Page 36 of Valentine's Slave

“I’ll see you for dinner,” Valentino says, but he’s still giving me that drop-dead yet slightly villainous smile.

“See you at dinner.” I’m not sure if we’re supposed to handshake or hug or just walk away without a word. We’ve fucked multiple times but haven’t kissed once, which seems weird when I think about it, but in the moment, I didn’t even realize it. I was too caught up in . . . other things.

I hesitate for a second, but Valentino makes no move towards me and doesn’t even get up. He seems very comfortable on the café bench, so I whirl on my heels and head off, feeling his eyes on my ass the whole time. He’s probably imagining me in that skimpy little thing he bought for me. As if it’ll actually stay on.

As soon as I’m out of earshot, I ring Mom.

“Hello, honey,” she says, and the sound of her voice makes me both happy and sad at the same time.

“Hey, Mom, are you free right now? Can I swing by?”

“Well, sure, but aren’t you working?”

That isn’t due to Mom’s lack of memory. I haven’t exactly been transparent with her these last few months.

“Not right now. I can give you a quick visit if you want,” I say, still leaving all the details out.

I hear a smile in her voice. “Of course, honey. I was just going to make some cinnamon spice cookies.”

That was a Christmas favourite when we were kids. I wonder if Mom realizes she’s mixed up the holidays.

“Sounds delicious.”

But then again, it’s never a bad time to eat cinnamon spice cookies.

While on the bus, I search up some Alzheimer’s facts since I feel guilty for knowing next to nothing about it and having been so distracted lately, aka trying to stay off the streets. There’s no cure for the disease, but I want to do everything I can.

It’s known to come on slowly and then progress a lot faster, but it’s different for everyone, and I want to spend as much time as possible with Mom while she’s still in her right mind. The thought that she may not be for much longer pains me, but I push the feelings away. I’ve got too much on my plate to worry about being sad at the same time. I have to be in logic mode, do the things I have to do and then deal with the rest later.

And besides, even if Valentino does lie and reveal himself, Mom may not remember him for that long. Hailey would be another story. She’s only texted me punctually today, but I know she’s holding back, that she’s dying to know exactly what’s going on with my ‘situation’, as I referred to it.

Forty minutes later, I walk up the little driveway of the tiny house where Hailey and I grew up. Mom was always a wiz in the garden, and she would cut down certain flowers from our tiny front lot each year before the cold came, but this is the first year she didn’t. The little garden is still overgrown and full of leaves from fall.

The memory is faded, but standing the edge of the driveway, where it connects with the sidewalk, still reminds me exactly where I was and how I felt when Mom came out of the house, in shock, to give me the news that Dad had been involved in a fatal car accident.

The door is unlocked, as always, even though I keep telling Mom to lock it, even during the day. The smell of cinnamon is already wafting from the little kitchen, and Mom appears at the doorway, wearing her special Christmas apron, her greyingblond hair just reaching her shoulders, soft brown eyes beaming. She’s not a big woman, but she has a big personality. It’s only these last few years that she’s become more relaxed, as if the birth of Hailey’s son really brought out the grandma in Mom.

She gives me a big hug, and I realize just how frail she is. I can’t remember the last time I visited, which sends a stab of guilt through me. I thought it was just a couple weeks, but it must have been longer. No wonder she’s so happy to see me.

When I follow her to the kitchen, she gives me another huge smile and produces a little spoon as if reading my mind and knowing I want a taste of that cookie dough. Baking is one of the things that Mom has always done exceptionally well. Dealing with two teenage girls as they matured and started dating and partying—that was not one of her talents.

The dough is sweet and tastes like my childhood Christmas. My whole face lights up as I’m transported back twenty years to when things were simple and my biggest problem was figuring out whether Ben, our cute neighbour, was smiling at me or at Hailey.

“Wow, this is amazing,” I say. “Who needs dinner?”

I smirk inwardly, wondering what Valentino would do if I showed up for dinner without an appetite. I wonder if he’s cooking again. These cookies definitely aren’t vegan.

“It’s not dinnertime yet, honey,” Mom says, chuckling. “How was the company today?”

I haven’t even been calling her lately, which is horrible on my part.

“I’ve been trying to get my freelancing blog off the ground,” I explain. “Since I got so much experience working for the travel agency, now I’m trying to replicate it on my own. The only thing I need is a niche.”

“Such a smart girl,” Mom says. “You have your father’s knack for writing.”

Mom has also become a lot more emotionally open since getting sick, which is strange. She never used to dole out compliments like this or be so bubbly and smiley. She would hold most things in, too afraid to express her real emotions lest she offend someone. She and Dad were similar in their lack of emotional expression, except he tended towards anger rather than fear.

“The writing is the easy part,” I say. “It’s the marketing and the Google search analytics that’s the tricky part.”

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