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“Mom,” I said as the woman whom I both loved and hated shoved her way into my home. “What are you doing here?”
“Hi, Betsy,” my mother said, dragging a huge red suitcase behind her. “Your father finally left me so I’m moving in.”
“Left you?” I repeated. “Dad died three years ago.”
“I’m talking about his spirit, sweetheart. You know he’s been haunting me ever since he ran my Buick into that tree and forced me into driving that”—she gestured with disgust toward the driveway—“pre-owned Kia.”
Of course I’d heard about my father hanging around since his car accident, his death apparently not releasing him from the duty of being married to my mother. According to her, my father’s guilt over destroying her most treasured possession, a three-month-old Buick, prevented his spirit from transitioning to life in the afterworld.
But until today, I’d always thought my mother had accepted that my father was, for all matters of consequence, gone, even if he had felt the only way to repent was to subject himself to a few more years of my mother’s company rather than resting in peace.
And I’d certainly never thought my dead father’s spirit was the only thing keeping my mother from moving into my home.
I eyed the suitcase as I closed the front door. It looked large enough to contain the inventory of a small department store. “Mom, don’t you think you’re being rather hasty? We’ve never talked about you moving in. I don’t even have a spare bedroom.”
She waved one hand. “There’s no need to go to any trouble for me. After all, I’m just the woman who gave birth to you and sacrificed for eighteen years so you could have advantages I never had. I’ll simply sleep on the couch.”
My gaze roamed toward the sofa. Thank God I’d talked my ex-husband out of purchasing one with a fold-out bed. “Surely you’d be more comfortable in your own bed.”
She let go of her suitcase handle and flopped onto the couch, bouncing experimentally on the cushions. “You’re right about that. Why, this sofa is upholstered with the most inferior fabric. I’ll likely develop a skin rash out here. Why you chose such unwelcoming furniture eludes me, dear, really.”
My fingernails curled into my palms as heat rose in my cheeks. “Derek and I wanted to discourage overnight guests.”
Chip, the mutt I’d inherited after my father died, ran into the room and planted his front paws on my mother’s pants. Although my mother couldn’t stand the dog, she was his favorite person. I didn’t know if his fondness of her was due to an inability to sense evil, or because my mother reminded him of a female version of his species.
I sat on the loveseat to watch as Chip slapped his tail against my mother’s calves and tried to lick her face. The dog’s chances of getting her to return home far exceeded mine. And if he succeeded, steak would be replacing Chip’s dry kibble tonight.
My mother straightened and pushed the dog away, but not before he deposited a trail of saliva down her cheek. “Can’t you get him to stop?”
“Chip, sit,” I said without conviction.
Chip paused to look at me. Then he catapulted himself onto my mother’s lap, obediently planting his rear end on her slacks as he tried to scrunch himself into a tinier ball than his sixty pounds allowed.
“Good heavens!” My mother futilely attempted to shove the dog away from her.
“He thinks he’s a lap dog.” I briefly wondered whether he was under this same misconception when he still lived at her house or if he’d only adopted the notion since my youngest daughter had started encouraging his antics. With more enthusiasm, I added, “If you plan on sleeping here, you might as well get used to him now.”
She prodded the dog with the tips of her fingers. “I obviously won’t get any sleep on this couch.”
Her observation boosted my spirits. I checked the clock. With one hour to spare, she might even leave before dinner.
She peered at me from around Chip’s bulky body. “I’ll have to sleep in your bedroom.”
My heart stopped beating as a new horror seized me. “My bedroom?”
“You still have that queen-size bed, correct?” she asked. “You didn’t downsize after the divorce?”
“I still use the same bed,” I admitted, uncomfortable with where this conversation was headed.
She flashed me a brilliant smile. “Well, with Derek gone it’s not as if you need all that space to yourself. Both of us could easily fit on a bed that size.”
I stiffened. “I’m not sure I would feel comfortable sharing a bed with my mother.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” she said. “You used to climb into my bed all the time.”
