Sweet Forty-Two(81)

“Sounds good, Alice...” My mom trailed off with droopy eyelids, her head rocking back to the support of the window.

That wasn’t the first time she’d called me Alice during her treatment, and it usually came when she was fighting sleep. I welcomed the slip of the tongue, reassured that even though her short-term memory was spotty in the days surrounding her treatment, her brain still clung to the most precious moments of my childhood.

I’d planned to tell Regan everything. To tell him that the mortar holding my walls together was pure fear, certainty that I’d follow the same path my grandfather and mother had. Only, now they weren’t fears. I couldn’t do anything about the genetics, and I had to let that go. But watching how my mother handled her life, her diagnosis, and her treatment taught me that fear was more debilitating than almost anything else could be. I needed to tell him about what my mom and I had just been through over the last few weeks. He deserved that. Frankly, I deserved that, to be honest with another human being about something without them dragging it out of me.

When we arrived at the apartment, I helped my mother up the stairs and she insisted on sitting on the couch in front of the television, claiming she needed some brainless entertainment for a while.

Her joke, not mine.

“Be right back, Mom.” I kissed her on the forehead and she dismissed me with a wave of her hand.

“You worry too much. Pretty sure The Young and the Restless and I will do just fine while you’re downstairs.”

I shut the door behind me and raced down the stairs and into the bakery, where I found the health inspector talking with Regan, handing him papers from his clipboard.

“Here she is now.” Regan gestured to me and the inspector turned with a smile.

“You caught me just in time, ma’am. This place is in such great condition, I was finished sooner than expected.” The averaged-height, overweight man with more hair on his arms than on his head looked pleased as he swiftly took the papers from Regan and handed them to me. “Two weeks is your intended opening date?”

“It is. Two weeks from Saturday.”

“Best of luck to you. Make sure you phone my office when you decide on a name for the place so we can fill out the certificates accordingly.”

Behind his shoulder, I watched Regan lift his fists to the air in supportive victory.

“It’s all set? I passed?” My eyes widened and I looked between the papers in my hand and the inspector’s face.

“All set. Good luck again, Miss.” He gave me a firm nod and left through the main door.

I turned around, my mouth hanging open in my excitement. “Holy shit!” I screamed, raising my arms in the air as Regan had seconds before.

“You did it!” Regan lifted me into a tight hug. Fully lifted me off the floor and spun me around. “Come upstairs with me. I have champagne.”

He set me down and grabbed my hand, racing up the stairs.

“Slow down, legs,” I teased, “some of us aren’t twenty feet tall.”

“Some of us aren’t two feet tall, either,” he shot back, reaching his apartment and opening the door.

“Gee,” I mused, “love what you’ve done with the place.” Bare walls and a single couch seemed to be accents to a music stand and his violin.

Regan pinched my cheek and stuck out his tongue. “I’m not here much, jerk.”

He dashed into the kitchen and pulled a bottle of champagne from the fridge.

“Hey,” I started, putting my hands in my back pockets, “there’s something I want to talk to you about.” My heart beat in triplet rhythm as I prepared for total emotional exposure.

“Hang on.” He reached into a cabinet and pulled out two plastic cups. “This is all I have ... sorry.”

“It’s okay.” I cleared my throat, afraid I’d lose my nerve.

Regan popped the champagne and it made me jump, feeling like I was shoved through a keyhole, riding on an umbrella with a dodo bird, circling in a pool of insecurity. Before I opened my mouth again, he looked over my shoulder.

“Oh, hi, Mrs. Hall,” he said nonchalantly. “I didn’t know you were here, sorry. Want some champagne? The bakery passed the health inspection!”

Dread nearly crippled me as I turned and found my mother standing in the doorway. In our excitement, Regan and I had left the door open. She must have heard us. She was pale and looked like a foreigner, the way her eyes darted around the apartment, settling on Regan’s face for a few seconds at a time before moving on.

“Is everything okay?” Regan asked when my mother didn’t respond to his first salutation.

“I’m sorry,” she shook her head, “have we met?”

Regan slowly set down the bottle of champagne, taking noticeably quicker breaths as he stared at me.

“Mom,” I prompted without looking at Regan, “this is Regan, remember? You met him a month, or so, ago in my apartment. CJ’s cousin.”

I said as many prayers as one can say while waiting for their facade to shatter.

“CJ, the drummer boy your dad used to let play at Dunes?”

I swallowed hard, nodding at the repeat conversation we were having about how I knew Regan. About five minutes too late, recognition snapped my mother’s eyes into focus.

“Oh, shit. Regan, yes, of course. I’m sorry, honey, it’s the goddamned shock therapy messing with that pesky short term memory.” My mom giggled. A light and airy sound that was instantly soaked in the darkness of Regan’s face.