Page 86 of Caught A Vibe

“Now you’re just playing video games? How are you going to support yourself? A family? Why don’t you grow up and get a real job?”

I was a disappointment and a failure in his eyes, and there’s no changing that now.

Dad has been gone for over a year now, but I can still hear him in my head.

“My roof, my rules.”

While Mom hadn’t joined in the ranting, she hadn’t disagreed with him either. Her silence was damning. Condemned for following my passions in my way, I left rather than stay and keep defending what my family found indefensible. I deserved to succeed on my own merit, and I couldn’t do that with the constant negative feedback. It’s bad enough it still pops into my head uninvited.

I wasn’t there when my father passed, though I knew he was sick. I couldn’t risk having his last words of disappointment branded on my brain. I came home for a day to pay my respects before leaving again. The memories and the painful emotions had been too difficult to reconcile with the persistent tug of love I felt for them both.

I let my mother handle everything on her own. I’m ashamed of that, but if I’d stayed then, I would have suffocated.

And yet here I am. Suffocating. Nothing has changed.

I have been lying here for two hours already, unable to move through the hurricane of thoughts and memories swirling through my head, until my stomach violently protests its empty state with a wave of nausea.

I still can’t quite face the kitchen, so I haul myself out of bed and into the shower. The hot water eases my sore muscles and the tension in my shoulders loosens. Visions of Penny and that time in the shower flash in my mind, before I remember that I won’t have the pleasure again. I ignore the morning wood that’s grown insistent and flash the shower to cold before rinsing quickly and throwing on a T-shirt and well-worn comfy jeans.

No more avoiding. It’s time to face the music.

Mom is sitting at the table, halfway through a cup of coffee when I walk into the kitchen. I open the cabinet where the coffee mugs have always lived and find the plates.

“They’re above the coffeemaker now,” she says. “I rearranged the kitchen after your father died.”

I shift to the other cabinet, grab a mug, and fill it with liquid life. Other subtle changes catch my eye now that I’m looking. There is a pile of bills and letters on the end of the counter, and dishes from last night’s dinner in the sink. And my mother is wearing a housedress. I’ve never seen her in her pajamas outside of her bedroom.

I sit in the chair I occupied for my entire childhood, staring into the dark abyss of caffeine, waiting for her to start in where Dad left off. I am bracing so hard that I startle when her hand comes to rest on my arm.

“Are you okay?”

The quiet concern in her eyes is unexpected. Thrown off guard, the question sneaks past my shields. I don’t have the strength to dissemble, so I tell the truth. I shake my head and close my eyes against the welling tears.

“No, Mom. I’m not.”

“Come here, baby.”

My mother stands and opens her arms, and despite being a solid eight inches taller than her, I step into the hug that healed boo-boos and dried tears until I’d gotten too old for that sort of thing. Little did I know, there’s no expiration date on a mom hug. As she wraps me up in strong arms, soothing a hand up and down my back, I thank God that they still hold that magic.

Chapter25

Dash

“I’m sorry, Mom.”

I barely get the words out through the tears as I lean into her hug, but they feel right.

“Why are you apologizing?”

I pull back to look her in the eye, and find genuine confusion there. No judgment. No disappointment.Huh.

“Because here I am, a grown-ass man, turning up on your doorstep because I have nowhere to stay?”

“Anytime I get to see my son is a gift. You’ve been away too long.”

“I didn’t think I’d be welcome.”

She has the grace to look down at that. “I can see how you would have gotten that impression, but your father missed you too.”

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