Page 22 of Broken Halo
I told my boss that was no skin off my back.
I’m pretty sure Jen glared at me through the phone but since we weren’t on a video conference, there was no way to be sure.
However, when her tone turned to ice and she didn’t give me a chance to answer before she hung up on my ass, that’s when I was sure she was glaring at me. Maybe I’ll bring in a plastic Gatorade bottle to work tomorrow just to push Jen’s buttons for getting me involved—she’s practically a tree-hugger in designer shoes.
All of it pissed me off and I was more annoyed than my normal level of irritation.
I hit my weights.
I went for a run.
Then I showered and tried to focus on our latest merger. But instead of the legal documents on my screen, all I saw was Ellie twisting those damn shoe laces around her fingers, strangling them to an extent her knuckles turned white under her own affliction.
If she hadn’t just been arrested and had CPS at her house for the second day in a row, I’d think she was mad about me being anywhere near her. But after the last two days, who knows?
I don’t read anything but legal documents, and now, industry articles. Besides sports, I hate TV. And outside of work, I have no hobbies because I’ve never had time for them. Maybe Jen is right. I might need a dog.
With nothing else to do, I decided to torture myself and went to my mother’s house to do … something productive. I need to clean the whole thing out eventually and since the realtor is coming over next week with comps, there’s no better time. Even though I just buried her yesterday, I need to bite the bullet.
I flip on lights as I move through her kitchen that overlooks the garden and lake. Her house is situated on a huge lot, surrounded by trees. She wanted neighbors—she was dead set on that. She told me she wanted to walk the street, wave to the same people every day as they went to school and work, and spoil the little kids with cookies and gum.
She did it all.
And, dammit, the house still smells like a mix of her lavender lotion and the citrus cleaner she used to wipe down every surface in the place.
I keep flipping on lights as I move through the rooms and halls. The place is too big for four people, let alone one. I walk past her bedroom and keep moving—I need more time for that. The hospital bed I had brought in for her last month on this earth still sits there and taunts me with memories. She fought hard and never complained once. As the cancer started to set in and affect her daily walks and time with her friends, she kept on.
Hell, she never even grumbled about the life with my dad we couldn’t claw our way out of.
I open the farthest bedroom door in the large ranch that seems to go on forever. She used this room as storage—it might be easier to choke down going through shit she didn’t care about on a daily basis.
I go to the old desk that’s pushed up against the wall with boxes stacked on boxes. She was a hoarder. When I flip open the top one and look inside, it’s like Christmas, packed full of shit. I pull out a handful and start flipping through it.
My high school diploma. Articles about me when I started practicing in L.A. Hell, I had no idea she Googled this stuff, let alone printed it. She always asked me a million questions about my work when we talked, but that’s just what she did—asked questions, listened, and then pressed me with her wisdom whether I asked for it or not.
There’re a million newspaper clippings—she loved the paper and read it from cover to cover every day. Obituaries, recipes, gardening, how-tos.
When I flip to the next picture, I still.
A snippet from the social column. It’s of Ellie. The picture catches her at an event for the Dallas Children’s Home, walking two steps behind her husband who’s now rotting away. She looks nothing short of perfection in a dress that hugs her body and shows a lot of skin. Even in the black and white newspaper clipping, her hair is perfect, her makeup is heavy, and her expression is nothing short of dignified. The now dead asshole ahead of her looks exactly that, like an arrogant ass, only alive.
At least the state of his character has improved now that he’s dead.
To anyone else, Ellie’s the picture of perfection—a young executive’s wife. To me, she looks fucking miserable.
Why was she collecting pictures of Ellie? I convinced my mother long ago it was over, as in, really fucking over.
I toss the papers back inside and exhale because I’m not sure I’m up for this yet. At the same time, dumping shit she obviously treasured seems wrong. It’s too soon. Moving to an old bookshelf, I pick up a small binder sitting on the top of a stack of old paperbacks—a small photo book.
What the hell?
As I flip through each page, my irritation boils into anger.
Pictures of my mom from the last year, and I know this to be a fact not only because I remember how the cancer ate away at her body, month by month, but because in every picture, she’s holding a baby.
Ellie’s baby.
My mom, Faye Barrett, with Griffin Ketteman. Pictures of her making him laugh, him asleep in her arms, her reading him a book.
