Page 86 of The Heartbreak Hotel
Thirty-Four
If there’s one word Iwould never use to describe my mother, it’sreserved. She can be kind, and loving, and magnetic, and fun—but she’s never once kept her big feelings to herself. When Goldie and I arrive to visit her the next morning, though, it’s exactly how she looks: Like she’s buttoned everything in. Like she’s swallowing her anger.
“Morning, Mom,” Goldie says. She leads me into the room—two beds separated by a thin curtain. Mom’s is closest to the window, and the other is unoccupied, though a paperback novel splayed open on the pillow indicates someone’s been here recently.
“Good morning,” she replies. She’s sitting on the edge of her bed in gray sweatpants and a matching crewneck sweater, blue socks. Her hands are folded in her lap, one thumb picking at the back of her knuckle. She’s fidgety, unsettled. I wonder how much rage it took to get her here—how long she was furious with us before she accepted this. It’s so painful to imagine her here alone all night that I force myself to stop.
“Did you sleep okay?” I ask. I know I didn’t; Mei and I stayed up most of the night watching baking show reruns on the hotel room TV. She fell asleep sometime around two—I flitted in and out until finally giving up and going for coffee at six o’clock. Goldie and Quinn had their own room, and she’d kept her distance.
Mom nods, teeth worrying at her lip. When we sit in the chairs across from her, her hand darts out to clasp mine. “I’m so sorry about Nathan,” she says. I can feel Goldie turn to look at me, but I hold Mom’s eyes. Familiar and sad and the exact same color as my sister’s.
I could be angry, I know. That in this moment, with everything she’s put us through, this is what she’s choosing to apologize for. But I know that she means it. That her heart is broken for me; that this is the way she loves me; that this is easier for her to talk about than the reality of what’s happening in this room. I squeeze her hand. “Thanks, Mom. It’s okay.”
“He was a good boy,” she says. “But you’ll find someone else.”
I nod. Think of Henry, his tattoo under my ear as I lay on his chest. “How are you feeling?”
Mom breathes a laugh, raspy. When she waves a hand around the room, anger flares on her face. “Mark isn’t who I thought he was.”
I watch Goldie digest this. Her lips pressing together, her chest rising with breath. She’s furious; I can see it. This isn’t about Mark, and I know—Iknow—she wants Mom to acknowledge that. But I also know that Mom knows it. That it’s just too hard to say the rest of this out loud: that she’s sick; that she always has been; that it isn’t her fault and her healing isn’t linearand, all those things being true, it’s painful for us to be back here together. I know Goldie knows all of this, too. And I love her so much when she says quietly, “Men are trash.”
Mom laughs. Her big one, belly-deep and scratchy. “Truer words never spoken, baby. All these boys who take and take and take and give you nothing in return.”
I think of myself, this fall, in my kitchen. Of Goldie:You do this, Lou. You take care of other people to avoid taking care of yourself.And of Henry, who’s taken every single opportunity I’ve ever given him to care for me right back. There’s power in being the person someone needs—but there’s power in accepting what you need, too.
My mother reaches for both of our hands, this time. “I love you,” she says. I look at my sister, whose eyes sparkle with tears that she’s quick to blink away. “I don’t want you worrying about me, now.”
When Goldie and I stepthrough the sliding glass doors, the sun’s emerged from behind Ohio’s characteristic blanket of gray clouds. It makes the sidewalk sparkle: bits of granite dust, or whatever it is.
“That was hard,” I say. Mom will be here for at least the next month, talking to a therapist every day. “Thanks for going easy on her.”
Goldie slides her hands into the pockets of her wool coat. She looks out over the parking lot like it holds the secrets to the universe. “You taught me how to do that, you know.”
“Do what?”
Goldie looks at me. “Say something that’s kind and true, instead of just true.” She turns away again. “Instead of just saying the thing I want to say.”
I nod, taking this in. Before I can even respond, she’s talking again—straight out at the rows of parked cars. “I know I’m too hard on you sometimes. That I can be honestoverbeing kind, instead of both.” She turns to me. “It’s only because I love you, and I want you to be okay.”
“I know,” I say. “But I need you to trust me more. To take care of myself.” I swallow, and make myself say the next bit out loud. “You trusting me feels like love. Because you’re so smart, and so successful, and when you trust me—it makes me trust me, too. I need that from you.”
She blinks, nodding once and then looking down at her boots. “Okay,” she says. “Okay, that makes sense.”
I sniff, hard, in the cold. “And it’s not fair of you to accuse me of taking care of everyone else at the expense of myself, but then leave me to deal with Mom on my own. It’s not fair to crucify me for the thing you clearly expect me to do.”
Goldie’s lips part. “That’s not what—I don’t mean to—”
I force myself to let her keep spluttering. It’s a rare thing, to see my sister at a loss for words.
“I don’texpectyou to take care of Mom,” she says finally. She doesn’t look sorry, like I wanted her to. She looks pissed. “I just know youwill, because you alwaysdo, which is my whole point.”
“But I have to take care of her,” I say, my voice rising. “Because I know you’re not going to, so who does that leave, Goldie?”
Goldie spreads her hands. “I’m here, aren’t I? When it’s a real problem, I’m here.”
“It’s always a real problem!”
Goldie takes a step closer to me, leaning into my space. “Mom taking an ill-advised vacation that she can’t afford is not a real problem, Lou, it’s amistake.And she’s going to keep making them if you’re always there to fix things for her.”
