Chapter 28 #2
"What happened to you sitting there silently and munching on your antacids?"
"Sorry. Sorry, dude, sorry. Please continue."
"Well, she was pretty excited about the whole thing." My sister cupped a hand over her mouth to suppress a laugh as she gave me told you so eyes. "I would've been excited too if she didn't hate that work. Maggie, you have no idea how much she truly detested her old job but believe me—"
"What about it? Because she came off so confident and energetic when she was here for Sunday supper. Didn't seem to detest anything."
"You don't know how to sit and listen, do you?"
"No, apparently I don't," she said with a laugh.
"Look, I don't know exactly which part she hated but I know she did. I also know this job won't be any different for her. I can tell. Plus, it's in California of all the damned places."
"Okay, first, how do you know this job will be the same? How do you know it won't relieve that one pain point that made things insufferable in the past?"
"I don't," I admitted, "but—"
"No, you can't argue that. Small changes can make all the difference in the world. You don't know that she needs a completely different career—"
"I do," I said under my breath.
"—and you don't know this situation won't be a dramatic improvement for her."
"Maybe not but I still think she's making a big mistake by—"
"By what?" Magnolia interrupted. "By interviewing? By considering the terms? By checking it out and getting a feel for the role? No, that's not a mistake. That's a smart girl keeping her options open."
"It's still in California," I replied.
"Which requires her to leave," Magnolia said. "Did you ask her to stay?"
I shook my head.
"Why not?"
I didn't answer for a minute. Then, "If she wants to go, I won't hold her back."
"Even if she's going to a job she will hate and moving to California of all the damned places."
I shrugged. "It's her choice."
"But you tried to talk her out of the job, no? Did I misunderstand?"
"I shared my concerns."
"Right, so, you told her it was a disaster in the making but did you tell her you wanted her to stay? That you cared about her and you wanted her in your life on a daily, in-person basis?"
It felt like I was stepping on a land mine when I replied, "No."
"Let me ask you again: Why not? And you can't say anything about holding her back because you negated all that by trying to sink the job from the start."
"Because—because I don't know. All right? I don't know. And I meant it about holding her back. I don't want her staying here for me."
Magnolia shook a few tablets from the antacid bottle. "Why not?"
"Because that's not a good enough reason to make anyone stay."
"Isn't it though?"
I stared at her, confused. "How can you even say that? I can't ask her to give up everything just because I want her with me."
"Didn't she give up everything before she met you?"
Given up or taken away, the difference was all in perspective and perspective was the only thing that mattered. "I can't ask her to stay for me," I repeated.
"I can tell you believe that but I don't think it's true.
I think she needs to hear that you want her to stay.
You can't leave it up to inference." Magnolia shifted and winced again.
"You are a lot of great things but expressive and communicative are not among them.
Tell her that you want her here and you also want to make it work with her career. "
I shook my head because it wasn't that simple, it was never that simple, but my mother bustled in through the back door before I could respond. It was a good thing. I didn't want to talk about this anymore.
"Let me take those," I said to Mom, relieving her of the heavy grocery totes. "What is in here? A twenty-pound turkey?"
"A fifteen-pound chicken," she replied. "Your sister asked for my lemon roasted chicken with orzo and—"
"And she needs fifteen pounds of it?" I asked with a laugh.
"For the record, I did not ask for lemon roasted chicken with orzo. I mentioned that I'd been in the mood for orzo but I only liked it with Mom's chicken."
I gave Magnolia a smirk. "Close enough, don't you think?"
"Linden, put those cartons of milk in the fridge for me while I check your sister's blood pressure."
"Your sister's blood pressure is fine and doesn't need hourly monitoring, thank you greatly," Magnolia said. "But her foot is asleep and she could use a hand getting up so she can visit the bathroom for the second time in an hour."
Mom rushed over to help Magnolia gain her feet while I filed away the groceries. They went back and forth about how my sister was feeling, who my mother ran into at the market, what we'd do about Thanksgiving dinner, seeing as the babies would arrive by then and they, of course, changed everything.
That seemed so strange to me. I didn't know what it would be like for everything to change. As far as my life went, there wasn't much variation. Trees and forests, my family, ball games. Sex when I felt like it, adventure when I was bored. That was enough for me. It was all I needed. All I wanted.
I didn't want the most stubborn, independent woman in the world. No. Not at all.
Except I did, I wanted her very much and I wanted her to abandon her fake smiles and the affected voice and all the things that drained the range and raw beauty out of her.
I wanted her to change everything for me because of course she would, and someday, I wanted my mother to hover over her and roast a chicken simply because she mentioned it.
I wanted to burn with fury because she created another hazard for herself without realizing any of it.
I wanted to be driven to distraction by her inability to manage simple things like rotaries and wall paint and her simultaneous ability to pull off the impossible with little effort.
I wanted to wonder what we'd do about the holidays because everything had changed, everything.
But I hadn't asked her to stay—didn't even think I could—and I was too busy scowling to go home and see about salvaging this wreck before it was too late.