“Yes, when I was five.” Surely a statute of limitations existed on how long she could hold my childhood behavior against me. “Given that I’m forty-two now, most of those urges have gone away.”
“Nonsense. You’re never too old to need your mother.”
I bit back a response, torn between pointing out how I most certainly did not need her and maintaining my own maternal delusions that my teenage daughters would always need me.
My mother cringed as Chip licked her cheek. “I should have taken this creature back to the Seattle Animal Shelter after Rick died.”
“Katherine would have had a fit,” I told her, thinking of my thirteen-year-old daughter’s attachment to her “uncle.”
“You always did have trouble controlling your daughters,” my mother said. “Temper tantrums are the end result of a childhood without discipline.”
I gritted my teeth at this all-too-familiar dig about my lackluster efforts at parenting.
My mother looked at her watch. “Where are my grandchildren anyway? Isn’t school over by now, or have they dropped out?”
I gripped the edge of the loveseat. “School ended a couple hours ago, but they had things to do afterward.”
“Things?” Emerging from her mouth, the word sounded like a euphemism for unpalatable activities. “Don’t tell me those young girls are out running amok without any supervision.” She regarded me through narrowed eyes, apparently evaluating whether I might have armed my children with cigarettes, porn magazines, and pipe bombs before sending them off to school this morning.
“They’ll be home in about an hour. Katherine’s practicing with her track team, and Meredith is at the mall.” I didn’t tell her my oldest daughter, sixteen-year-old Meredith, was in the company of friends her own age, not a parent in sight.
“The mall,” my mother said, obviously appalled. “That’s a stalking ground for child predators.”
“I’ll tell you what.” I let go of the loveseat and leaned back. “If someone abducts Meredith then you can have her room.”
My mother’s eyes widened. “That’s no way to talk about your child. Imagine how terrible you would feel if some hooligan really did snatch her off the streets.”
Discomfited, I stood up and headed into the open kitchen located catty-corner to the living room. Chip launched himself off my mother’s lap to follow, determined to be present in case something new materialized in his food dish.
“Are you staying for dinner, Mom?” I mentally telegraphed the proper response as I pulled various items out of the refrigerator.
“Of course,” she said. “Where else would I eat?”
“Your house.” I banged a gallon of milk on the counter.
“This is my house,” she said with infuriating calm. “Don’t you remember, darling? I live here now.”
I plucked a cutting knife out of the utensil drawer, stared longingly at the blade for a moment, then reluctantly returned the implement before turning around to face my mother over the kitchen counter. “Mom, the issue is hardly resolved. Except for you barging over with the announcement, we haven’t discussed you moving in. We don’t even know where you would sleep!”
“We already decided your bed is spacious enough for two.” Her tone suggested she was the embodiment of logic. When Chip barked—likely to voice his displeasure over his empty food dish and my lack of interest in rectifying the situation—she added, “And, of course, I wouldn’t get any sleep out here with that animal jumping around.”
I glanced at Chip, who eyed me expectantly. “He’s excited. He hardly ever gets to see you nowadays.”
“Well, that will all change now that I live here.” As if the matter were settled, my mother stood up and grabbed hold of her suitcase, lugging it toward the stairway.
I backed away from the kitchen counter, anxious to block any further infiltration of my house. “Where are you going?”
“Your bedroom,” she said. “Our bedroom,” she corrected quickly.
She didn’t break stride, hauling her suitcase up the steps as I raced after her. Chip chased us, yapping with excitement.
My mother pushed her way into the master bedroom seconds before I did. As she released her hold on the suitcase, I considered grabbing it and hurling it back down the stairs, but didn’t want to disgrace myself with an undignified crawl across the mattress in order to reach it.
My mother gasped as Chip leapt onto the comforter. “You let dogs on your bed?”
I opened my mouth to defend myself, then thought better of it. “Chip always sleeps in here.” Usually the dog curled up next to Katherine, but I hoped he’d stick with my mother for as long as it took to drive her back to her house. “He still misses Dad terribly, and he can’t bear to sleep alone.”
