While Becky began to chide him, Thelma recited the years of the Reagan administration and the day of the Challenger explosion. It shut him up for a few more seconds.
“So…” Becky’s gaze lingered on her ex as she spoke. “I understand I was summoned here because my grumpy ex-husband has prostate cancer and is trying to keep it from everyone.”
“I told you, didn’t I?”
“But not your mother.”
“She’s not my mother!”
The words were barked with the harsh intensity of a scared dog, but Thelma didn’t flinch. Instead, her finger rubbed the side of her coffee cup. Becky shook her head.
“I mean…” Robbie wouldn’t look at either of them. “You know what I mean! Look at her! She’s young enough to be Megan’s sister! We tell people they’re cousins! Did you know that the official story from the government is that she’s Debbie’s daughter?”
“You mean people think she’s your niece?”
“Yes! Crazy, isn’t it?”
“Do you think I like it any more than you?” Thelma asked. “You act like a belligerent fool in half the stores we go to, and I’m supposed to sit there and take it because, one, you’re a grownman, and two, what power do I have in that situation? This isn’t like it was for me a year ago when I could haul your miserable behind out of the store and make you think about what you did in the car.”
“Thank God for that.”
“Do you know how many times I told him to just stay in the car if he was going to act like that?” Becky asked. “The whole reason I filed for divorce was because I felt like I hadtwochildren.”
“Not you too!”
“The man is ten years older than me and treated me like his mother.”
“I did not.”
“Did too.”
“You both sound like children right now,” Thelma observed.
“Oh, good!” Becky chuckled. “It’s been a long time since I was allowed to feel like a little girl again.”
Thelma wrapped her sweater closer around her, hands tucked beneath her arms. “I may be younger than you both, cellularly speaking, but the fact of the matter is that I’m still Robert’s mother and deserve to be treated with due respect. I don’t care how long it has been for him. I think I’ve been quite understanding of what a shock this is for him.”
“I don’t think you knowwhata shock it was!” Robbie attempted to lean back on the bench, but without anything to support his back, he was forced to the side, away from Becky. “There I was, minding my own damn business, when I got a call from the FBI to come down right away to their branch office. There had been abreakin my mother’s missing persons case.” He slammed his Paprika cup onto the wooden picnic bench, nearly cracking both. “Which is what I told Megan when I took her with me. Next thing I know, we’re locked in a room with some FBI detective, and he’s telling me… telling us…”
Robbie went silent. Thelma shuddered to remember what it had been like to be in her own position in the FBI office.
“That not only had they found you… but you werealive.That was… that was, quite frankly, shocking enough.”
“You must have thought they found the old lady version of your mother.” Becky took her ex-husband’s hand. “Living in some old folks’ home in Pasadena or something.”
“Instead, she was twenty-eight and wearing the outfit she left the house in sixty years ago. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing… time travel… and then there youwere,like it was the cruelest prank in the universe.”
Thelma rubbed something from her eye. “I can only imagine.”
“It must have been terrifying for you as well, Thelma.”
“I had been here for two or three days.” She sighed. “Staying in some small hotel that they keep on the premises. My only connection to the outside world was a female agent who argued with me about ethnic cuisine.”
Neither Becky nor Robbie said anything about that.
“Then they said they found my son, and he was coming there. I was so nervous. So afraid.” She went on to cover the heaviness in her heart when she first saw the boy who was her son.No, he was a man. An old man.There was a grown granddaughter she had no way of knowing about. Not only were these people being shocked by her presence, but her son wanted nothing to do with her. For a while, Thelma convinced herself that the only reason Robbie took her in was because the FBI forced his hand.
“More like Megan forced my hand…”
