Page 65 of Can't Get Enough

Fuck it.

Pausing on the beach during a quick afternoon walk, I pick up the phone and dial her number.

I’m about to hang up after the third ring, but she answers.

“Mav?” Her voice comes over husky, heavy.

“Yeah, it’s me. You didn’t answer my text message,” I say, and it sounds lame in my own ears because why should she? She doesn’t have to, but she always has before and I was concerned. “Just thought I’d check on you.”

“You mean about the trip?” she rasps and sniffs.

“Are you… have you been crying, Hendrix?”

“Shit,” she whispers, and it’s a fragile sound, barely held together. “Let’s talk later. I—”

“Hey, I’m sure you have friends you can talk to about things, but I… if it’s about your mom, with you being home, I might understand. If I’m overstepping—”

“You’re not,” she says, her breath hitching before she steadies her voice and goes on. “Not overstepping, I mean. And it is about my mom. It’s just been harder than I even thought it would be. She had an episode and I… Hold on.”

She mutes for a few seconds before returning, bringing with her the sound of a few cars passing by and a bird chirping in the background.

“I stepped out on the porch to talk,” she says. “What’s that sound in the background? Where areyou?”

“On my beach.” I survey the ocean, more serene that it was earlier this morning when I came out to surf. “I’d been at my desk all day. Just needed to move a little, but tell me what’s going on with you there in North Carolina. You good?”

“Not at all.” She lets out a tired sigh. “I just mishandled one of Mama’s meltdowns really badly. Like I know better. I wasn’t thinking.”

“Don’t put that on yourself. Tell me what happened.”

“I know personalities can change with this condition, but she was mean to my aunt and cursed at her. You just have to know this is the woman who literally has the “Footprints” poem up in like three rooms and once washed my mouth out for calling someone a bitch. I was fourteen and as tall as she was.”

“Who’d you call a bitch?” I tease, knowing it’s not important, but hoping to relieve some of the tension choking the atmosphere.

“My cousin Ellie.” Hendrix breathes out a laugh. “Shewasa bitch. She put gum in my hair and Mama had to cut it out. It was right before the school dance. Don’t get me started.”

“Oh, you already started,” I say with a chuckle. “So what happened today?”

“I’ve never heard my mother curse, much less at her sister. She called my aunt fat. It was not her.”

“My grandfather used to take it out on my mother a lot, too. She was the one with him the most. It was very intense and hard to manage.”

“I’m sorry. That sounds awful.”

“It’s a lot to handle.”

“And Aunt Geneva has been managing this on her own. I feel guilty, Mav. Conflicted. I can’t live here permanently right now, and my mother refuses to move. I want to honor her wishes as long as I can, but seeing how much this condition has progressed, the house feels like a ticking time bomb.”

“What does your aunt think?” I ask, digging my toes into the sand. “How does she seem to be processing everything?”

“Better than I am. My mom forgot that my father is… gone. That he died.” Hendrix draws a sharp breath. “I watched her relive it and it was terrible. For her, it was happening for the first time.”

“That used to happen with Pop Pop.” I hesitate before going on. “Look, I’m not trying to give you advice or anything.”

“Oh, I’m not proud.” She laughs without humor. “I’ll accept advice.”

“We used to try to correct him, to tell him the truth, to try to keep him straight, but we realized something that changed our perspective.”

“And what was that?”

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