Page 84 of The Heartbreak Hotel
Quinn giggles, hopping a little. “Gross!”
Mei smiles at him and then finds my eyes, reaching forward to squeeze my shoulder. I spent the plane ride studying for the NCE, which I’m retaking in a couple weeks. With Mei asleep in the window seat beside me, there was no one to see me do it—to pull up the practice test on my computer, tick through the multiple-choice questions until my eyes felt twitchy and sharp. It was easier than thinking about what waited for me on the other end of the flight: my mother, my hometown, all of my memories. Easier, too, than thinking about what I was leaving behind: Henry.
He’d agreed to manage things at the house without hesitation. Even after I told him the money was gone; even after I told him I had three more people checking in this week. His low voice was right there, the entire plane ride:Whatever you need. I pushed it away. Narrowed the world until it was only my practice test and me.
“When do I see Grandma?” Quinn asks as Goldie clips himinto his car seat. Our rental is a microscopic Kia, its back seat barely big enough for Mei and Quinn. She’s holding her suitcase on her lap because there isn’t room for it in the trunk.
“Probably tomorrow,” Goldie tells him. “Mom and Aunt Lou-Lou need to help her with some grown-up stuff first.”
Quinn nods seriously, like he understands the gravity of the situation. When his eyes meet mine, I feel like I could cry. I drive so that Goldie can make her phone calls—checking availability at the facilities she’s found. Checking if they take Medicare. Checking if Medicare covers the costs in their entirety.
Columbus spreads flat and familiar before me. I feel sixteen again, driving home from whoever’s house I’d spent the night at so I wouldn’t be home alone with Mom. Eighteen, leaving for college and feeling it like the deepest breath I’d ever taken. Twenty, with Goldie for Christmas and missing Nate, desperate to get back to the life we’d made together.
And twenty-six, as I am now. Henry here like a stitch in my side, an ache I can’t knead out.
Mark lives in a developmentnear the mall where I worked in high school. When I turn left into his neighborhood, we pass the gas station where I used to buy Sour Patch Kids before my shifts. There’s leftover snow slushed into brown piles in the gutters.
“I hate this,” I say, the first words either Goldie or I have spoken since dropping Mei and Quinn at the hotel.
She looks over at me. We haven’t talked about our own shit, about what went down when she visited in October or how tense things have been between us since then. I haven’t talked to her about what Mei said to me, about the double standardGoldie’s held me to all these years. But the way she’s taken on communication with Mark and inpatient research tells me she feels bad for dropping the Thanksgiving rent situation on me.
“Yeah, well.” She looks out the window, leaving it at that.
Mom’s car is parked on the street in front of a low brick bungalow. It’s the 1990s Maxima she’s had since we were kids—faded maroon and rusted around the wheels. I want to sit in the car for a minute, to take a deep breath and remind myself that I’m not in danger and push Henry’s face out of my mind for the one millionth time since leaving Colorado. But Goldie’s already opening her door and stepping out into the frigid morning.
“Let’s go,” she says, so I do.
Mom answers the door in jeans and a hoodie, dark eyeliner, her hair dyed a deep red that’s faded to bruised purple.
“My babies!” she cries, pulling us in for hugs. Mark isn’t here; he asked us todealwith Mom while he was at work, like a coward. Mom smells like she always has: the stale cling of cigarettes, not quite masked by her favorite perfume. “I’m so glad you’re home.”
“We’re nothome,” Goldie says, closing the front door behind us. “We’re here to clean up your mess.”
“Goldie,” I say, releasing our mother.
“What?” Goldie’s eyes flick to mine before looking back at Mom. “She needs to hear it.”
It’s unsurprising. Goldie wears her honesty like a medal of honor, like a gift—but in this situation, as in so many situations before, it’s not helpful.
“Oh, Marigold,” Mom says, swatting a hand at her. “Don’t start with me. Let me show you girls what I’ve been working on.”
She doesn’t wait for us to reply, just starts across the livingroom. It’s depressinglymalein here: overstuffed, lumpy armchairs with plastic-handled recliners; a couch with thin, matching throw pillows; empty beer cans lined up like chess pieces on the coffee table.
“I’m decorating,” Mom says, leading us down a dim hallway and into a bedroom. There are shopping bags strewn over the floor, the desk, the unmade bed. “Dani at work told me about this great store over at the mall, you remember Dani, she’s Yolanda the owner’s daughter, sweet kid. Younger than you, Lou.” Mom reaches for a throw pillow, intricately beaded and distinctly uncomfortable looking. “Mark, bless him, has no taste. So I’m sprucing up. I ordered some bedding this morning, and there’s—”
“Who’s paying?” Goldie says.
Mom blinks. She starts reaching for discarded bags, arranging them into a stack. Goldie moves toward her and I put my hand on her arm.
“Mom,” I say, gently. “Where are your things? From your house—your clothes?”
She looks up at me, stack of bags suspended between us. “At home, baby. I’ve just got the one bag.” She waves vaguely at the corner of the room, where a black suitcase sits open on the floor. “I’ll be back there soon, so I only brought my necessities.”
“Okay,” I hear myself say. I imagine the rest of her things rounded up by a maid service, hauled to a dumpster or dropped in a Goodwill bin. I imagine Goldie and me back here in a month, when Mom is stable and back on her own somewhere, helping her rebuy everything she left at her old apartment. But that’s a problem for later. “Can we help you pack up so we can all leave together?”
Mom stares at me. Since I was a kid, I’ve pictured these moments as a game of Operation. Thread the needle, remove the organ, avoid her triggers. She’s always been one wrong word from exploding. I’ve always been so much better at steering her than Goldie.
“Leave?” she says, every trace of excitement dropping out of her voice. “Why would I leave?”
