Chapter 3
Mae
When I get up in the morning, my skin feels dry and my eyes are tired. As much as I’d like to wallow in bed, Mom needs me.
After I get dressed, I head into my parents’ room. Mom is sitting up sipping her coffee that Dad usually brings her in the morning before he goes to the office.
“Good morning, tesoro,” she says and puts her book down on her legs.
“Hey Ma, ready to get dressed?”
She carefully sets her coffee on the table before scooting her legs to the edge of the bed.
The MS has progressed a little too rapidly, but we finally have her at a place where it’s slowed, but she still needs help to get dressed and down the stairs.
I’m thankful she can still walk — that’s a blessing in and of itself.
My phone dings and I check it, expecting my boss.
“Oh, we need to do your shot today too.” I remind her.
“You take such good care of me,” she says quietly.
I lean over, helping her rest her weight on me before standing. She grunts and finally stands. I grab her cane and hand it to her before going to her closet.
“Could you get the grey slacks and that pink shirt I like?” she asks.
I nod, finding the pretty pink blouse. Mom doesn’t work anymore, but she still dresses like she’s going out for the day or to a big meeting. She’s a classy lady and always has been.
After I help her dress, she sits at her vanity to do her makeup. I don’t have to help her with that, but her range of motion in her shoulders has been rough lately, so I have to do her hair. I brush it and clip it back the way she likes it.
“Thank you,” she whispers.
I lean down and kiss her cheek. “No problem.” I meet her eyes in the mirror, and they get glassy.
I smile and squeeze her shoulder. My mother, Isabella Morgan, is one of the best women I know, and a disease, despite its severity, has only dimmed her light.
She refuses to give in to it, ignoring the pain and doing what she can to stem its progression.
Leaving her to finish her makeup, I go to my office to get started on work.
It wasn’t my first choice to live with my parents. I graduated and came back home looking for a job. I found one, and then she was diagnosed, and I never left. I might be thirty-one years old and still live with my parents, but it’s for a good reason.
Neither of them ever directly asked me to stay. In fact, they were more than happy to give me the space to go and be my own person and find new experiences. But I knew better. My dad can’t do it all, and Mom can’t do a lot anymore. She tries, but she has her limits.
A small part of me feels trapped, but the other part of me looks at it as practice. One day I hope to have my own family, and it won’t be any less chaotic than it is now. I’m grateful nonetheless. Plus, if I lived in my own place, I’d be alone anyway. It’s nice to have people to talk to.
Mom hollers that she’s done with her makeup and I help her down the stairs.
Dad and I have been talking about a chairlift for a while, but it makes Mom cry every time she hears about it.
So we left it for now. But the last thing any of us want is her falling down the stairs because she can’t catch herself and… I don’t even want to think about it.
I make us breakfast and rearrange the flowers I bought yesterday.
They make Mom smile, so I get them now and then.
Once she’s settled, I leave her in the living room to do her thing while I head back upstairs to get to work.
She keeps herself busy calling my Aunt Francesca or her friends.
She consults a little for her old job and reads a lot.
Bobbing my head to the beat, I bounce over to my desk and take a bite of cereal as I check my numbers again. ABBA’s Gimmie! Gimmie! Gimmie! bumps into my headphones, and I keep going line by line, chewing, checking my formula, and repeat for an embezzlement report.
I sway to the music, mouthing the words as I work. Then the music cuts out with a phone call, and I groan. I hate it when my flow is ruined. The numbers were speaking to me.
Glancing at my phone, I see it’s my Aunt Francesca. Huh. She hasn’t called me in a while.
I swipe to answer. “Hey Auntie, how are you?” I ask her.
“My darling, Mae. I hope you weren’t busy,” she says.
I glance at my screen.
“No, what’s up?” I ask her.
She’s silent on the other end, and I frown. Usually she won’t shut up and starts talking so fast I barely have a moment to get a word in.
“Auntie? Is everything okay?”
“Yes, darling, yes, but … I need your help,” she says.
I sit up. “Okay, what’s going on? Have you talked to Mom?” I ask her.
