Page 1 of Run, Run Mistletoe
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MISTLETOE
“I’m sorry, Mom, but I’ve got to go. I can’t make the dinner tonight. Velvet isn’t feeling well and I’m going to stay home and make sure that she feels better before school tomorrow.”
“Mistletoe…you know that she’ll feel better. It’s just a cold. You shouldn’t worry so much. You know that that causes wrinkles.”
Huffing, I roll my eyes. It always comes back to looks with her. And that always brings up….
“How are you going to catch yourself a husband if you worry yourself into early wrinkles?”
Ugh! “I’m not looking for a husband, Mom. I tried that once. I wouldn’t recommend it.”
“You had a jerk that decided he wanted to find himself a young thing after you got pregnant and he got her pregnant as well. It’s not your fault that he picked her over you. He was the idiot. He will kick himself one day for not getting to know Velvet when he had the chance.”
“Sure, Mom. I know that.”
I don’t know that. I think Donny won’t care at all that he left me and our daughter behind as soon as his fling got knocked upand he realized that he could have a woman who was ten years younger than me and toned, fit. And the well-off daddy didn’t hurt either. Or the fact that she didn’t get all uppity on him and want to make up her own mind about her own life.
Yeah, he wasn’t a fan of any of that. Or the farm that’s my life until I pass it on along to my daughter when it’s time. So that she can find the love of her life who hopefully isn’t a total jerk and raise her own kids here where our family has always lived.
The farm is our family’s legacy and one day it will be the thing that holds her together. That reminds her of me and binds her to our memories.
I close my eyes and tears sting them but I refuse to let them fall. I’m so tired of being alone but it’s preferable to getting my heart broke all over again.
I’ve got no time for a man. It takes everything I have in me to run this farm.
Speaking of which….
“Mom, I’ve got to go. I’m late feeding the horses and the hogs.”
She whistles out a sigh. “You need help, Mistletoe.”
She’s not wrong.
“I don’t need another man. I just need more time in the day.” I laugh softly and she does too.
“Yeah. I know.” Her soft voice sighs through my phone and I know what she’s going to say next. Closing my eyes, I brace for the pain. The aching sadness.
“I wish your dad was here. He always took such good care of all of us.” There’s pain in her voice too and my eyes mist with the tears that are begging to fall.
But I sniffle silently and wipe my eyes. “Yeah, me too,” I say huskily. “Me too, Mom. I’ve got to go. Take care of yourself. Don’t overdo it.”
“I’m not too bad today, honey. I wish I could help you out more.”
Shaking my head, I groan and straighten up, stretching out my aching back. “You don’t need to do that. You just need to concentrate on you. How’s Helena doing?”
She snorts. “Still as cantankerous as ever. We’re remodeling the back room of her place into a bedroom so I don’t have to go upstairs at night.”
“That’s great, Mom.” I mean it. If Helena hadn’t been there when my Mom had her accident out here and got her to help who knew what would have happened. The stroke affected her movements more than her speech and she has problems doing things on her own sometimes. Learning to walk again was a huge problem. She’s still a little clumsy and uses a walker or a motorized wheelchair if she’s too tired.. The uneven ground out here would have been treacherous for her.
I wanted her to come back here with me but both of them told me that there was no way I could take care of all of this, my daughter and my recuperating mother.
So they decided to pool their resources and make a new home for themselves in Helena’s place in town. Two widows living together. Helping each other out.
Valentine’s small but it’s not too small and there’s at least graded surfaces so that she can use the walker and the wheelchair to get around.
And the two of them have been acting like teenagers together. Two sixty-five year old women that are both alone now and enjoying just being.
