Chapter 8 Reason One #2
When I stepped out of my rental car, my mother was outside waiting.
Before I could even put the car in park, Mom was barreling down the steps leading up to my childhood home.
Her lace apron blew to the side, revealing a terrible vision of disastrous double denim; a skirt that flowed to her ankles, and a blue jean jacket bedazzled to Hell and back with rhinestone crucifixes.
She no longer rocked her signature Caterina Fox crimped updo, but her new, uneven bob with chunky blonde highlights was the stuff of nightmares.
She sprinted toward me as if she was competing in an Olympic decathlon, and she showed no sign of slowing down as she approached.
All I could do was drop the bag I was carrying and brace for impact.
When we collided, she crushed her arms around my waist, expelling every ounce of oxygen from my lungs.
As I tried to take in trace amounts of air, she climbed my body like she was scaling Everest.
“I haven’t seen you in five years. I’m hugging you. Just let it happen.”
“Thirty—eight—years—old!”
“Still—my—baby.” She craned her neck, kissing my cheek before releasing me from her grip and allowing me to lower her to the ground.
Once she was done with her ascension of Mount Kentmore, I picked up my bag.
There were still three more in the trunk, but as she jerked my hand and dragged me toward the porch, I realized they would have to wait.
The sudden momentum provided by her pull sent the bag I had been carrying out of my hand, launching its contents across the front yard.
I looked back at the trail of boxer briefs and the travel-sized bottle of KY warming jelly now littering the lawn and sighed.
Once inside, the scent of sandalwood slammed into my senses. It was intoxicating. Overpowering. Migraine-inducing. “Christ, Mom, how many candles do you have burning in here?”
“With that mouth of yours, it’s a wonder He hasn’t struck you down already."
The living room was just as it always had been.
Crucifixes lined the walls like precisely placed artwork.
No matter which direction I faced, the Lord was there, staring down at me.
I walked toward the cheap, particle board coffee table.
It had been stained a dark mahogany to give it a failed appearance of elegance.
I picked up the framed picture that sat in the center of the table.
Three faces smiled back at me. The first two belonged to my mother and a younger version of myself.
The third was a man I never particularly cared for.
A father who held revivals in old, tattered tents in the summer.
A man who preached fire and brimstone four days a week at West Clark Apostolic Church.
My father, like myself, had a head of untamable curls.
He'd kept his trimmed down and parted at the side, giving it the appearance of ripples and waves on the ocean.
I'd also inherited his long nose and milk-white skin.
Flesh that blistered and burned at the mere suggestion of outdoor activities.
I wondered if his skin was currently broiling in the heated pits of Hell.
My mother squeezed my shoulder as I slumped down on the sofa, staring at the picture. “He loved you, you know. In his own way.”
“He kicked me out the day I graduated high school. Told me I wasn’t welcome in his house anymore. That’s not love."
If she’d thought about arguing in his defense, she let the words die on her tongue.
After returning the picture frame to its home on the coffee table, I flopped down on the sofa and leaned back, pinching the bridge of my nose. “I won’t be here long,” I said, though I wasn’t sure which of us I was trying to convince. “Just until I land the next job.”
She took a seat beside me and squeezed my knee. “You can stay for as little or as long as you need, baby. I’m just happy to have you home.”
“A couple of weeks, tops."
“Enough time to rest that weary soul of yours. We’ll get you back on track. Just wait and see.”
Those words. They were ones I’d heard before, though never from her. Words my father had said countless times in the last two months I’d lived there.
“My soul is fine. It doesn’t need rest, and it doesn’t need fixing.
” I studied her face, trying to determine if this had been her plan all along.
To lure me home with promises of acceptance.
Doling out words like unconditional when she’d really meant conversion.
“If you think that’s what this is—that I’m going to change—I’ll leave. I’m not changing.”
Her eyebrows bunched together and she drew her lips into a straight line.
