Something Like Normal(48)

My mouth still on hers I reach for the phone on the bedside table. She pushes me away so I can answer. “This better be good,” I say.

“Well, good morning to you, too.” Charlie’s mom pretends to be offended, but I can hear the laughter in her voice. “I didn’t wake you, did I? I wanted to catch you before you had breakfast so you and Harper could join us at the house.”

I look at Harper in my bed, her hair all crazy from sleep, and I do not want to have breakfast with Charlie’s mom, but it would be impolite to refuse. “Yes, ma’am, we’ll be right over.”

As I scribble down the address, Harper doesn’t wait for me to tell her where we’re going. She scrambles out of bed and heads for her own room, leaving me with the prospect of yet another cold shower.

“That’s the place, right there.” Harper points from her side of the Jeep at a squatty purple house with yellow trim and flower boxes full of red flowers. It should be an antiques shop, or where someone’s grandma lives, but a painted sign hanging from the front porch roof and bordered with white Christmas lights says it’s the home of Sweet Misery Tattoos. I park along the curb in front of the shop.

Bells jingle on the front door handle as I open it for Harper and we’re in a living room that’s been converted into a waiting room with an old leather couch, a cash register counter filled with body jewelry, and a coffee table full of tattoo magazines. A wooden curtain with an image of the Buddha on it hides the studios and a rope across a set of stairs bears a sign that says Family, Friends, & US Marines Only.

“Travis, is that you?” Charlie’s mom’s voice drifts down from upstairs, along with the scent of breakfast sausage. “Come on up.”

The upper floor is a converted apartment with a small kitchen area, where Jenny is crumbling the sausage over a row of flour tortillas, and a living room loaded with religious paraphernalia. Mexican Guadalupe candles, Buddhas, the Hindu goddess chick with all the arms. There’s a velvet Jesus painting hung above the couch. I wonder how she has the time for all those deities—and which one of them claimed Charlie. I imagine him hanging with a big-bellied, laughing Buddha—like the little version he carried in his pocket for luck. It had a worn spot on the side from being rubbed.

Today his mom is channeling her inner pirate with a red-and-white-striped shirt and her dreads tied up in a skeleton-print bandanna. She smothers Harper and me with patchouli-scented hugs that make me sneeze. She’s smiling, but I recognize the sadness around the corners of her eyes. “How are you today, Travis?”

“I’m good,” I say. “I, um—wanted to apologize for walking out of the service last night. It was rude and I’m sorry.”

She takes my face in her hands. “You have nothing to apologize for, my darling. Your path is your own and you had to follow it.”

I reach into the pocket of my shorts and pull out Charlie’s death letter. When we found out we were assigned to a unit being deployed to a war zone, it was suggested we write last letters home—just in case. We made a deal that if one of us was killed, the other would deliver the letter in person. I don’t know what Charlie’s letter says. I’ve been tempted to read it, but I never did. “I also need to give you this.” I hand Ellen the letter. “I didn’t read it.”

She tucks it in her pocket without reading. “Are you hungry?”

I haven’t eaten anything since lunch yesterday, so yes, I’m seriously hungry. Concave hungry. “Yes, ma’am.”

“Then sit,” she says. “I’ll make coffee.”

Harper and I sit at the scarred wooden table while Ellen brews coffee. She babbles about how she only buys a certain brand of fair trade beans from Ecuador and armchair quarterbacks the way Jenny assembles the breakfast burritos, all the while some crazy Sufi pan flute music—which Ellen claims is supposed to be soothing—warbles in the background. They’re laughing and joking, and although Charlie is gone, they’re happy in a way my family can never seem to manage. We’ve never had a meal like this, unless you count the time Mom and I ate Harper’s shrimp recipe at the kitchen island with Aretha Franklin singing about a chain of fools. I can see why Charlie was so close to his mom.

“Hey, um—I’ll be right back,” I tell Harper, my chair scraping on the wood floor as I push away from the table.

I go back down the stairs to the empty tattoo shop and dial my mom’s number on my cell phone.

“Travis.” My name comes out like she’s been holding her breath. “How are you?”

For so long I’ve lied to her, either to keep from having to talk to her or to keep from having to tell her the truth. “I guess I’m doing okay,” I say. “This thing with Charlie has been pretty tough and, I don’t know—I think I need to talk to someone. I need help.”

“Would you like me to set up an appointment for you?”

“Yes. Please.”

“I can set you up with my therapist,” she says.

I don’t know what to say to this. My mom is seeing a therapist? I run my hand over my head. “Hey, um, Mom, I’ve gotta go because we’re having breakfast with Charlie’s mom, but I wanted to tell you—” I don’t remember the last time I said the words. “I, um—”

The line is silent for a moment as my mom waits for the words, but then she finishes it for me. “I love you, too, Travis.”