“I’m fine,” I say, repeating her words from earlier. We both know we’re liars, and neither can call the other out on it.
“Good. Good.”
Eventually, I do sit, and she passes me a whisk and a bowl. Dottie settles over my feet, and once more, I’m hit with a wave of longing, for all this time I’ve lost with her. Mom tells me about her crochet club, then goes on to say what everyone in town has gotten up to. I don’t particularly care whether Mrs. Waterford is pretending she’s still naturally blonde at eighty, but small talk is always so much easier than talking about what actually bothers us.
Except by the time Mom starts rolling the dough, and I take a good look at her hands, I can’t pretend anymore. Crooked jointsallow fingers to climb over others, creating a jumbled knot of her hands. The sight alone is painful.
“You have rheumatoid arthritis?” I’d remember those hands from my medical textbooks any day, the swan neck deformities of the fingers unmistakable.
She shrugs.
“Mom, you acted like it was simple joint pain.” Has everyone lied to me about their health issues?
“It is. It gets better at the end of the day.”
I can’t help looking at her poor fingers. She had trouble simply walking earlier.
“You can’t stay here,” I say, pointing at the house. It’s a small bungalow, but there’s no way she can do all the cleaning by herself. I doubt she could go down to the basement right now.
“Stop it. I’m fine.”
“Mom. How can you take care of this entire place by yourself?” Maybe Keira comes over to help, but I know she works full time as a clerk in the town’s dental clinic, and she’ll soon have two kids. Unless my father did find a gold mine before going to jail, there’s no way she can pay for a cleaning company.
“I manage.” She lays her flour-covered hand on mine. “But thank you for worrying.”
Worrying is not enough. She needs so much more from me.
“I can come over to help while I’m here, but—”
“Please, honey. Let me just enjoy having you here. We still have so much to catch up on!” She smiles again. It’s too much.
“But…”
“No buts. I’m fine, I promise. The crochet girls help around when they come over, and when Dad eventually comes back—”
The world freezes. I don’t hear the rest of her sentence, don’t think I even breathe for a few moments.
“Dad?” I say, pulling my hand away. “You’re waiting forDad?”
She stammers, the only answer I need.
“You’re still with him.” My body feels numb as I stand.
I never expected Mom to leave him. He couldn’t convince her to, no matter what he did. It didn’t matter that all my classmates knew he was cheating with whoever he could find, that she’d always be looked at as less than in this town. But when I heard seven years after I left that my father had been arrested for assaulting a woman in the town’s bar, I thought,all right, this is it.She couldn’t stay with him after that. Couldn’t stomach looking him in the eye, knowing he’d physically hurt another woman. I was convinced that would be her limit.
And yet, I never asked her. Never even brought up Dad’s situation. Never told her I’d heard from Ruth he was in jail. She didn’t mention it, either, but I’d thought it was our mutual agreement never to bring him up again. Now, I see a part of me probably always knew she would never leave. Nothing he could do would ever be bad enough. Not when it came to us, and not when it came to others.
“Cassie, it’s—” She tries to stand, but immediately needs to hold on to the back of the chair. I go to her to help her regain her balance, but as soon as I know she’s fine, I step away.
“I need to go.” The air in this house has always felt so thick, so sparse.
“No, please. Don’t go yet.” I hear the strain in her voice.
I close my eyes. Breathe in, then out.You don’t want to be like him.
Something wet touches my calf. Dottie’s snout. I focus on it, on how her fur feels against my bare feet, coarse but also the softest thing I could conjure.
“We won’t bring him up again,” I say. “Ever.”
