CHAPTER 1
Ihadn’t forgotten how bright the sun can be, but I did forget how irritating it is to need sunglasses and not have them.
But of course, my mother takes the scowl from that sun-related irritation personally.
She meets it with her own. “Well! You don’t need to look like I brought you here against your will. Stop frowning. You’re going to get wrinkles.”
“Hi Mom,” I say dryly. “It’s nice to see you again, too.”
She huffs, her shoulders moving sharply. “Why did you knock?”
Turning, and walking into the house without waiting for my answer, my mother leaves me to follow.
When I close the door behind me, I remind her, “Because I don’t live here anymore.”
“Of course you still live here. You’re just being silly.”
I glance toward the stairs and wonder if my old room is still empty. It wouldn’t surprise me if she said that while also having given my room to Jeremy or letting her sewing projects spill into it.
She opens and closes cabinets, letting them slam as she pulls out coffee cups. “When are you moving back in?”
“I’m not.”
“Of course you are. Don’t be ridiculous.” Her shoulders are tense as she pours a cup of coffee and sets it on the table in front of me. “You’re too old to be running around pretending you don’t have responsibilities.”
I don’t remind her she’s the pot and I’m the kettle in this scenario.
“I’m not pretending they don’t exist, Mom. My responsibilities have just shifted.”
She sniffs, sitting down and motioning toward the chair I am standing behind in a silent demand, but I don’t sit.
There is a stack of unopened bills on the table between us. And if that’s not a fitting metaphor, I don’t know what is.
“We need to figure this out, Jenny.”
For the first time since I stepped through that door, I hear the undercurrent of fear in her voice.
She knows what’s at risk… she just doesn’t want to face it. She never wants to face it.
“I’ll help you start, but actions have consequences, Mom.”
“Don’t talk to me like I’m a child.”
“I’m reminding you because it seems like you’ve forgotten. The house was almost paid off. You chose to take out another loan. You have to pay it off.”
“Why can’t we just keep doing what we were doing before?” Her lips tremble, and I grip the back of the chair a little tighter.
“That’s not what you’re asking me to do, Mom. You want me to be an unending supply of money, and that’s not fair.”
“Not fair?” she huffs. “I’ve never heard such an ungrateful thing in my whole life.”
I ignore that for a moment.
“Why isn’t Jeremy paying part of the bills?”
“He’s just a child.”
“Only in the ways you’ve let him be. He’s twenty years old. He should have a job.”
“Don’t be mean to your brother.”
I manage not to snort at that. It’s utterly laughable.
“He’s never been nice to me. You and Dad let him be as mean and as childish as he wanted to be, and that is another consequence.”
“He’s not mean.”
“When he was seven, he stabbed me with a nail he found in the backyard.” I could give a dozen other examples.
“Boys roughhouse.” It’s her standard excuse.
“I had to get a tetanus shot and wasn’t able to compete that weekend. You got mad at me instead of him.”
“You were a professional.”
“I was a kid, too, Mom. Sometime around my fifth birthday, I think you and Dad forgot that.”
“Don’t you dare speak ill of your father.”
“Why?”
She flinches, staring at me like I slapped her.
The silence lasts too long, and I finally say, “I have repaid you for every cent I cost you as a child. All of the medical bills, all of the club fees and custom uniforms. I paid off this house, and you took that money and spent it on yourself and my siblings, who have never worked a day in their lives, without a single thought for me. Don’t you dare try to tell me I owe you anything else. ”
Her brow pinches, her lips tremble, and before she starts crying, I say. “Use whatever’s left of your refi money to carry you over until you find a job and then—”
“No one wants to hire an old woman!” She sets her coffee cup down on the table too hard, and the porcelain chips.
“Well, you’re going to have to find the person who does. Or, you’re going to have to figure out how to get Jeremy to get off his ass and start pulling his weight. The only other option is to sell the house.”
“Never.” The word is dark, as if it somehow transformed into a threat.
“If you don’t find a job and don’t sell the house, the bank will eventually take it from you. And then, you will have nothing.”
She stares at me in silence.
“Did you ask me to come home so that we could figure this out? Or did you expect me to agree to keep paying your debts until one or both of us die?”
Pressing her lips together, she doesn’t answer, and that’s answer enough.
“I think coming back was a bad idea. Call me if there’s an actual emergency… otherwise, I think you need to sort some things out before we can talk again.”
I stand to leave, expecting her to say something, and when I’m halfway to the door, she does.
“You could buy the house and let us live in it.”
“I already did.” I look back at her. “You took that for granted.”
Again, she’s silent.
“Goodbye, Mom.”
The sun is even brighter when I step outside, and I hate it. I want to go back to MiNo and forget about the ugly coil turning in my gut right now, but when I’m five steps down the sidewalk, the front door opens.
“Hey!” Jeremy yells after me.
I almost keep walking, but the gate closes behind him with a sharp rattle, and I have a feeling that he’d follow me all the way across the city if I don’t stop.
Taking a deep breath, I turn and prepare myself for yet more nonsense.
“I didn’t expect you to crawl out of your cave.”
“What the fuck is wrong with you, Jen? You come home, you make Mom cry and then you leave? You don’t deserve to set foot in our house again.”
I’ve never liked my brother or wanted him to like me. If he thinks he has a better chance of getting me to do what Mom wants, he’s sadly mistaken.
“As the only person who’s paid the mortgage on that house in a decade, I am probably the only one who deserves to set foot in it.” I look him up and down and already know the answer to the question before I ask it. “Do you have a job?”
“What do you care?” That’s a “No.”
“Get a job. Pay some bills instead of trying to hand them off to someone else and grow up. Mom will baby you as long as you let her, but someday, she’s going to be gone and no one else is going to put up with this.”
“You don’t leave family to fend for themselves if you love them.”
Walking away from him, hopefully for the last time, I yell back, “You don’t leech off of them until there’s nothing left, either!”
I’m waiting for the F train when my phone pings.
Mud Pie
Can we talk?