“You have a good nap.” When the call went dead, I put my forehead on the desk for a moment. In the aftermath of losingAlice, Mom had collapsed from grief and the end of two decades of chronic care. I’d thought she was getting better, but here we were, six years later, and this kind of crap kept happening.
“Call from your Mom?” Kashira said from my doorway.
I straightened. “Am I that predictable?”
“Well, you don’t date or have annoying exes who are still around. And you don’t usually let Wellhaven problems get to you. So, yeah.”
I have one ex who’s still around. Annoying isn’t quite the right word.But in this case, she was right. I didn’t want to talk about Mom, though. “I have to go fix Vicki’s antique suction pump again.” I pushed to my feet.
“Wish her insurance would spring for a new one. Maybe if you didn’t manage to fix it?”
“Catch-22. If I don’t fix it, she’d get a new one but not before her trach tube clogs up and chokes her. If I fix it, she’s breathing fine but they say it’s working and won’t replace it. I love our health insurance system.”
“Preach.” We bumped fists as I passed her in the doorway.
Between knowing Mom was home with no water and my aborted conversation with Griffin lingering in my brain, I couldn’t say I gave Wellhaven my best that afternoon. Usually I hung around late, finishing the work that more than filled my allotted hours, but instead I ditched the place right at four.
On the drive home, my mind kept doing a tired kind of jumbling, then the damned radio served me up a Griffin Marsh song. Against my will, I had a flash of Griffin sitting on that park bench, the sunlight on his silvering beard and broad shoulders. He wasn’t the thirty-six-year-old singer I’d crushed on, butdespite whatever life had done to him in the last twenty years, he’d looked good.
Too bad he’d be finishing his community service hours and moving on with his career. Again.
Mom was waiting for me in the kitchen, twisting her hands in her lap as I came in from the garage. “There’s still no water.”
“Give me two seconds and I’ll fix that.”
She caught the hem of my scrub top as I passed. “Welcome home. I didn’t mean to complain.”
“Of course not. Water’s important. Now, here, clean your hands.” I passed her the bottle of sanitizer we kept out. I wasn’t as obsessive about hygiene as I used to be, but a nursing home was a great place to pick up bugs, and Mom wasn’t getting any younger.
While Mom fumbled with getting the sanitizer pump to work, I hustled down to the basement. That washer shut-off valve was tight, but I convinced it to turn. By the time Mom came down the stairs, I was turning the household supply back on. She eyed the washer hose. “It’s dripping.”
“Yeah, that shut-off valve is old. Might get it replaced sometime. For now, put a bucket under there until I can buy new washer hoses.”
“You’re sure it’ll be all right?” Mom stared at the slow drip falling from the leak.
“Positive.” I found a bucket and set it in place. Theplink… plinkof falling drops was reassuringly slow.
“I don’t know.” Mom squatted to look down into the bucket, her eyes narrowed.
“Come on.” I gestured to coax her to her feet. “I promise, I’ll keep an eye on it. Right now, I need a shower.”
She stood stiffly, her hand on the washer for leverage. “I guess so. At least I can flush the toilet again.”
“Right. Basic essentials you don’t miss till you don’t have them.” I led the way back up to the kitchen.
“I have an important question to ask you,” she said at the top of the stairs.
“Can it wait ten minutes? I really want to get cleaned up.”
“I suppose so.”
Mom trailed along behind me as I headed for my room to swap out scrubs for clean clothes and shower. “Ten minutes,” I repeated at the door of the bathroom. She nodded but leaned on the wall to wait. I stifled a sigh as I closed the door between us.
In the shower, I ran my hands over my chest, soaping up, cleaning my pits and then down my hairy stomach. Griffin had said he liked what he saw, despite how much I’d changed. Of course, I hadn’t been naked but a scrub top wasn’t much concealment. There’d been genuine warmth in his eyes.
I couldn’t remember the last time I went out to try to hook up. Months, at least, and a forgettable guy in a dingy apartment who’d hustled me out as soon as we’d both come.
Jonah had been my last boyfriend, eight years back. He’d ditched me for always putting him last after Alice and my job and Mom. He’d been right, too. With my sister needing more care every year and money tight, I hadn’t been a fun date. But he’d been enthusiastic with me in bed and the thirty pounds I’d added since then hadn’t changed me that much. Maybe I should try dating again. Do something just for me for a change—
