken, mashed potatoes, wild rice, roasted asparagus, vegetable soup, and a caramel apple tart. I’d never made a single one of them in my life. Hell, I struggled to make much more than boxed mac ‘n cheese. That’s what restaurants are for. And, somehow, I had to learn to make a twenty-person dinner in a month.
I decided that apartment hunting and purchase agreement discussion could wait a few days while Mom recovered from the initial fall. By the following morning, she had an impressive number of bruises and was in a good deal of pain. Liam came by and we got her settled and comfortable before heading to work.
Now all I needed to do was learn how to make a three-course mega dinner. How hard could it be?