I was allowed my scowl, dammit. I was allowed some bitterness, some resentment. She crashed into my world, all crowbars and chaos and that peach-sweet charm, and I was damn well entitled to snarl over the fact she picked up the mess she made of me and left.
This was her fault. She was responsible for this, for my scowling. I didn't ask for any of it. The last thing I needed was a woman who didn't notice her own apple trees. For fuck's sake. And my god, the crockpot. The fucking crockpot.
A hard, painful laugh twisted in my chest as I put the last of the groceries away. I shut the refrigerator and let my forehead fall against the cool surface. "I'm so full of shit."
"What was that?" my mother chirped. "Am I setting a place for you at the table tonight? There's plenty."
"No, I have to get back," I said, and I knew that was the right answer. Maybe not right but it was the answer. I had to get home and do something. I didn't know what but I knew it was essential.
"You're sure? It's no trouble." She paused, lifted her brows. "I haven't seen much of you lately."
"These are the consequences, Mom. You tell me to find someone special, you have to expect I'll spend time with her."
She reached for a dish towel. "It's a price I'll happily pay, my darling son."
"Anything else I can do for you while you have me here?"
"Mom!" Magnolia shouted from down the hall. "I think my water broke."
"Are you sure you didn't have a little accident? That happened to me more than once," she called back, suddenly wandering in circles around the kitchen.
She opened the oven, closed it. Opened the freezer, closed it. I watched, not sure what I was supposed to do in this situation.
"Mom! I would know if I had a little accident, don't you think?"
"I said the same thing," my mother replied, now opening the cupboards and drawers. "They sent me home from the hospital twice and told me to stop thinking my water broke every time I sneezed too hard."
"What are you looking for?" I asked.
She waved my question away. "Oh, nothing, honey, nothing.
Just my phone. And my keys. Yes, I'm sure I left them around here.
I should call your father. But he's at the golf course and you know he never takes his phone out with him.
So, I'll have to call the course. And Rob!
Good grief, he's in New York City. I don't even know who to call there.
I have a friend, Eleanor Greene, who lives in New York City.
But I haven't spoken to her in ages. She's such a complainer.
Everything is a problem with her. That's why I don't call.
" Her keys and phone were on the small table beside the back door as always.
"And my pocketbook, I'm looking for my pocketbook. I'm sure it's around here."
I blinked at her for a second. "Okay. You keep looking. I'll just check on Maggie." Around the corner, I found the door to the under-the-stairs powder room open and my sister tossing hand towels on the floor. "Everything all right?"
She pressed her foot to one of the towels and moved it around the floor. "Everything will be fine," she replied with forced calm. "Mom's flipping out, isn't she?"
I glanced back in the direction of the rattling pots and pans.
My mother operated on three speeds: steamroller, scatterbrained, or stoned.
There were no other options—I'd looked—but there were mix-and-match combos.
She could be stoned and steamrolling, as was often the case, or stoned and scatterbrained.
I didn't think she was stoned right now but she was running at max scatterbrained. "Not more than I'd expect."
"I knew I should've stayed with Zelda today," she murmured. "She was in class until four and I didn't want to bother her with exams coming up but at least I'd know she wouldn't lose her shit when it was go-time." She glanced up from her pile of tiny towels. "Everything will be fine."
I heard more clanging from the kitchen and a slammed door, which had me smothering a laugh while I rubbed my temples. My sister was having babies, my mother was panicking, and Jasper needed me to fight for her.
I asked for none of this.
Not one bit.
And yet— "Do you think you can make it into my truck? Is it too high for you to climb in?"
Magnolia pressed a hand to her lower back. "If you give me a hand, I'm sure it will be all right."
"And you can tell me where you need to go?"
She nodded. "Yeah. For sure. But you don't—"
"You really think I'd leave you here with Mom while she roots through the frying pans for her phone? Not a chance. We're feeding her some weed gummies and getting you to the hospital before anything else happens."
"What about Jasper? You need to talk to her."
I brought an arm around Magnolia's shoulders and led her out of the bathroom. "I'll talk to her later. Or tomorrow. I know she'll understand this."
We entered the kitchen to find Mom with her arm elbow deep in a bag of flour.
"We are not baking right now, Grandma," Magnolia said. "It's baby time. My husband is a four-hour train ride away and I had five more days to prepare and I didn't get the lemon chicken and orzo like I really wanted but it is baby time. Remove yourself from the flour."
"I thought I might've dropped my phone," she replied. "The last time I had it, I was thinking about baking some chocolate chip cookies but I don't think it's in here."
"Probably not," I said. Scatterbrained. So scatterbrained.
"Please do me a favor and get your special candies so you can calm the fuck down. I am going to give birth to two babies in the next few hours, preferably with my husband by my side, and I need you to turn all of this"—Magnolia waved both hands at my mother—"way down."
"Right, yes, okay." My mother dusted her arm off as she walked in another circle around the kitchen until she stopped at a cookie jar in the shape of a fat monk and plucked a small zip-top bag with a dozen purple jellies from inside. "Time to go, then!"
I grabbed the bag Magnolia pointed out near the door plus my mother's keys and phone, which were exactly where she'd left them after coming in from the market not long ago. "Yep. Time to go."