“Rick died three years ago.” She gave Chip a level look, as if he should clearly be over the loss.
I didn’t bother pointing out her own insistence on keeping my father’s spirit around for the past few years. “Dogs bond for life. It’s like his alpha male left him without a leader.”
I watched the dog, praying he didn’t abandon us despite how he must have figured out we didn’t hurry upstairs to play tag. I needed his continued presence to pressure my mother into scurrying back to her house before dusk.
Fortunately, Chip wasn’t in any rush to leave. He rolled onto his back, peering at me upside down with hopeful eyes.
I turned away from him, wishing he would tuck his tongue back into his mouth and wipe the cute, innocent look off his face. “If I don’t let Chip sleep in here, there’s trouble to pay.”
Fear clouded my mother’s eyes. “Trouble?”
I nodded vigorously, trying to jar my brain into coming up with an affliction befitting of a grieving dog. “He has nightmares. And he tears things up.” I looked desperately around the room before pointing to my mother’s suitcase. “He especially likes to scratch at red fabrics. Something about the color reminds him of Dad, I guess.”
I realized I might have embellished too much when my mother aimed quirked lips in my direction. “Your father didn’t have anything red,” she said.
“Sure he did,” I countered automatically.
She set her hands on her hips. “Name one red article owned by Rick.”
My mind seized on an old memory. “What about that red duffel bag you gave him when I was a teenager?”
My mother pressed her lips together. “I suppose that’s true, although I haven’t seen that bag in years.”
“Neither has Chip,” I supplied. “That must be why the color drives him so wild. The only way to keep him from scratching is to let him sleep here.”
“Well, I’m not sharing my bed with a dog,” my mother declared. “You two will have to sleep on the sofa.”
“Me sleep on the sofa?” I sputtered.
“You’ll be much more comfortable sleeping alone, anyway,” she said. “Otherwise, I’d just be in your hair.”
“If you really want to stay out of my hair, you could go back to your house,” I proposed.
She sat herself in my favorite chair, looking like the Queen of England perched on her throne. “I don’t know why you’re protesting so much.” Her eyes flitted across my belongings. “You clearly could use the housekeeping help. Why, I bet you haven’t dusted since Derek left.”
I surveyed my bedroom furniture, which did sport an unhealthy layer of dust. “Had I known earlier that my mother had decided to move into my bedroom without the courtesy of my consult, I would have spruced up the place before Her Majesty’s arrival.”
My mother’s lips puckered. “You certainly know how to make a woman feel unwelcome.”
“You weren’t invited,” I reminded her.
“Even so,” she said, capitalizing on one of her favorite expressions. She seemed to think these two little words gave her license to dismiss all common sense and believe instead whatever she wanted.
I had to unclench my jaw to respond. “Can’t you go home and pretend Dad’s spirit is still around? I don’t imagine he did much for you anyway.”
She watched as Chip inched his nose toward her suitcase. “No,” she said, her gaze never leaving the dog, “you’re probably right.”
Hope flickered. “So you’re not moving in?”
She twisted her mouth, darting disappointed eyes in my direction before resuming watch over Chip. “I’m staying. I simply meant you’re correct about your father not doing much for me.”
The conviction in her voice took me aback. “I meant after his death. Dad did a lot for you when he was alive.”
“Like what?” she spat. “Sullying my Buick?”
“Sullying the Buick?” I echoed. “Are you referring to when Dad totaled the car? He hardly did that on purpose.”
“I’m talking about when he escorted that . . . that person around town.” Her face turned a disturbing shade of maroon. “That car was my pride and joy, even though I understood the motive behind its purchase was hardly noble. That Rick would ruin not only my dignity but that one, small consolation prize just gets my goat.”
“I don’t understand,” I said, feeling as though I’d missed a key element of this conversation. “What are you saying?”
“Don’t you see, sweetheart?” my mother said with a shake of her head. “Your father was not alone when the car crashed.”
