Page 85 of The Heartbreak Hotel
“This is Mark’s house—” Goldie says, and I hold up my hand to silence her. For once, she does as I ask.
“Goldie and I want to bring you somewhere safe,” I say. Mom stares at me. “You can’t stay with Mark. He asked us to help you move out.”
Silence stutters between us. Mom swallows. “He did?”
I nod. It would be easier to lie, maybe—to trick her somehow, to get her out of here. But she deserves the truth. “You can’t stay here anymore, and you can’t go back to your apartment because you didn’t pay the rent.”
Mom blinks rapidly, her cheeks diffusing pink. I glance at Goldie before looking back at her. “We found somewhere you can go, until you find another apartment. Residential treatment.”
I wait for her to respond to this, but her eyes only dart back and forth over mine.
“You’ll be safe there,” I say. My voice only wavers a little. “You’ll be able to talk to a therapist, and—”
“I don’t want to talk to a therapist.” The words shoot out of our mother, loud and sharp.
“Well, you need to,” Goldie says. “It’s not a negotiation.”
“Goldie,” I say, cutting my eyes at her. “Stop.” I can feel Mom teetering on the precarious edge of her anger, and Goldie’sonly going to make it worse. I reach for Mom’s arm, and she looks up at me.
“I don’t need therapy, Lou.” Her voice has a shredded quality: she’s scared. “This was just a silly mistake with the rent. It isn’t about therapy. It isn’t about that.”
“Okay,” I say. My chest is tight and suffocating, but I force my voice to come out smooth. “Then it can just be about a safe place for you to stay until you find a new apartment. We’ll go there together, okay?” I glance at my sister, whose arms are crossed. “All three of us. You trust me, right?”
Slowly, my mother nods. She looks at Goldie, then back at me. “Mhm,” she says, not quite a word. But it’s enough—enough for me to ease the bags out of her hands, for Goldie to zip up her suitcase, for us to pick through the rest of Mark’s house for our mother’s scattered things.
By the time we settle her into the back seat of the Kia, Mom’s eyes are wet with tears. She reminds me of Quinn, back here—small and helpless.
“Mom,” I say. My mother looks up at me, and then I do lie to her. “Everything’s okay.”
After dropping her off atthe only treatment option Goldie could find with an immediate opening, we meet Quinn and Mei at the hotel pool. Goldie hauls Quinn out of the water without hesitation—even as he splashes her, even as he protests. She wraps him in a towel and whisks him up to the room for a nap and doesn’t say anything to either of us. We haven’t spoken since leaving the facility.
The last image I have of our mother—scorched into me like a sunburn—is her red face, mottled with anger and fear. Realizing she has no option but to stay where we’ve taken her; that another man has let her down; that she needs more help than she knows how to get on her own. I haven’t been able to take a full breath since we showed up at Mark’s house.
Mei watches me sit down on the pool chair beside her, stretching my legs out in front of me. The whole room feels humid and close, no one here but us, the pool water still swaying with the echo of Quinn’s kicking feet. I stare at my shoes and try to remember how to breathe.
“Do you want to talk about it?” Mei asks.
I press my eyes shut. My mother crying, two nurses with their hands on her elbows, everyone in the waiting room watching us pass through. I shake my head.
“Okay,” Mei says. Her hand lands on mine, unclenching it from its fist and winding our fingers together. “You’re a good daughter and a good person and I love you.”
I squeeze her fingers. “I’m an idiot.”
“No, Lou. This was the right thing to do, even if it feels like shit.”
“Not that,” I whisper. I’ve been here before, breaking my mother’s heart. I’ve felt this specific brand of impossible. But there’s another hurt, rattling between my ribs—a new, bottomless sort of loss.
“I thought I had this so figured out,” I say, finally opening my eyes. Mei’s right there, blurry. “With my stupid heartbreak hotel. I was doing so well about Nate. I thought I was so strong and had it so together and could teach everyone else how to recover because I was so—sogoodat it.” I sniff, and Mei squeezes myhand. “But I was never good at it, Mei, I just didn’t love him anymore. I thought I had it all figured out, but I just didn’t care enough. And now—” My voice squeaks off. I shake my head, looking out over the pool.
Today, with my mom, dislodged all of it: How devastated I am that Henry’s held back with me. How embarrassed I am that he’s known I’ve been lying about my license for months. How absolutely miserable I am without him. How entirely wrecked.
Every time I felt scared today—as I shushed my sister, as I parented my mom, as I left her in an unfamiliar place full of strangers—it was Henry I wanted. Henry I wished was there with me: the solid wall of his body, the low rumble of his voice.I understand, that day in the fall at Polliwog’s. His own loss shaking through him that night on my living room couch.
He’s become my safe place, the feeling I yearn for when I’m afraid. And I’ve gone and pushed him away.
“I had no idea what I was talking about,” I tell Mei now. “None at all.”
She scoots onto my pool chair, wrapping her arms around me until we’re twisted on the rubber slats like a couple of snakes—clunky and uncomfortable and too warm. I tuck my face into her shoulder. She squeezes me even closer. We stay like that, breathing, until I lose track of time.
