Page 49 of The Work Boyfriend

“What’s lacking. More precisely, what you see Rob as lacking—that artistic, romantic, Byronesque shit that drives you crazy. This Garrett has all of it. The question isn’t whether you think you love him. More to the point, it’s why are you thinking about it at all? If you were happy with Rob, a crush would stay a crush. It would not end up with you a soppy mess in the bottom of your closet, letting your face turn the shape of your shoes.”

Sometimes, it was impossible to get a word in edgewise with my mother. She was opinionated. She was stubborn. She was smart and sassy. But she was always right.

My mother kicked off her shoes and started to rub her foot. I could hear her nylons rustling, her toes cracking. “There’s nothing worse than being shocked into a relationship. You were shell-shocked at that university of yours. You stuck to Rob because on some level, you knew he’d never leave you.”

“Oh, he’s probably left me.”

“What if you went home, confessed, and told him the truth, Kelly? The real truth? The whats-its swirling around, how terrified you are of the realness of this whole engagement, of marriage, of children? I’m convinced he’d want to work it out.” She put her foot down and switched to the other. “He’d wait until you made up your mind. But I’m convinced you don’t want to make up your mind. You want someone else to make it up for you—and that’s not fair. You can’t keep treating Rob like a fallback position when he’s sleeping next to you in bed night after night.”

I couldn’t look at my mother, and she was waiting for me to meet her eyes. “First,” she continued, “your hair is too blond. I don’t like it on you.”

“Mother.”

“Second, you need to figure out what you’re doing at that job.”

“I’m making a living.”

“Third, you’re drinking too much.”

“Look, I had a bad night—it’s embarrassing. It’s approaching pathetic, but I don’t need this intervention. It’s the holidays. And I know you noticed, otherwise I wouldn’t be here and you wouldn’t be sitting there, but my relationship’s a mess at the moment. How do I fix it? Can we concentrate on that?”

“You won’t.” My mother sighed. It was such a familiar response—she pursed her lips, squinted, sighed. These were all signs that she was less than impressed by whatever conversation we were having. Like I was missing the point. Maybe I was; maybe I needed to take a moment and think, deep down, about stopping my life right in its tracks and changing direction.

“What I meant to say is this: youdon’tfix it, Kelly,” my mother said again. “You get out and move on. Stay here for a while. Then start again. Don’t wait another five years, ten years, until after you’ve got two kids and the relationships hasn’t worked in a couple of years—because, tell me, is he going to be the one to stay home? You’re not trapped now. You just feel like you are.”

“I don’t think I feel trapped.”

“You wouldn’t be acting this way if you didn’t feel trapped.”

“Not trapped. Foolish, maybe, expecting to run away with Garrett.” My mother was about to say something. “Don’t,” I said. “Don’t bring up the whole people always say and act the truth when they’re drinking crap.”

The look my mother gave me could have stopped a clock dead. “You’re using alcohol as therapy, as an escape, and it’s not healthy. I know you can’t hear me sometimes. Or you just stop listening. But your father—”

“I’m not my father. I don’t even know my father, how can I be anything like him?”

“Sweetheart.” My mother’s tone softened. “I don’t want to raise old ghosts or talk about the emotional implications of your father leaving us so early. It’s not something that you’ve ever dealt with—you think that you have dealt with it by pushing it all down and being strong and making your way in the world. But hear me out.

“The minute that the going got tough—and trust me when I say that it was tough with two kids under the age of three, no money, and no support from either of our parents—your father checked out. Eventually, he left, but for an entire year before he decided to go, he was already gone. Drunk all the time. Lazy. Absolutely no help with either of you. I don’t just mean changing a diaper or letting me take a nap, which would have been nice, but the way-down-deep stuff that makes a relationship work. The connecting tissues of it all. He gave up. And that was worse. The giving up months were so much harder than after he left. Because at least once he was gone, I knew what I was dealing with.”

My eyes welled up and my throat got tight; all the words that were always so quick to come to the tip of my tongue just disappeared as my mother continued.

“Call it what you will—trapped, stuck, unhappy—you’ve been giving up for the last year. I’ve been watching it happen and biting my tongue.”

“This is biting your tongue?”

“You need to change your life, Kelly. That’s the point. Change now, before you regret it.”

Our conversation continued, the back and forth, my mother providing more and more examples and instructions about how to fix what was broken. I listened for a while, tuned out for some, sat at the kitchen table until I could barely feel my legs, drank tea, and when I was done, when I couldn’t hear anymore, I laid my head on my arms. Without hesitation, my mother stroked my hair like I was three again, sitting in her lap, totally disappointed, bawling, because I had dropped my ice-cream cone in the sand at the park and the truck had already driven away. It was my earliest memory. The only thing that comforted me to this day was knowing that the minute I put my head down in front of my mother, she would stop whatever she was doing and move her hands up and down, back and forth, for hours, if I needed it.

“Everyone’s having babies. Getting married. It’s too adult for me. I’m not ready for it.”

She carefully considered her words. “It’s the idea that your life, along with the lives of so many people around you, has finally transitioned into proper adulthood. That’s what’s causing you so much anxiety. Maybe some of this has to do with the stress of worrying that when the baby arrives you and Meghan won’t be so close anymore. You won’t be able to drunk dial her at three a.m. when she’s got a newborn. She’ll be drowning in that baby for months and not be able to get to the surface.”

“I’m so happy for Meghan, I am. But it’s not what I want. I need you to know that.”

“I promise I’ll try to hear you better. And stop pressuring you. I know you’re not Meghan.”

“And if I don’t want tobewith Rob, how come I can’t imagine being without him? The only way I’m holding it together right now is by not thinking about how badly I’ve hurt him.”

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