A Mother Would Know (71)
“They met up with some girls. We have all night.” Scooping me up, he carried me to the bed in the back of the bus and flung me down on it.
“I can’t believe this is our last night.” I buried my face in his neck.
“It doesn’t have to be,” he said and looked at me meaningfully before his head dipped lower on my body. It was something he’d been saying for a while now, something I’d fantasized about as well. But that’s all it could be—a fantasy. Mac didn’t get it. He didn’t have a family. All he knew was the fun side of me. The version of me on the road. The me with no strings.
What would happen when we weren’t on the road? When I showed up with half a house of belongings and two kids?
What would happen when things were hard? Or worse, boring?
* * *
“Mom,” Kendra’s voice breaks into my recollections, and the bus and Mac disappear.
Wait. I want to reach for him. Come back.
I feel a cool hand on my forehead. I’m burning up. An intense fever. Like I’m on fire. The coolness should be a relief.
But it’s not.
I remember the confusion of seeing her in the mirror behind me. Our eyes locking. The way hers cut from mine down to the mug. What did she do to me?
I can’t move. I can hardly breathe.
And whatever she did...why?
That’s what I don’t understand, and that’s what scares me.
She seems so far away. It’s dark and gray and warm. I can’t make my lips work or my body move. The darkness is back. It’s creeping in. I can’t fight it. So I let go.
* * *
“Have you talked to Darren yet?” The back of Mac’s hand grazed my cheek.
I lifted my head from his shoulder, peered up at his face, my fingertips playing along his bare chest. It’s the question I’d been dreading. “I’m sorry, Mac, but I can’t. Not right now.”
His hand stilled. He sat up, causing my face to slip from his shoulder and abruptly fall to the pillow beneath us.
“When, then?”
I licked my lips, pushing myself up off the bed with my palms. His room smelled like sweat and sex. Like Mac.
“I don’t know. Things are complicated now.”
“Bullshit.” Standing up, he raked his fingers through his hair.
“Excuse me?” I reached for my shirt and tugged it over my head.
Mac stood in front of me, unabashedly naked, despite the fact that his bedroom window was open, the blinds not all the way closed.
Hugging myself, I stayed put, drawing my legs in to my chest.
“You told me weeks ago you were gonna talk to him.”
“And I was going to,” I said, thinking of that night, of getting home to Darren passed out slumped in our bathroom, the kids asleep in their rooms, the remains of some scorched scrambled eggs congealing on the stovetop. Hudson, probably. At fourteen, he was a lackadaisical cook and a worse dishwasher. “But the timing’s no good now.”
“And I call bullshit.”
I recoiled, surprised by his insensitivity. “How can you say that? You know things are bad right now. His drinking is out of control. It’s affecting his health.”
“But that has nothing to do with us.”
“It has everything to do with us,” I countered. “My family needs me right now.”
“What about me?”
“Huh?”
“I need you.”
I smiled. “And you have me.”
“No, I don’t. I want you, all of you, all the time. I love you. And you love me, too. You don’t need to make excuses. If they all needed you so badly, you wouldn’t be here.”
His frustrated words nearly knock the wind out of me. I know I’ve been selfish, sneaking in these visits, trying to carve out time for what I love, for what—and who—I’m passionate about. But Hudson was beginning to act out at school. Heather sometimes seemed like she was avoiding our house; instead, he always went to hers. And, put-together as she was, Kendra’s grades had slipped for the first time this semester.
Mac was right. I couldn’t look away from the truth.
Too bad that truth wasn’t what he wanted it to be.
My eyes pop open, a panicked breath escaping. I’m no longer in Mac’s bedroom. I’m back in mine. I look around for Kendra or Hudson, but neither are in here. I’d heard Kendra’s voice. Hadn’t I? My door is closed. I listen but hear no noises. Did they leave?
My head pounds, my mouth dry.
I hope Hudson is getting me help.
As I stare up at the ceiling, praying for help to come, my mind replays all the fragmented dreams I’d been having. Darren. The kids. Mac.
If only I had been braver.
Maybe he’d still be here.
* * *
Less than a month after I’d broken things off with Mac for the last time, he’d called to ask about a notebook he’d been missing. One with some of the songs we’d worked on together. Later that night, I found it.
The next morning, I called but he didn’t answer. So I drove to his house, intending to leave it on the front porch. It was an ordinary day. Blue skies. Bright sun.
I’d stopped at a Starbucks on the way over, and I took a sip of my mocha before stepping out of the car. It would no doubt be warm by afternoon, but that morning it was still cool. I tugged my jacket tighter around my body as I hurried up to Mac’s front door, the notebook pressed to my chest. I wore a pair of jeans and knee-high boots, a low-cut black top, my favorite pendant necklace bouncing up and down on my breasts with each step. If he spotted me through the window or wanted to talk, I wanted my outfit to say that I was doing okay, that I was confident I’d made the right choice, even if my heart still felt shredded.