Mom’s side of the family is Irish to the bone. The story goes that some great-grandmother of mine came to the States in a potato boat or something. She has three brothers, two sisters, a million cousins, and among them you’ll find all of the stereotypes: Catholicism, raging alcoholism, legendary hot tempers. It sure makes holiday get-togethers interesting. Dad’s one of those American mutts who cites about fifteen European countries as his heritage. Apparently none of them were strong enough to battle out the Irish in the gene pool.
“What are you doing?” she asks.
Crap. My whiteboard’s upstairs and neither of us knows sign language, so that leaves me limited options. I tear open one of the bags, point to the clothing, and then shake my head, trying for my best DO NOT WANT! expression. I also attempt mimicking handing a folded pair of studded jeans to a grateful jeans-deprived poor person, which my mother understands about as well as you’d expect. Meaning, not at all.
Ah, well. I can just store it all down here for right now, and if by some miracle life returns to normal, I’ll drag it all back up to my room. I’m not holding my breath waiting for that to happen, though.
Mom exhales in exasperation. “Stop this nonsense and just talk to me!”
For a second she looks so hurt that I feel kind of bad about it. I mean, it’s not like I decided to do this to punish her. And it’s not like I can explain my real reasons to her. “You see, Mom, your darling daughter never knows when to shut the hell up and has a habit of saying things that land people in jail or in comas, or else mortifies them with what may quite possibly fall under the legal guidelines of sexual harassment, and the only way my so-called friends will listen to anything I have to say is if I kneel at their feet begging for forgiveness, which isn’t going to happen in this lifetime, so it’s easier not to say anything at all.” Please. If I said all that, she’d skip Dr. Gebhart and go directly for the straitjacket.
“Chelsea.” Mom’s arms drop to her sides, and she takes a step toward me. “Tell me what’s wrong. Tell me so I can fix it.”