Timebound(5)

And then she was gone, before Mom or I could say a word.

“Well, she hasn’t lost her flair for the dramatic.” Mom picked up the legal document by one corner, as though it might bite. “I do not want to move in with her, Kate. And don’t look at me like I’m evil incarnate. If you want to fulfill the ‘one year in a haunted house’ clause in your grandmother’s will, you’ll have to work it out with your dad.”

“Now who’s being dramatic? Me staying there isn’t part of the will. She said it was just a request. And I don’t think you’re being ‘evil’—but jeez, Mom, she’s dying. She’s not a monster and she seems very…” I paused, looking for the right word. “Interesting, I guess. And maybe if you spent some time with her, you two could work out your differences so you won’t feel guilty when she’s dead.”

That earned me a dirty look. “Kate, I’m not in the mood for amateur psychoanalysis right now. There’s a lot that you don’t understand, and probably won’t understand until you’re a parent. Truthfully, I’m not sure I want you even visiting her, much less staying there. She’s manipulative and selfish, and I don’t want you getting hurt.”

“I don’t see how you can say she’s selfish when she’s leaving us a lot of money. At least, I assume it’s a lot of money.”

Mom glanced down at the envelope. “I think that’s a pretty safe assumption. But I hope that I’ve taught you that money isn’t everything, Kate. There’s such a thing as giving of yourself when someone needs you. Time, attention, sympathy…”

She finished the last of the wine in her glass before continuing. “I was always closer to my dad than I was to Mother, but I needed her really badly after the accident. I lost my father and I lost my twin. I barely got a chance to say good-bye to Dad—and Prudence was just gone. No good-bye, nothing. I felt so alone. We both suffered the same loss, but Mother closed herself up in her bedroom and I hardly saw her. She came out for the funeral and then went right back into the bedroom.”

Mom ran her finger thoughtfully around the edge of the empty glass. “Maybe that’s why I was drawn to your dad. Harry was the first person I ever knew who understood that kind of loss.”

Both of my dad’s parents were killed in an auto accident when he was only five; he was lucky to have survived the crash himself. No one I loved had ever died, and both Mom and Dad had always been there, physically, when I really needed them. But I could definitely sympathize with feeling alone. After each of the “panic attacks,” I felt as though no one understood what I was going through. I was furious that Mom and even Dad tried to dismiss them as normal and explainable events, when I knew without a doubt that they most definitely were not.

“I’ve always believed,” Mom continued, “that a mother should worry first about her child, not about her own needs. But I probably don’t always put that into practice as well as I should, either. And… I don’t want you to look back twenty years from now and be as angry at me as I am with her.

“I don’t want to live with my mother and I don’t want her money. But,” she added, “you’ll be an adult soon, and you’re old enough to decide for yourself. I won’t stop you from seeing her if that’s what you want. You and your dad can work out the rest of it. Does that sound fair?”

I nodded. I had been expecting her to mull things over for days or even weeks, and was surprised to actually have a decision. “You want to split a dessert?”

She smiled. “No way, kiddo. I want my own. I need something big and gooey, with lots and lots of chocolate.”





2





“You’re late, young lady.” Dad shoved a bowl of vegetables into my arms the second I walked in the door. “We’re going to have to hustle to get the jambalaya ready before Sara arrives. The knife is on the table. Chop-chop.”

I rolled my eyes at the lousy pun, even though I really don’t mind them. If Dad is making bad jokes, it means he’s in a good mood.

We both like to cook, but on school nights there’s rarely time for more than soup and sandwiches. On Sundays, however, we go all out. Usually Dad’s girlfriend, Sara, joins us to sample whatever gastronomic experiment is on tap for the week. Unfortunately, the kitchen isn’t really designed for anything more adventurous than microwave pizza. There’s barely room at the counter for one person, let alone two. So I sat at the kitchen table chopping the “holy trinity” of Creole cuisine—bell peppers, celery, and onions—while Dad stood at the sink doing his share of the prep work.