“If I think this is what?” It took her a moment to realize what I’d meant, and as soon as it dawned on her, she looked like she wanted to slap me.
“That’s not what I was saying at all. Have I ever given you a reason to think that I’m ashamed of you? ”
“That church of yours isn’t particularly fond of my kind.”
“That church of mine hasn’t been that church of mine in years.
Not since you left. Not since I lost you.
There’s not a thing I want to change about you.
You’re just as He made you.” Mom pointed at the miniature rainbow flag that hung beside her Christian flag on the mantle.
“It took me a while to find my voice, but I did, and I’ll never lose it again.
” She was right, of course. It wasn’t like I was the only person who lost anything.
She’d lost me, but she’d also lost a year of her life.
When my mother left the church, my father moved out of the family home.
He spent ten months shacked up with Mrs. Knox, the church’s secretary.
When she skipped town without so much as a Dear John letter, Joel Fox returned home with his tail tucked between his legs.
It’s funny how some sins are easily forgiven, while others hold a twenty-year sentence.
Without missing a beat, she was on her feet, heading toward the door. “Let’s get your things and get you settled into your room.”
Remembering the discarded bottle of lube left in the wake of Hurricane Caterina, I lunged past her and through the front door.
Leaping from the porch, I scurried across the lawn.
I managed to grab the bottle before she caught sight of it.
When I turned around, my mother was standing on the porch with a look of absolute bewilderment on her face.
With a shrug and a sigh, she trailed behind, following me to the car.
When we reached the trunk, she stared at the three suitcases in front of us. “This is it?”
“That’s it.”
“It can’t be. I’ve been to your condo. It was littered with tchotchkes and trinkets.”
“I don’t think I’ve ever owned a tchotchke in my life,” I said, refusing to allow my name to be associated with the words keeper of tchotchkes.
“Baby, what happened to all of your things?”
I stared at my feet. How could I tell her just how long I’d been struggling?
That I’d spent the last seven months living off of scrambled eggs, selling my possessions one by one to cover rent and utilities.
Hell, I didn’t even have the luxury of living out of my car anymore.
I sold it two months back just to keep myself afloat.
Her home had been an absolute last resort, and I knew if I detailed the depths of my downward spiral, it would only insult her.
In the end, I didn’t need to say a word because my mother reached into the trunk, pulled out two of the bags, and handed them to me.
She cupped my cheek and nodded. “You’re home now. That’s all that matters. You’re home, and you’re safe.”
When we reached my bedroom, she set the bag she was carrying beside my door. “I’ll leave you to it. Going to get us some supper going. Meatloaf, your favorite.”
“No crackers,” I said, forcing a smile as I glanced down at my waist. “They’re just empty carbs.”
She rolled her eyes. “We’ll be talking about that soon enough. I know you’re worried about gaining it back, but I’ve been looking into this little diet of yours, and I’m not a fan. For heaven’s sake, honey, you’re already stick-thin.”
Before I could mutter the words, it’s preventative, she had already turned around and was walking down the stairs.
I could have stayed in that hallway forever.
Turning the doorknob would make everything real.
As long as the door stayed closed, I could pretend.
I could still tell myself this was just a visit.
That I was simply a lonely man coming home for a little well-earned TLC.
The second I opened it, I would be a man without purpose.
Someone reliant on his aging mother for asylum.
I wanted to leave the door shut. I wanted to run to the shed in the backyard, grab every nail, hammer, and board that I could find, and nail it shut so tightly that it never opened again.
I turned the knob.
Standing in the hallway, I watched as my childhood home’s unleveled structuring sent the door creaking open slowly on its own.
The room was the same as the day I left. A queen-size bed sat near the closet door on the left side of the room. There was a blue blanket on top, decorated with baseballs and catcher mitts. My father’s choice.
There wasn’t a single speck of dust on any of the surfaces. I knew my mother had kept it tidy while I was “away,” as she called it, but it was like walking around in a museum. Relics of my youth, pristinely preserved under her watchful eye.