25. Zoe
Zoe
“You miss her, don’t you?”
I looked up from my bowl of cereal to find my grandmother studying me.
“Yeah, I do.” No sense lying about it.
“Have you heard anything from her?”
I shook my head. “Not a peep.”
It had been two weeks since our fight on Grandma’s porch and Gretchen had made no effort to reach out to me.
I’d almost gone over there a dozen times but stopped myself.
Our relationship didn’t have a chance of working out if she couldn’t recognize the power imbalance between us, and she needed to come to that realization herself.
Not that it was all her fault. In the beginning, I relished the feeling of someone taking care of me for a change.
I’d grown up mostly taking care of myself and my unstable mother.
But after a while Gretchen’s caretaking became stifling.
Infantilizing. It had been bothering me for a while, even before she called my boss and tried to interfere with my job.
The money thing in particular was aggravating.
I’d been picking up quite a few shifts at the shelter and making decent money, especially given that I was living at Jan’s house for free.
Yet every time we went somewhere Gretchen made a big deal about paying.
I make more money, it’s only fair, she’d say.
A few days before the incident at the shelter I’d grabbed a restaurant check before she could get it and paid the bill.
Not only had she seemed annoyed about it, later that night I caught her sticking forty bucks into my bag to make up for it.
Grandma slid into the chair across from me, pulling me out of my thoughts. “Maybe you should go over there.”
I shook my head.
“You know it’s funny,” Grandma continued. “This almost reminds me of when your grandfather and I first got married. You know he was a district attorney, so he encountered a lot of nasty things at work.”
“I bet.”
“He’d come home obviously upset about things he’d seen at work and when I tried to talk to him, he’d tell me I didn’t need to worry about it. He practically patted me on the head and told me to be quiet like a good girl.”
“What happened?”
“I told him that a relationship needed two way communication and that spouses shouldn’t have secrets.
I told him I understood that due to confidentiality he couldn’t give me the details of his cases, but as his wife, I wanted to hear about his feelings,” she said.
“Your grandfather thought feelings was a bad word. He’d been raised to be the strong silent type, the caretaker for us silly women who couldn’t handle terrible things.
But eventually I broke him down, and our relationship became stronger when he stopped trying to protect me from things and started talking to me as an equal. ”
“Maybe it was never meant to work out,” I said. “I kind of latched onto Gretchen early on. I was sleeping in her house, eating her food, watching her television, and she seemed good with it, but it reinforced that I’m younger and more immature and helpless.”
Grandma laughed. “You’re the farthest thing from helpless there is, baby girl. You remind me of your mother, you know. She was strong and smart and independent like you.”
“I think she lost a lot of that along the way,” I said softly, remembering all the times she’d latched on to whatever guy she thought was going to be ‘the one’ and make her life better.
“Addiction is a horrible disease,” she acknowledged.
“Ever since you contacted me I’ve wondered could I have done more?
When the private investigator found her, what if I’d gone to Chicago, knocked on her door, demanded to talk?
Maybe I could have helped her get into treatment.
If I’d done more than send a couple of letters I didn’t even know if she received, I wouldn’t have lost all those years with her.
And with you. But addiction or not, I’m sure your mother loved you, even if she couldn’t always show it. ”
I thought back to the times when Mom was sober.
The times we’d go to the movies for the matinee and once we watched the movie we paid for we’d sneak into other theaters to see more movies.
The times she’d get a good paycheck and we’d go thrifting together, trying on clothes for each other like we were at some fancy boutique instead of the local Goodwill.
The way she’d buy me Hostess cupcakes for my birthday and stick a candle in it while she sang the Happy Birthday song.
She hadn’t been the perfect mom, but she’d tried her best. I believed that.
“She never hit me,” I felt compelled to tell Jan. “She was neglectful but never abusive. And when I was older and some of her boyfriends showed interest in me, she put a stop to it immediately. She protected me in her own way.”
My grandmother reached across the table to squeeze my hand. “I’m sure she did her best, and so did you. It’s all we can do in this world.”
***
“Zoe, can I see you in my office when you have a few minutes?”
I looked up from making a bed in a room I was preparing for new guests to see my boss Julia standing in the doorway.
“Uh, sure.”
“It’s nothing bad,” she called over her shoulder, already rushing off to do something else.
I finished making the bed and made my way to her office.
Julia was on the phone, but she gestured for me to join her at the small round conference table she’d shoved in the corner of her office.
She’d told me on my first day here that she hated talking to people across her desk because it made people acutely aware of power dynamics.
“Thanks for coming,” she said as she joined me at the table.
I mean, she was the boss, I didn’t really have a choice, but I kept that thought to myself because I knew that Julia’s collegial management style was genuine.
She could be a hard ass if she needed to be, but her general philosophy was to trust her team and never act like she was better than anyone. I loved that about her.
“You’ve been doing a great job here, Zoe. We’ve all been impressed with your work.”
Something warm bloomed in my chest. It felt a lot like pride.
“Thank you. This is the best job I’ve ever had, and I’ve learned so much here.”
“I can see you have a real affinity for this work, and Robbie told me that you were thinking about going to college to take some social work and psychology classes.”
“I have thought about it,” I admitted. “But I’m nervous if I can do it.”
“You’re a smart woman, you’d do great in college.”
“I’m dyslexic,” I said quietly, as if someone else was listening.
“I mean, I was never officially diagnosed but my… someone pointed it out to me a few months ago and I’ve been watching videos and stuff and I’m pretty sure that I am.
Dyslexic, I mean. So I’d struggle with all the classes. I’m a slow reader.”
“Thank you for sharing that,” Julia said, her face sympathetic but without any pity.
“In case you didn’t know, under federal law every college has a designated disability services officer whose job it is to help find accommodations that will help students be more successful in school.
They can help with things like getting you extra time to take tests, offering alternative formats like oral testing, or appointing someone who can help you navigate a learning disability. ”
“Really?”
When I’d thought about taking classes I figured it would be like high school, and I’d just be the idiot who couldn’t keep up with all the reading. Suddenly I was more hopeful about college.
“Absolutely. I have a friend who works in the admissions office at Seattle Community College. If you want me to connect you so you can do an informational interview and ask about accommodations, just let me know.”
“I would love it if you can connect me, thank you so much Julia.”
“It’s no problem, I’m glad to help.”
I thought about the differences between Julia’s offer to help and Gretchen, who was practically filling out applications for me.
Julia was definitely from the ‘teach a man to fish’ school of helping people.
One of the things she always reminded our team was that our clients were resourceful and resilient and we shouldn’t work harder than them on their case plans. “Empower, don’t enable” was her motto.
“Anyway, I didn’t call you in here just to talk about college,” Julia continued. “We haven’t announced it yet so please keep this between us, but Amy was offered a promotion to fill the new services navigator position over in the Quality Assurance department.”
“That’s great.” I’d worked closely with Amy and liked her a lot. We’d even gone out for drinks after work one night.
“That means that Amy’s position is going to be open. Are you interested?”
I reared back in surprise. “You’re offering me a permanent job?”
Julia nodded. “Well, HR doesn’t allow us to say anyone is permanent, but yes I’m offering you a regular full-time job if you’re interested.
With benefits. Since Amy works the swing shift, you’d still have time to attend classes in the morning before work if you wanted to.
Do you want some time to think about it? ”
I shook my head so fast my hair whipped me in the face. “No need to think about it. I’ll take the job!”
Julia gave me a big smile.
“That’s great, I was hoping you’d say yes. I’ll have HR contact you with an offer and an official start date.”