Chapter 15 #2
The bus doors folded shut, driving away and disappearing around the corner. The soccer moms chatted with each other as they walked back to their respective white-picket-fence homes without a glance in my direction.
And then it was just me.
Fourteen years old. Still in pajamas.
Trying to figure out how I was going to get myself ready, how I was going to get to school without a ride, how I was going to stay awake through first period when I’d been up half the night listening for the sound of my mother throwing up in the bathroom that never came.
I remember realizing, awake and anxious in my bed, that no one was coming to help.
And that if lunches got made, if homework got done, if permission slips were signed, it would be because I did it.
Not her.
“You know what?” I cut off her drunken monologue of hysterics. “You’re right. I did take Georgie away from you, Mom.” I grit through my teeth, trying to muster any patience I can. “But I didn’t take her to hurt you. I took her so you’d stop hurting her.”
She tries to say more, but I don’t let her. Keeping my voice even, I tell her carefully, “And now, I’m done with this conversation. From now on, if you want to talk to Georgie or me, you can do so through her social worker.”
I hang up, blocking my mom’s contact before setting my phone back down on my desk. The stillness of my office makes it feel like the world has stopped spinning.
But it hasn’t.
After a moment, I register the hustle and bustle of the coffee shop just beyond my closed door. The buzzing of the espresso machines, the animated voices of customers, the jazz music, and the ding of the door opening and closing all begin again.
I’ve never raised my voice at my mom before, never made the decision to stop helping her, never told her I was done, no matter how much I wanted to be.
I was always too worried, too anxious. Like cutting her off would have the world imploding somehow.
Closing my hand into a fist, I feel my nails dig into my palms, pushing into the skin until there’s a twinge of pain before opening my hand just to do it again.
One.
I repeat the process, getting to seventeen, focusing on the counting—that I can control.
But life is going on around me, just as it had before my phone rang.
I dive back into my to-do list, opening a tab on my computer to write a few emails and place some orders.
Losing myself in everything I need to get done, I barely register when my phone begins buzzing again.
There’s a brief moment of solace knowing it can’t be my mom, but it’s almost immediately replaced with dread when I see it’s a number I don’t have saved.
My mind begins racing with all the possibilities of who it could be.
I finally put myself out of my misery just before the call goes to voicemail, answering the phone and bringing it to my ear. “Hello?” Glancing at the clock, I realize I only have an hour before I need to pick up Georgie.
“Hi, is this Ava? Monica’s daughter?” a voice I don’t recognize asks, and my stomach drops at the mention of my mother’s name.
“Yes, this is she,” I say quickly, a million questions running through my head, the first one being, who the hell is this calling me? The second one being what the hell did my mom do now?
“Sorry to bother you, dear,” the voice comes through thin and papery over the line, warm but edged with the faint rasp of age. “I don’t know if you remember me, but I live across the street from your mother.”
A faint memory of a brick house and a faded red door comes to mind—an older woman with long, white hair she always had braided down her back registers, along with the memory of how every spring, she would buy a dozen boxes of Girl Scout cookies from Georgie because she wanted enough to last her until next year.
“Mrs. Weber?” I don’t have time for pleasantries, so I skip right past them. “Is everything okay with my mom?”
“Well,” Mrs. Weber starts. “Not exactly. I was out grabbing my mail earlier this afternoon when I noticed your mom’s front door open.
” She speaks slowly and carefully with a slight shake to the cadence.
“I didn’t think much of it until I was letting my dog out just now and saw a few trash bags thrown onto the lawn and the front door still open. ”
With today being one of the coldest days of the month, I doubt my mother opened the door to let in some fresh air. Or picked today to do some innocent decluttering.
“So, I threw on my parka and walked over there, and well,” she pauses before saying, “I think your mother may need some help, dear. It sort of looks like she was in the middle of getting rid of some things when she, well,” she pauses again, and I feel my patience thinning.
“She what?” I try not to snap, but the words come out clipped.
“Fell asleep,” she phrases it more as a question, and I roll my eyes.
The woman is trying to be polite, which I would appreciate in any other circumstance, but right now it’s pissing me off.
There’s no way it looks like my mom decided to take a nap in the middle of whatever the hell she was doing, too tired to even close the front door.
She probably stopped to open another bottle, taking a few swigs before passing out.
“I found your number on a note on her coffee table,” Mrs. Weber continues, “and I know it’s none of my business, but with the state of her house and all of this stuff she has in garbage bags, I thought maybe you should know.”
The poor woman has no idea of the mess, both figuratively and, from what it sounds like, literally, that she just walked into.
I want to just thank her for letting me know and hang up, get back to my day, and keep the boundary firm that I am done picking up my mom’s messes.
For fuck’s sake, I just set it.
“And the stuff she’s throwing out doesn’t look like trash.”
“What do you mean?” I ask, glancing at the clock and seeing I have thirty minutes before I have to head over to Georgie’s school.
“Again, I don’t want to pry, but this note of yours mentioned taking Georgie with you, and this stuff in these bags looks like it could belong to that sister of yours.”
My mouth immediately parts.
Are you fucking kidding me?
I want to laugh at how ridiculous this all is. And then I want to laugh even harder for thinking this wasn’t something my mother was capable of.
I should’ve known that she was going to do something rash after our phone call, especially in the state she was in when she called.
And no one stoops lower than my mother.
If she thinks I took Georgie to hurt her, someone like her fights hurt with more hurt.
I don’t want to go back on my boundary, but I’m not going to let her throw out all of Georgie’s stuff like it’s trash.
“I’ll be right there.” I hang up the phone, grab my jacket and purse from the back of my office chair, and run out the door.