“I don’t need to talk to your mother to talk to you,” she snaps in her sassy way.
“No, you don’t, but if something is going on, then she should know too,” I tell her.
“I need you to come to Paxton because I need your help with my books,” she says.
“Um, okay, but I don’t know how long I can leave Mom. I’ll have to talk to Dad. Is that all?” I ask her.
“Yes, darling, that’s all. I was nervous to ask.”
I chuckle and take a sip of coffee. “Auntie, I’m an accountant who works from home.”
“Yes, well, I know you’re busy with your parents and your work,” she sighs.
“What can I say? I love numbers,” I say, ignoring the comment about my mom. She doesn’t mean anything by it. There’s no hidden message. A couple of times a year she comes here to spend time with her and help, which gives me a bit of a break.
She sighs. “I’ll never understand your obsession with numbers, but that’s why I need your help. When can you come? Tomorrow?” she asks.
I huff and click my mouse around to my calendar. I have time to finish this project, and I can do it from anywhere as long as I have a stable internet connection. And if memory serves me right, Paxton, Wyoming isn’t known for its reliable connection to anything. But I have to talk to my parents.
“Um, give me another day and I’ll let you know. I need to make sure it’s alright with Dad. But I also need the internet to work.”
“Yes, darling, it’s better here now.”
“Oh, is it?” I ask her.
“Yes, so you’ll be here tomorrow?” Aunt Francesca asks.
I groan silently. “Not tomorrow, I will call you later and figure something out.”
“Good, good, I’ll start cooking now,” she says.
“Can you at least make some homemade gelato?” I ask her.
“Sure, darling, okay. I will see you tomorrow,” she says, and makes kissing sounds over the phone before abruptly hanging up.
I huff shaking my head. It doesn’t matter if I told her I needed to check with my dad ten times. She heard yes, so that means it’s happening.
My Aunt Francesca, my mother’s sister, is a unique woman. Our Italian heritage shines through in everything she says and does. She ended up in Paxton because she fell in love with a cowboy, and she’s been there ever since.
As a child, I loved visiting her. My uncle Leo always fawned over her.
Their love, similar to that of my parents, is something I’ve always longed for.
She loved flowers so much that he helped her start a flower shop.
Looking at it now as an adult, I’m not entirely sure how she’s managed to stay in business in a town as small as Paxton.
But as a child, I felt like a flower princess, always surrounded by them, helping Auntie snip and arrange.
I smile to myself and set my phone down. I have fond memories of my family and Paxton. If we can make it work, it might be nice to get out of town and see something different for a while.
***
“You should go. It could be fun,” Mom says across the dinner table.
We finished dinner, and Dad started the dishes, listening from the kitchen.
I fidget with my hands, unable to look up. “There’s a lot less in Paxton than there is here. But she needs help, so…” I trail off, not sure what else to say.
“Mae, look at me,” Dad says.
I finally force my eyes up, and I don’t miss the glance at my mother.
“We’ll be okay. I promise I can take care of my wife. Plus, I think some vacation time would be a good thing.”
“Are you sure you can take off work? Don’t you have some kind of big merger to litigate or something?” I ask him. He’s a partner at a large law firm and works all the time. He does his best to be present at home. I’ve always appreciated that about my father.
“Tesoro, I want you to spread those wings, go somewhere, do something, even if it’s helping Francesca for a bit. We’ll be all right for a while,” Mom says gently.
I look between both of them, with expectant gazes, and I puff my cheeks, releasing a slow breath. I can’t say no to any of them.
“Fine, I’ll go.”
“Good, and no offense, but it will be nice to have some alone time with my wife,” Dad says with a grin and makes eyes at my mom. She smiles sheepishly, and I make a fake gagging sound.
“Yup, that’s my cue.”
Dad burst into laughter and shakes his head, getting back to the dishes. I pick up the living room and watch one of my favorite movies, The Breakfast Club.
A moment later Dad carries Mom up the stairs as they whisper to each other. My heart twists, lifts, and cuts at the same time.
I sigh, throwing my head back on the sofa, no longer paying attention. “Maybe this is the change I need,” I mutter to myself.