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Wes
*Son of a Biscuit*
It has been a month since Lily moved in with Fanny Brice and me. A month of Shakespeare and tacos and morning sex and me wondering how it’s possible that a grown woman can look so put together at all hours of the day and yet leave a bathroom looking like it has been ransacked by an angry mob of toddlers. A month of shameless public displays of affection, our first official date, our first double date with Neal and Alecia, our first dumb fight about her terrible taste in music, our first real fight about her refusal to reach out to her father, and our first make-up sex marathon that was so hot we might have to start scheduling weekly fights to get things out of our system.
I have spent a month going to the office to work for a man who knows full well that I am not only boning his daughter but that she is shacking up with me instead of him. He puts up a good front at work, but I’ve noticed how weary he looks. Every day the bags under his eyes get a little heavier and his shoulders slouch a little lower. I appreciate that neither of them has put me in the middle of this and made me the go-between, but I do feel bad for both of them. It’s awkward for me, but it’s worse for them. There’s this unspoken sadness that’s tearing at my soul.
Although lately, I’m starting to wonder if it’s something else that’s quietly eating away at me.
It’s my birthday. It’s a Saturday. I’m still in bed, wondering where my girlfriend is and why we aren’t currently engaged in some form of horizontal morning birthday celebration. Instead, I’m lying here with a cat on my head, wondering what time the mail will be delivered and if I’ll be getting yet another card from my mother with no return address. Can I really go another year without at least finding out where she is? After five years of convincing myself that I was fine without Lily around and that it was up to her to come back if she wanted me, I know now how much better it feels when you’re not in denial. I don’t think it’s denial for my dad. But it’s different for me. Of course it is. I want answers. I want to know her. I want her to know me.
I’ll just fucking say it: I’m twenty-six years old, and I want my mom.
I hear sprightly footsteps up the stairs. Finally. Seconds later, the room smells a little better and gets a little brighter, even though the curtains are still closed.
“Morning, birthday boy.”
I try to tilt my head so I can see her and finally just move Fanny onto the pillow beside me. Lily is fully dressed and made up, leaning down to give me a chaste kiss on the lips. I grab her and pull her on top of me. She squeals and does the unthinkable—she puts her hands on my chest and pushes herself away from me. “Hey. You call that a birthday kiss?”
“I love you,” she says, her voice shaky. That’s when I notice she’s all teary-eyed and definitely not here to give me a blow job. “Get up. Get dressed.” She pats my leg. “Come downstairs. Breakfast is ready, and your present is waiting for you in the kitchen.”
“You telling me I not only have to get out of bed for my birthday breakfast, but I also have to get dressed? So far being twenty-six sucks ass. You’re the worst girlfriend I’ve ever had.” I’m grinning, and she knows exactly what I’m getting at.
She jumps up and says, “Don’t try to goad me into a fight so we can have make-up sex, you turd. Come on. Your birthday breakfast is getting cold.Dépêche toi.”
Hurry up, she says. “Do you have to work today?”
“Not at the coffee shop. I have rehearsal, though.”
“Are we meeting up with Nealecia tonight?”
“That’s the plan,” she says in a sing-song voice as she walks out and back downstairs.
She doesn’t hear me grumble about how I would have thought a littlemorning sex would have been part of the plan, and that’s probably a good thing.
I pull on a pair of jeans and a shirt, and the smell of coffee compels me down the stairs toward the kitchen, but the sound of whispered female voices stops me in my tracks. I wonder if Alecia and Neal are here to surprise me, but nothing could have prepared me for the surprise of who’s actually in the kitchen with Lily.
A tall middle-aged woman is leaning back against the counter and smiling at Lily, who’s whispering something in her ear. When she sees me, her crinkly warm gray eyes fill with tears. She puts her coffee mug down and covers her mouth.
Son. Of. A. Biscuit.
“Oh baby,” she says. “You’re all grown-up.”
She has salt-and-pepper hair framing her face now and she’s heavier than I remember, but she’s still beautiful and statuesque and mysterious, and I would have recognized my mother in a sea of people. That doesn’t make it any easier to comprehend what she’s doing standing in my kitchen. Giggling with Lily like they’re old friends.
I’m standing in the doorway with my hands in my pockets, and I do not know what to do or say.
Susan Carver walks over to me and puts her arms around my waist, leaning into me. “My goodness, you’re a big guy.” I am definitely a few inches taller than I was the last time we hugged. I can’t look at Lily right now because I can hear her sniffling. It isn’t until I finally take a breath and inhale the scent of my mother’s shampoo that I really put my arms around her and fully grasp who this woman is to me. She still smells the same.
My mom’s back.
Or she’s here, at least.
“Happy birthday, Wes,” she says into my shoulder. “You must hate me. I don’t blame you if you do.”
I still don’t know what to say to her.
She pulls away from me and pats me on the arm. “Should we have breakfast? Lily’s been cooking up a storm.”
