“When are you going to bring your girlfriend over for dinner?” my mom asked. “How about for Thanksgiving? Are you doing anything then?”
“I’m working that day, Mom.”
“You can’t get Thanksgiving off to spend with your family?”
“Someone has to work on Thanksgiving. People don’t stop having heart attacks and strokes or stabbing people because all the EMTs are home eating turkey with their families.”
“But it’s your family.”
“I can come by and have Thanksgiving breakfast.”
“What if we start dinner at noon?”
“No, I go in at ten. You get double time and half on Thanksgiving too, and I need the money.”
“You don’t have to contribute to the slot fund that week. Besides, you work so much as it is. You need a rest.”
“Can’t do it, Mom.”
“Well, at least bring her over some night. Check with her on what a good night is and we’ll set it up. I’ll do lasagna.”
“Okay, but she’s busy too.”
“Are you embarrassed about your mother?”
“No, no, not at all. It’s just I’m so busy.”
When Carrie and I first started going out I would have loved to show her off, but now things weren’t going so well. She was irritable most of the time and quick to anger. She was going through some family issues of her own. Like mine, her dad had left her and her mom when she was young and her mother was very cold and had never shown her much affection. Her mother had had a string of boyfriends, who had abused her. Now her mom was on psych meds, and causing Carrie lots of problems, always needing her to help out with things but never thanking her. Carrie was feeling very used by everyone, she said.
I was only going over there once a week at most now. She said she had things she needed to do with her mother or extra projects from work. She had just gotten a promotion, which she labeled as more work for the same pay. I didn’t mind. I just worked longer hours myself, trying to earn money the old-fashioned way—good old long hard work.