Chapter 3
Three
moony (adj.): dreamy, moonstruck
When the doorbell sounds that evening, I jerk.
Water splashes from my sunflower-yellow watering can and trickles from the kitchen windowsill to the floor.
What time is it? Beyond the second-story window of our apartment, late-day sun pinks the sky, casting warm light on distant Mount Jefferson.
Oh, for the love of all that is . . . I’ve done it again: taken the last train to la-la-land. Woolgathering, Nana used to call it.
Earth to Lucy.
Ah yes, it’s all coming back. Before my mind went renegade and took that aimless off-ramp, I’d been tending my houseplants.
All seventeen of my glorious green darlings.
Seventeen, that is, if you don’t count the revolving mélange of stem cuttings taking root in assorted vessels on my bedroom windowsill.
Not that anyone’s counting. It’s a scientific fact that caring for houseplants reduces stress and improves mental health.
But daydreaming about a fictional character? What am I, fifteen years old? Besides, ew. Gage Remington is no longer my type. He’s precisely my antitype. Mysterious. Scruffy. Brooding. Broody? Wait. Is broody a word? Taciturn works better.
I digress.
Not that I’ll ever need it, but the wisest romantic advice I ever received came from Dot, who once posited that a woman stuck in a pattern of choosing men with the same toxic issues—issues they manage to conceal until you’re too far gone—should flip the script.
Instead, she ought to look for someone who’s the antithesis of her type.
I’ve no plans to put her theory to the test ever, of course, but this might be wildly brilliant advice for someone who is not me.
The doorbell’s insistence reminds me that I have still not responded.
“Coming!”
Anyway, clearly I was mentally checked out for some unknown length of time. Anything to distance myself from reality after this afternoon’s conversation with my editor.
And just like that, my stomach takes flight again as I remember my response to the meteorite Sam dropped on my carefully curated existence. When asked to step up, to venture into anything that even mildly threatened my comfort level, I’d effectively responded with “Talk to the hand.”
Squeezing one eye shut, I lean toward the door’s fisheye peephole. There I spy the last face I’d expected. Large, expressive eyes framed in Maybelline’s Full ’N Soft mascara in “Very Black.” Ribbons of long, messy amber bangs. The mile-wide smile that evokes comparisons to Julia Roberts’s.
“Mom!” I say, swinging wide the door.
Unbelievable. How is it that my mother, who lives in Nashville, dropped out of the sky? When did I last mop the apartment? I can’t think.
“Good surprise—I hope?” In spite of her pasted-on smile, something in Mom’s expression strikes me as off.
“Of course. Don’t be silly, Mom. Great surprise. I’m just . . .” What exactly am I? Could this day get any stranger? Will she need a place to stay? Could I just have one linear thought today?
Mom darts herky-jerky glances past me to one side then the other, like a chicken. “Ahh, now where’s my big boy? Isn’t this so fun? I just happened to have a thing in Salem and figured I’d—” Her eyes trail downward. “Honey. You’re dripping.”
Sure enough, water dribbles onto the threshold, splashing Mom’s slouchy suede boots.
“Oh, gosh. Sorry! Come in, come in, I was just—” In three strides, I cover the distance to the kitchen and exchange the watering can for a towel.
Mom laughs good-naturedly. “Just what, watering your floors?”
I snort. It can’t be helped. Warmth spreads as I laugh, and I relax into it. I throw the towel down and use my foot to mop up what is, in fact, a shallow river with its headwaters in our puny dining room. Truly, it’s good to see my mom—I think. Maybe I need this.
“Actually, here, you can water this,” she says, raising aloft an enormous hanging basket exploding with orange and yellow calibrachoa, rightfully nicknamed “million bells,” and some kind of trailing purple flower.
“So gorgeous! Let me take that, Mom. It looks heavy.”
My mother just turned sixty—or fifty-ten, as she prefers to frame it—and has a workout regimen that puts me to shame. She ignores my empty gesture, breezing past me. “Do you have a place to hang it?”
Do I ever. She follows me out onto our tiny balcony that’s just big enough for a fairly comfy rattan bistro set, a grouping of succulents, and Chase’s bike.
“It’s lovely out here, Lu Lu. I’d forgotten you have such a sweet view. I left rain clouds behind in Salem.”
I left worse than rain clouds behind me there.
Together we hoist the basket onto a hook, then stand back and admire the way the warm light sets it aglow.
“I love it, Mom. Thank you. But you don’t need to keep buying me things.
” Seriously, what’s with all the packages lately?
My mother’s never been a spender. My parents live in the same townhome they moved into twelve years ago.
