Page 43 of Colt
I smile and grab my dish towel.
“What?”
“Oh. I was just thinking about the possibility that my mom makes us hand-wash to force us all to get along.”
“I never thought of that.”
“Did you do dishes like this before Jim and Mom got married?”
“I think Dad usually did them. I don’t know. Your mom is the one who made us start doing some chores. I think my dad felt so… I don’t know. I don’t think he ever thought he could make us do things.”
She doesn’t have to say it. I get it. He felt guilty. Gentry and Allison lost their mom.
“But then, my dad did a lot of the housework. While my mom was sick. They used to do it together. But mostly it was him doing it.” I noticed that her eyes were glistening. I imagine all this brings lost like that closer to the surface. Not that I think I matter in the way that her mom does. I just think that it’s probably hard to be in hospitals, looking at somebody that you know being sick, injured, and not think about other times that’s happened to you. I totally get why she’s going into nursing. I totally get why it’s a tribute to her mom. But I also wonder why she’s putting herself through something traumatizing like that on purpose.
“Isn’t going to be hard for you? Being in the hospital all the time?”
She looks at me. “I never forget that she’s gone. It’s just sort of part of my life. She was so great. I wish that you had known her a little bit better. But she made sure that we sat together, had tea parties. In the summer, when she would go get her infusions, I would go with her. I would sit there in the cancer center, and I would watch her knit. I didn’t start knitting until recently. It made me wish that she could see it. It made me wish that I had known how to do it then, so we could’ve done it together. I guess my childhood could be full of bad memories. But she was sick off and on for nine years. It was almost my entire life. I barely knew my mom without cancer. And so, the times that I spent with her in hospitals have to be part of my good memories too. I havegood memories of her when she was sick. Because it was just part of all the time that I got to have with her. I hate that she was sick. I hate the illness, don’t get me wrong. But I don’t want to let any precious moment of time that I had with my mother become something that I push away because it’s too difficult.”
She sticks her hand into the sink and tests the temperature of the water. And then she puts the dishes down into the soapy liquid. “Maybe that’s why I gravitated toward taking work at the hospital. Not just so I can make a difference to people who are sick, but because… It’s just part of my life.”
“You’re pretty fucking amazing,” I say, looking at her with a sense of all filling me. “Do you know that?”
She looks up at me, shock on her beautiful face.
Like she’s surprised I’m complimenting her. Or maybe surprised that I am in light of the whole rest of today, which was kind of a shit show.
“I don’t become amazing. I’m just shaped by the things that I went through.”
“I feel traumatized by the hospital, and I was only there for a few weeks.”
She snorts. “Well, if you had asked my mom how she felt about the hospital she might’ve had a different answer for you. I think it’s different when you’re the one who's sick. I think it’s different for a lot of people. We all handle the things that life throws at us in different ways. This is how I handled it. It’s not better. Or stronger. It’s just my way of coping.”
“My way of coping is to try to do things that I’m not supposed to do,” I say.
Her expression goes flat. “That’s not going to fly with me.”
I smile. She starts scrubbing the dishes, then passes them over to me to rinse and dry. We create a seamless assembly line, and I don’t even react when her fingertips brush mine. I don’t need to react. It’s casual. It’s the same kind of stuff we’ve alwaysdone. It’s part of this very normal evening that we spent at our parents’ house.
“Did your mom always make you wash dishes before our parents got married?”
“Right. You never came over to our house, did you?”
“No. I only ever saw you when you came over here.”
“Yeah. Of course. That never occurred to me. Yes. My mom was really strict. I had to do chores even when Gentry came over to visit.”
“I can’t even imagine that. Your mom has never been all that strict as long as I’ve known her.”
“Yeah. We’ve talked about it since. She was just really afraid. Me growing up without a dad. Plus, my dad…” Oh God dammit. I didn’t mean to get into this territory. I never talk about him. There's really no reason to, because he’s not around.
“What about your dad?”
“Because he’s irresponsible. And so I think my mom really felt like she had to overcompensate. Not just because I didn’t have a male role model in my life, but because the man that I’m related to is not the best.”
“That makes sense. Kind of. It’s not your fault, though. It’s not like you chose your dad.”
“Well. No. But in fairness, he didn’t choose me either. Something he made very clear over the years.”
