Page 10 of Simmer Down
Slowly, I sip until the glass is empty, then refill it. It does nothing to calm me. Turning around, I focus back on her, still rollinglumpia.
“That’s not fair, Mom. You know how important your health is to me. You can’t put in eight- to ten-hour days doing food prep in the morning and working at the truck, then continue cooking for hours when you’re home. That’s too much.”
“It’s not. I like the work,” she says, her voice hard, her tone clipped. “Besides, we have to work extra hard to make sure we do well at the festival. You don’t want to lose, do you?”
Her question, spoken in her signature impatient tone, leaves my head spinning. I know it all too well. She uses it whenever she’s asking a question she doesn’t want an answer to.
I bite the inside of my cheek to keep myself in check.
“Of course I don’t want to lose. And we won’t. I’ve got everything covered. Your help at the food truck is more than enough.”
I take another sip of water and stare out the kitchen window of our Kihei condo. My gaze fixes on the indigo sky, the bright specks of starlight scattered throughout. Beneath the darkness above, I can just barely make out the hedge dotted in tropical flowers that marks this end of the condo property and the line of palm trees behind it. During the day in full-on sunlight, endless lush rolling hills complete the view.
Every time I look out our little kitchen window to the scenic view in the daytime, it’s an instant mood lifter. I wish it were daytime now so I could use the view to calm me.
“I know you like to work, but you have to be careful,” I say.
She waves a hand in the air, like she’s swatting away a fly. “You don’t know what I need, Nicole,” she bites.
The knot in my stomach slingshots to my chest. When she calls me by my full name, I know I’m in deep. I slam the glass down on the counter. It’s all I can do to keep from letting out the scream of frustration lying in wait at the base of my throat.
“Yes, I do.” My voice booms against the walls. “Would you justfor one second stop and realize that I might be asking you to slow down because I love you? Because I care about you and want you around for as long as possible? Because being on your feet like this for fifteen hours a day isn’t what a woman your age should be doing?”
A wide-eyed stare is the only response I get from her. I should stop. I should take a breath, and get my voice back under control. But I can’t.
I already lost my dad because he kept going, kept pushing himself, because he refused to go to the doctor for what he thought was a minor pain in his back, even though it had persisted for a year. By the time he went, it was too late. Only months were left.
I refuse to let her fall down that same path, to push herself into exhaustion, into some serious health condition that could have been avoided had she just slowed down. I refuse to stand by and watch my only living parent disregard her own well-being.
Tears burn at my eyelids, but I spin away, back toward the kitchen window, so she can’t see my trembling lips. I’ve already lost my temper in front of her. I don’t want to lose the rest of my emotions too.
Slow, quiet breaths ease the knot in my chest, my racing heartbeat. A gust of air flows in through the open window, immediately cooling my skin, which was hot with frustration moments ago. A crack of thunder sounds in the distance.
“We lost Dad because he didn’t slow down until it was too late,” I finally say. “I don’t want to lose you for the same reason.”
My throat strains to keep my voice steady. It’s a challenge when all I want to do is sob, to make her understand that I’m not doing all this to hurt her.
More silence passes. Another long, quiet inhale ensures I won’t lose myself. When I turn around, she stands up from the kitchen table, her back to me this time.
I would laugh if I weren’t so distraught. We’re so damn alike. We don’t want anyone to see us vulnerable, to see us falling apart, not even each other.
“Fine, then,” she says quietly. I can tell by the way she says nothing more, by the way she walks down the hall and to the bathroom without another word, that’s she’s more hurt than angry at what I’ve said.
Gripping the sink with both hands, I heave out a breath.
She may be upset with me, but she’s still here, living and breathing. That’s all that matters.
Downing another glass of cold water does little to quell this anger and sadness warring within me. I pivot to face the gray ceramic urn sitting on the bookshelf in the living room.
“Sorry, Dad,” I whisper. “You know how stubborn she is. But I’m trying.”
I clean up the kitchen, head to my bedroom, and do the one thing I know I shouldn’t.
I crawl into my bed and close my eyes, my phone gripped in my hand. I swipe to the last voice mail my dad ever left me. The last memento of his voice I have other than the dozens of videos I saved on my phone and backed up on my computer.
Sweetie pie, it’s Dad. Listen...
The seconds-long pause after he says “listen” always sends a lump to my throat. I could be in the middle of laughing, and if I heard his low, soft voice in that pained tone, I’d be left speechless, fighting the urge to collapse into a ball on the floor and sob.