Mom still takes the same small stipend from the ministry.
She’s the type who rinses and reuses aluminum foil.
Mom slips an arm around me, and I lean my head against hers. In tandem, our gazes float to the mountains, and I can almost hear her thoughts. Something along the lines of Well, at least she’s raising our grandson somewhere serene.
Will I forever feel judged for not following my parents to Tennessee?
Rolling my lips inward, I manage to restrain the urge to remind Mom of all the ways Charity Falls opened its arms to my son and me.
“Can I get you some iced tea?” I ask, heading back inside.
She floats over to my secondhand microfiber sofa and perches on it, arranging the folds of her purple paisley maxi dress around her. “Oh, no caffeine for me, thanks. I take it Chase isn’t home?”
“He’s at tae kwon do—twice a week, thanks to the boundless generosity of my parents. Maybe you know them, Carly and Roger Montgomery?”
“Oh, ha. Goodness, your houseplant collection has grown! No pun intended.”
Wait till she gets an eyeful of their many green siblings in my bedroom. “It’s Lemon Silk—rooibos tea, no caffeine.” I open a cabinet and remove two glasses.
“Should we go together to pick him up?”
“We don’t dare. He gets a ride there and back with his friend’s mom. She lives just downstairs.”
“Ah. Nina, is it?”
“Mm-hmm. And you know Chase. Much as he loves his Mimi, he wouldn’t appreciate a wrinkle in his routine.” I wink.
“I get it.”
“It isn’t personal.”
“I know. And how nice that he has a good friend.” Mom’s up again, artfully draping my creamy knit throw across the shoulder of the sofa. Next she plumps a rust-colored pillow, sets it back down, and whacks the top of it with a karate chop.
“Mom? What have you got against that poor pillow?”
“Just sprucing. You know how hard it is for me to be cooped up in a car for two hours. Honey, I absolutely love what you’ve done with the place. It’s so restful. What do you call this style?”
Chuckling, I arrange our glasses of tea on two rattan coasters. “Gosh, I don’t know. Thrift-store boho, I guess? Actually, you match perfectly. That dress looks like something out of Meryl Streep’s Mamma Mia wardrobe. Love it.”
“You do? Really? I can order another one! I’ll send you the link, and you can—”
“No, no, Mom. It’s gorgeous, but you don’t need to do that.” I hate to let her down, she appears so eager—maybe even, could it be, needy? My heart squeezes.
Mom combs her fingers through the yarn tail of one of my plant hangers. She sighs, a faraway look softening her face. “I remember when macramé was all the rage, back in the day. I love that it’s having a comeback. I used to make these, you know . . .”
Now, how could I have known that? When would my mother and I have found time for such explorations of her past?
Between speaking engagements and book tours, hadn’t she been everywhere but at home when I was young?
All the more reason I’m grateful to be here for Chase.
He’s a bit of an alien planet in orbit, and I’m content to be his sun.
Over the past few years, I’ve made a ragged sort of peace with old resentments.
If only I could wish away this weird medley of feelings that forever simmers below the surface when it comes to my mother.
Which doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy her for who she is.
I wouldn’t mind understanding her better either.
“Relax, Mom. Slip off your boots.” I pat the sofa cushion next to me. “Was it a big event, the thing in Salem?”
“Oh, just a small affair,” she says with a wave of her hand.
I smile inwardly. In Mom’s lingo, “small” might describe a regional conference, as opposed to national.
In an auditorium, as opposed to an arena.
My mother’s gift for speaking words of spiritual edification to women framed our family life as far back as I can remember.
Her Bible studies often camp out on bestseller lists.
“But . . .” She simultaneously raises one French-manicured forefinger and her eyebrows, which are beautifully augmented with brown pencil. “It was a mixed crowd this time. Men and women. A panel discussion. Super fun.”
I shake my head. “Are you positive we share DNA?”
Mom nearly spits out her drink, her eyes laughing. “Oh, Lu! Enough about me. Actually, honey, I’m here by proxy. I have something that, well, belongs to you.” She drops her eyes, and her tone turns somber, it seems to me. “Something from Nana Lucia.”
I dart a brief glance at the petite leather purse Mom dropped inside the front door and shake my head. “I don’t understand.” Must be something small. A piece of jewelry?
“The timing of the event worked out beautifully because, as you know, I still had so much to do at her place. Ugh. Still do. But I felt ready to start dealing with it—you know, the stuff I wasn’t ready to deal with when we were there for her memorial service.”
“Oh, Mom. You shouldn’t have to face all that by yourself. You should’ve asked me. I could’ve driven—”