Page 119 of Honey Pot

“I didn’t know we were doing fake smiles today,” she teased.

“I’m doing my best, Mama, but this is hard,” I said quietly. “I’m sorry.”

There was some uncomfortable need to be happy for her. Like if she couldn’t do it for herself because of the pain she was in, at least I could try. But sometimes it was just too hard and she never cared if the mask dropped. She was just grateful I was being honest with her.

“I don’t know when you got so soft, Honeybug.” She poked me with a frail finger.

“I’m not soft.” I rolled my eyes, trying to push away the memories.

“You certainly didn’t inherit that giant heart,” she teased.

“Alright, Mama.” I wrapped my hand around hers and laid it in her lap. “We should revisit moving you into a nicer space. This room has no windows.” I looked around the guest room of the Nest and scowled. It was nothing but a storage room waiting to happen. It was dark and small.

“I get to see everything I need to when you boys come to visit,” she hummed and the sound was wet and painful.

She couldn’t even see the stars in here and it hurt my feelings I think, more than hers.

“That’s not what I meant. You should be somewhere a real doctor can take care of you, somewhere that gives you what you need,” I argued. We had the same fight once a week.

“I have everything I need right here.” She pressed a cold hand to my hot cheeks. “Dean is going to pass his Mathematics class, and Jensen finally asked out that girl in his sociology.” She smiled. “Arlo is going to make Captain,” she hummed. “I left the recipe for the muffins in the drawer beside the fridge.”

“The one that sticks,” I said with a nod. Thatdrawer was the bane of my existence, it never opened, no matter how hard I yanked on it, but Mama could always slide it open like nothing was stuck.

“Make sure you double the chocolate chips when you make them for him.” She narrowed her eyes on me.

“He’s going to be a really good captain.” I cleared my throat.

“He has an amazing team to lead,” she reminded me.

Her brown hair had grayed and thinned, but Zoey had taught me how to braid, so I did my best to keep it braided and brushed for her. Even so sick her smile remained bright and it ate away at my resolve. I blocked out the feelings that seeing her like that produced. She had weeks left. That’s what the doctor had said, soon she’d die in this shitty little room without windows and she wouldn’t let me do anything about it.

I hated the idea of her dying in the Nest.

I shook my head. “Mama. You need to be—”

“Don’t Mama me. I’m dying. I can do whatever I want. And what I want is to be here, taking care of you all. So let me,” she scolded me.

I wouldn’t win the argument anyway. Mama knew what she wanted and what she wanted she would get. She was never alone; someone was always in here with her. Jensen and Dean were both being tutored in their advanced Mathematics. Van read to her during his free periods; she would run through the old games with some of the other boys. She was teaching Silas to cook on the days she could get around, and he checked on her when he could, relaying with the hospital and a care nurse once a week. If I wasn’t here, Arlo was.

Dad never visited.

Or if he did, I never saw him.

I was tired of trying to convince him that she wanted him around, but he just shut down. I know it’s because he doesn’t want to remember her like this and part of me understands, but if there was ever a time for him to be a Dad, it was now.

“Honeybug,” she whispered to me and broke me from the trance I had fallen into. “Where’d you go?” She asked me quietly.

Somewhere, you weren’t sick and frail.

“Nowhere Mama, I’m always righthere.”

I tended to keep her hidden away in my mind, far away from where she could creep in and help me. She felt safe there and if I didn’t think about her then she couldn’t ever tell me how stupid I was being. But maybe I wasn’t keeping her safe, maybe I was only protecting myself. She’d hate the numb person I’d become, and maybe it was easier to keep her locked away so she couldn’t encourage me to feel it. I pressed my hand into the cold, damp grass to steady myself, the phone still pressed to my wet cheek.

“Atta boy,” Josh said softly from the other end. “Feels shitty doesn’t it?”

“Yeah, this sucks.”

Both crying and finding comfort in Joshua Logan’s stupid voice.

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