10. Emmy
Ideliver my mother to the hospital early the next morning.
I suppose a loving daughter would actually wait at the hospital until the surgery was over, but my mother doesn’t have one of those.
I oversee the delivery of my office furniture, yell at Gary, and return only when the hospital calls to say she’s waking up.
My mother looks me over when I walk in. “Not sure why you’re always dressing like you’re Anna Wintour these days. You’re not even a real estate agent. You don’t need those suits.”
“Some people are cranky when they come out of anesthesia,” the nurse says gently as I cross the room.
I’m pretty sure it’s not the anesthesia.
My mother carps about the snacks while the nurse pulls together the discharge papers, and then carps audibly about the nurse’s slowness. She snaps at the orderly who pushes her wheelchair to the hospital’s exit. “Your job is too easy for you to be so bad at it,” she tells him.
It’s rather pleasant, not being the subject of her ire, but all good things must come to an end.
“Since you’re so smart,” my mother says as we hit the highway, “I suppose you’ve figured out how to get me up the porch stairs?”
Shit.
“Didn’t they show you how to do it at physical therapy? Can’t you just, I don’t know, scoot up on your butt?”
“Of course not,” says my mother. “I can’t believe you didn’t realize this would be a problem.”
“What was I supposed to do, Mom? Build you a handicap ramp? Look, I can call Jeff—”
“Jeff lives a half hour away, for God’s sake, and he’s out of town anyway. That’s the whole reason I had to have you come.”
I don’t actually believe that for a minute. I believe Jeff claimed to be out of town so he wouldn’t have to be around for the surgery, but it’s not like he’s going to admit he lied if I call asking for help.
My mother sighs. “You’ll need to ask one of those boys working in the back to help you.”
No.“That’s not their job. And—”
“Do you have a better solution?” she demands.
Alas, I don’t.
I rack my brain for the remainder of the drive, and when we arrive, I admit I’m going to have to do the unthinkable: ask Liam or his guys for help. Mac and JP are both nice. As long as it’s one of them I’m asking for a favor, I’ll survive.
I turn off the car, go to the backyard, and it’s Liam I encounter first, hammering a two-by-four, his lovely biceps on display.
I’ve got the worst luck.
“Need something?” he asks.
Ugh.
“My mother just had surgery. She needs some help getting up the stairs.”
His grin is unbearably smug. “So you need some help getting your mother inside?”
“I don’t need help,” I snap. “My mother needs help.”
“Sure.” He smirks, wiping his hands on his jeans. “I’d be happy to help you.” He follows me to the front yard.
“If you can get her out,” I grumble, “I’ll lift on the other side.”
He scoops my mother up as if she’s made of air. “I’ve got her. Just unlock the front door.”
“Thank you for doing this,” she tells Liam. “Emerson should have made plans but she’s never thought of anyone but herself in her entire life.”
Liam’s shoulders stiffen. He probably agrees with her but says nothing.
I open the door. My mother could walk the rest of the way and is supposed to be doing some walking, but I don’t want to get into it with her in front of him. “Just down the hall and into the living room,” I tell him.
“Before you go out back talking about how heavy I am,” my mother says after he’s set her on the couch, “just know how much worse it could have been. You wouldn’t have been able to carry Emerson a foot when she was in high school, much less all the way from the car.”
“Mom,” I hiss, wincing. It’s par for the course with her, but it hits a lot harder with an audience.
He glances between us. I brace for a smirk from him, a mean little laugh, but there’s none.
“I would never talk about how heavy anyone is or was,” he says, turning for the back door. “Especially not if she was my kid.”
He walks out. It takes me several seconds to realize that he just put my mother in her place—on my behalf.
He sure doesn’t sound like the kind of guy who’d have tormented me back in the day. Is it possible for people to change? Can you forgive them if they have?
I pick up my phone. I consider thanking him. It seems like an awkward thing to do, but if I coupled it with a complaint about his progress at the theater, it might be okay.
In the end, I do nothing.
But a part of me wishes I had.
* * *
For the next few days,aside from running Snowflake to the groomer, I’m stuck at home with my mom. When I’m downstairs, I find myself watching for Liam in the backyard. When I let Snowflake out, I’m both cringing at the memory of what my mother said and hoping he strikes up a conversation—but he’s usually not there and he ignores me if he is.
I practice my speech for the hearing on Lucas Hall, though I’ve got every base covered, and make my mother food she complains about, while she otherwise ignores me. She’s too busy calling everyone she knows to discuss her surgery anyway and seems to be going out of her way to make it sound like she and Dr. Sossaman, her surgeon, are friends…or more than friends.
“Harold said I’d be up and about any day now.”
“Harold said I’m still young enough that I’ll heal fast.”
“Harold said if I wasn’t so thin, this would have been much worse.”
I go to my room and look through Liam’s old texts.
Liam
I can’t believe you wanted me to work on the weekend. You’re like the villain in a Hallmark movie.
*I’m* working. Why shouldn’t I expect it of you?
Now you sound like the heroine of a Hallmark movie, the one who will realize the error of her ways.
And you sound like a guy who watches a lot of Hallmark movies. Only one of us should be ashamed right now. Hint: it’s not me.
Look at you bantering with me about Hallmark movies. I knew you had a soft side.
I didn’t think I was lonely before. I threw myself into work and told myself I was too busy for more, but once I started hearing from him all the time—at night, on the weekend—I felt myself opening, a flower finally exposed to light, and I miss that feeling now.
It makes me wish I’d never come here in the first place so I didn’t have to ruin things.