Page 25 of Ask Your Mom If I'm Real

Big Nick Energy.

—T-shirt

DIXIE

Present

I headed to the bathroom after the door shut on the boys and their wives.

The first thing I saw was the Live, Laugh, Love sign above the bathroom doorway.

I hated that sign.

It was the first thing we’d hung up in our new home after we’d moved to Benton, Louisiana after Mary’s cancer diagnosis.

When we’d moved here, she’d been sad.

We’d had to leave the house behind that we’d had four babies in. That we’d welcomed our first ten grandchildren to. Where we’d spent every last one of our days as a married couple.

We’d added on four times to that old house.

Each time we’d added on, we’d said it would be our last.

But there we were, making sure that each kid had their own room. That Mary could have a big pantry to put all of her canned food in. That I had a garage where I could tinker on my bikes and cars.

When we’d moved to Benton, she’d loved it.

But she hadn’t loved it like she’d loved the home we’d built.

I still remembered the first time she’d made canned applesauce in the kitchen.

She’d hated how she hadn’t had any room to put her jars.

She’d bitched and complained about how she wanted to make sure that I had some of her home cooking even after she wasn’t there anymore.

She didn’t trust anyone to take care of me—not even myself—the way she did.

So she cooked. And she prepped.

All for the one day that she would no longer be there to help take care of me, or she’d be too weak.

I still remembered how scared she’d been. How hard she’d tried to keep it together despite her terrified state.

She’d fooled everyone…everyone but me.

I knew her better than she knew herself.

I knew that she was terrified.

Not of dying, but of leaving us behind.

She knew that I would suck at life without her.

My fingers ran over the note that still hung on the bathroom mirror.

It’d fallen off so many times over the years.

Hell, as it was, you could barely read the blue inked handwriting.

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