“Okay…” The blood roars in my ears as I have to fight to keep my knee from bouncing; something I do when I’m anxious.
“He used to come in every Friday—sometimes Saturdays too—and I was always his bartender. Zeke never came in with anyone. He’d sometimes leave with someone, but he’d always come in alone. Wasn’t much of a talker. He’d sit at the bar, order a scotch neat, sometimes people watch, sometimes not.”
I don’t know what she’s getting at here, or why she’s telling me this, but she still won’t look me in the eye. The nerves coating my gut are welling up, growing bigger, and making it harder to sit still. If there’s one thing about my mom, it’s that she’ll always take the long way to get to her point in a story. Normally, I don’t mind, but right now, I’m going to be sick if she doesn’t get there quickly.
“You know me,” she says, huffing a laugh through her nose. “I’m chatty and persistent. It’s why working behind the bar always worked so well for me. So, of course, I got him to crack. We were friends before he even knew what hit him.”
Thinking back, I truly don’t think I ever knew how Zeke and my mom actually met. Their relationship happened fast, that much I do know. They got engaged quickly and married even quicker. I never thought to ask, especially after I realized who she was marrying.
“We would talk about lots of things. Troubles I was having, his job. I’d even talk to him about you.” With that, she finally meets my gaze. A chill runs down my spine at the cold look in her eyes. “He told me when Elena was first diagnosed with cancer. That was, I think, the first time he opened up about anything more than surface level with me.
“He confided in me how she wanted him to get married and have a family. How he didn’t think he’d ever be able to give her that.”
Mom pauses, inspecting her nails. For what, I have no clue. There’s a lump in my throat as big as a golf ball, and my tongue’s been replaced with sandpaper.
“Why are you telling me all this, Mom?” My voice comes out quiet, small, but she jumps anyway, like she forgot I was here.
“As one day, I’m sure you’ll learn, being a parent comes with its sacrifices. Sometimes, you have to make tough calls that don’t always work out in your favor. Decisions you don’t ever want your child to find out about, because it’s not their job to worry. After all, they didn’t ask to be born.”
The whiplash I’m getting from this conversation is almost making me more nauseous than the anxiety.
“Before Zeke and I got married, I was embarrassingly close to losing everything. The house, my car,everything. I didn’t know how I was going to make ends meet and pull myself out of the ditch I’d found myself in.”
She uncrosses and crosses her legs. A telltale sign of hers that she’s nervous.
“One night, after I received a foreclosure notice, I went to the bar and drank my sorrows. Zeke was there. I remember finding it odd because it wasn’t a Friday or a Saturday. He sat across from me and listened while I laid all of my troubles out on the table. Every last shameful detail.” Her eyes are glassy, and she clears her throat. “He drove me home that night, and when he dropped me off, I thought for sure that was the end of our friendship.”
My mind is spinning almost as fast as my heart is pounding. I swear to God, if my mother is about to tell me about her and Zeke having sex, I’m going to, without a doubt, barf all over the off-white-colored carpet.
“Two days later—a Friday—he showed up at the bar, saying he needed to talk to me about something. He sat me down at the very same booth I cried in a few days earlier, and he proposed.”
“Mom, why are you—”
“But he didn’t propose in the way you think,” she says, cutting me off. “He suggested marriage as a way to help both of us out. For him, he would be able to give his dying sister the one thing she wanted, and for me, I’d get out of financial ruin once and for all.”
What?
“And honestly,” she continues. “It was the perfect idea, seeing as how I never planned on getting married to begin with.”
Mom stops talking, hands going into her lap, threaded together, like she’s finished with her story. Butwhat the fuck?That cannot be the end of the story.
So, again, I repeat myself, “Why are you telling me this?”
Her eyes, similar in color to my own, lift, and she’s quiet for a few beats. If I had to guess, I’d say she didn’t want to have this conversation at all. Finally, carefully, she asks, “When I introduced you to Zeke, was that the first time you had met him?”
It feels like I’ve been sucker punched in the gut as it lurches into my throat, making it so I can’t breathe. “Mom…”
“Elias, I need you to be honest with me.” Her voice cracks and it’s a knife to the heart, knowing I’m the reason for it. If she’s asking, she knows, which means lying will sting just as bad as the truth, if not more.
My gaze drops to my lap. “No.”
I hear her suck in a deep gulp of air, but I don’t look up. I can’t.
“When was the first time you met him?”
Pressure builds, my eyes filling with tears I refuse to let fall. I don’t deserve to cry over this. “Mom, I—”
“Elias, please!” she croaks.
