My mom’s chin wobbled. “You don’t need to move out.”
I gave her a sad smile, bringing her around the counter so that we could sit at the island together. “I do need to.”
“I know Asa needs his space, but—”
“It’s not about me needing space. It’s about you needing something more than just me and Asa to fill your days with.” Fuck, this sucked. But I loved my mom enough to want to see her happier. Even if that meant going through sadness first.
“But you’re my boys. My only babies.”
“I know. And we love you, Momma. I know things have been different with Asa, but he’s still your boy. And so am I. We’re just finally ready to grow up.”
Her eyes watered. “I’m not.”
“Well, I know I just said I was ready, but I’m not. I love having you around. I’m not saying I’m gonna leave and never come back. But believe it or not, I know how to fold socks. And I’m perfectly capable of making myself a sandwich. You’ve taught me well, Momma.”
She wrung her hands, dropped them in her lap and then wrung them again. I hated seeing her struggling like this, knowing I was the cause. But I was confident that this was the push she needed. It wasn’t just a baby bird that needed to learn how to fly, the mama bird needed to learn to leave her babies too.
“I’m not saying that I don’t want you around, or that I don’t need you around.”
“Keane,” she said, her eyes covered in a layer of moisture. “My baby.” She ran a hand over my arm until her fingers curled around mine. “You were my independent baby. Asa was the one who needed me. And then you switched roles when you became adults.”
I didn’t tell her I’d become more needy in an effort to fill the hole my brother’s injury had caused for her. Because she was still my mom. I’d always need her.
“Asa needed me more as a baby. He doesn’t need me anymore.”
“That’s not true,” I said. “It’s just different.”
She sighed and wiped the back of her hands over her cheeks. “That’s something that no one prepared me for. That the less you needed me, the more I needed you. How did that happen?”
I didn’t have an answer for her. “You don’t need us, momma. You need to take care of yourself first now. Dad’s hardly ever home and you guys don’t do anything when he is. You should take a cruise or go drink margaritas on a beach somewhere.”
“It’s hard to think about doing that.”
“Yeah, because you can kind of be a martyr.” As soon as the word slipped through my lips, I thought of Navy. Fuck.
“What’s wrong?” my mom asked. I must have made a face, because she pressed a hand to my forehead. “Are you ill?”
“No.” I pulled her hand away. Fuck me, Navy was like my mom in so many ways. Both martyrs, both willing to suffer needlessly for the ones they loved most. “I’m okay. But I want you to be okay too, when we’re not here for you to feed or clean up after.”
“It’s hard for me to think of doing anything else.”
“And that’s why you need to. You did a great job raising us to be strong men. We might fuck things up, but you did more than your fair share.”
“You know,” she began after a moment. She stared into her still full cup. “I don’t remember when the last time I carried you was, Keane. You used to grab ahold of my legs and let me swing you around while I did dishes. Got a great leg work out that way,” she said with a conspiratorial smile. “And now I don’t even come up to your shoulders. At some point I picked you up without ever realizing it was the very last time I would.”
“Maybe it’s my time to pick you up,” I said as a joke. But her eyes were sad. I stood in front of her and offered my arms to her. I couldn’t heal her hurts, but I needed to do this. That’s what I told myself, at least. When she went into my arms for a hug, I bent further and then lifted, picking her up several inches off the ground.
“Keane,” she said with a laugh and a squeal. “Put me down!”
I did as she asked, and her laughter continued.
“I can’t believe you did that.”
“And I can’t believe you woke up at the ass crack of dawn for two decades to make me eggs. Believe it or not, but I can use a stove.”
“I’ve hardly seen you in the kitchen to wash even a single dish. Hard to believe you know how to turn a burner on.” She stood to refill my mug and I stopped her.
“I got it, Mom. Drink yours, so I can fill up your cup.”
“Oh, okay.” She sat back down and raised the mug to her lips.
“You’re getting the hang of it,” I said. “Sit more, ask for more help. I probably don’t know where the dishwasher tablets are, but I bet I can figure out how to turn the dishwasher on.”
“That would be a miracle,” she said with a small, teary smile. “Where’s Asa?”
“Sleeping,” I answered. “I turned off his alarm since he wasn’t waking to it. He worked late yesterday at the cabin. Might’ve gotten a bit too much sun.”
“Oh, I have aloe vera somewhere,” she said. “I’ll grab that and maybe I can get his avocados mashed before he gets up.”
“Mom,” I said when she stood up from her stool.
“What?”
I looked pointedly back at the stool, and then it clicked in her head.
“Oh, right. Okay. There’s probably aloe in your bathroom. He can get it though, right?”
I nodded, pouring more creamer in her coffee. “He can. He can also take care of his breakfast.”
“Okay. Can I still make you breakfast on occasion?”
“Like I would say no,” I told her, sipping my coffee as I swallowed my now mushy cereal. “But don’t wake up early to do it. We’re big boys. We can figure out how to fend for ourselves.”
“What if I’m already awake when you guys come out for breakfast?”
“Then you drink your coffee and watch your shows in peace.”
“I’ll try. I guess I’ll need to start buying bagels when I do the grocery shopping, huh? Just so I can throw them at you.”
"Yeah, you probably should. And you should use this money to do it.” I slid the envelope I’d picked up at the bank the day before. “Least we could do to pitch in around here.”
My mom eyed the envelope and I knew it was going to take some getting used to for her, and for us too not to expect too much or take for granted what we already had.
“Just take it. We eat a lot.”
“Oh, I know you do. But the whole point of you guys living here was so you could save money while you built and worked on the cabins.”
“And we’ve saved a ton on rent. Let us buy groceries, at the very least.” I shoved the envelope closer to her. “Don’t wait up on me for dinner tonight, though.”
“Got a hot date?”
I didn’t. Yet. But pulling off the bandage with my mom had inspired me to do it with Navy too. “We’ll see,” I said. “I hope so.”
“Who is it this week?”