“I understand that. What about regrets involving things you had control over?”
“Mine are the same as most people’s. I wish I'd enjoyed you more when you were little. I'd worry less now about a messy house, or about a problem at daycare or your school, and just relax. Enjoy you for who you were and are. I wish I had understood when I was younger that there is no point where everything's in balance. Something's always askew. Learning to live with that is life.”
“What do you mean?”
“I thought that life was what you did when the house was clean, the repairs were done, work's checklist was completed, and the decks were cleared. It was foolish, and part of being so left-brained. It was hard to just play with you when the kitchen was messy, or to carve out open time to just be available to you if a work project loomed. If I could do it over, I'd let all that go.”
I open my mouth to tell her something Andrew's tried to get through my head–that I can leave my work at Anterdec and be a stay-at-home mom to the twins. Like Shannon, I'm being offered something very few women get: the freedom to be a stay-at-home mother without worrying about money. At all.
“Do you ever wonder what life would have been like if Dad hadn't been so dysfunctional?” I ask, surprising myself with the question.
“All the time,” she answers, upping the surprise.
“How?”
“It would have been easier to raise you. He loved you, but Leo was a tormented man, and he didn't give two whits about being self-reflective, or getting real help. His journey was his, and he didn't really see you or me as people after a while.”
“Like a narcissist?”
Mom shakes her head. “No. When Leo was sober, he was a good guy.” Nostalgia softens her tension. “We had so much hope in the beginning. But time wasn't kind to us. And the alcohol made him selfish.”
“I think addiction does that to people.”
“It sure does. So I can't imagine a life with Leo in it that didn't include his mistress.”
“Mistress?”
“The bottle. Hardest relationship to quit.”
“Ah.”
A sad silence settles in between us until Spritzy's collar begins to jangle. He jumps off Mom's lap and toddles over to the food dish, which is empty now.
“Right! Sorry!” I say to him, moving away from Mom into the kitchen, where I find the bag of dog food and a little more into the bowl. He begins gobbling, making huffing sounds, and Mom laughs.
“I fed him a few hours ago! He has the metabolism of a humming bird. Would you pour a few small bowls and set them on the counter for me? Then I just have to bend down and put them out for him.”
“Of course.”
“And the mail?” A small stack of envelopes is on the counter. “I forgot to put it next to my chair,” she says sheepishly, as if that's some sort of mistake.
“Here.” I hand the stack to her and watch as she sorts, then turn away to pour dog food into four small bowls I find. If it makes life a little easier for her, I'm happy to do such simple tasks.
Her flares come and go, and hopefully by the time she's used up these bowls, she'll be on the upswing.
“Junk. Junk. Junk. Another political donation request. Junk. Replacement windows. Junk.” She pauses her description of the pile. “Lab.”
“Lab?”
She sighs, shaking her head. “James has it in his head that I might not have fibromyalgia.”
“WHAT? How dare he? He doesn't have the right to–”
“No, no. He doesn't think I'm faking. Plenty of people think it isn't a real disease, but he's not one of them. He thinks I have Lyme disease.”
“Lyme?” I look at her, searching her skin for the red bullseye rash Lyme brings.
“He said there are stories of people with autoimmune conditions who turn out to have Lyme disease. Treat the Lyme, and the condition fades.”
“What's the lab work for? Did you get bitten by a tick?”
“Not that I know. And I've had the fibro for so long. I think he's wrong. But there's a special test that can find antibodies if your immune system ever mounted a response, so...”
“He convinced you to do the test?”
She nods and stares at the envelope. Her finger is halfway through the flap, but then she stops.
“You're nervous about the results?”
“No. Just–what if he's right?”
“You know James. He is right, in his mind. Always.”
“But what if I've had Lyme this entire time and everyone missed it?”
“You were tested for it, though.”
“Not with a test as sensitive as the one James's doctor ordered.” She taps the envelope. “I wonder what this says.”
“Are you afraid to read it?”
Spritzy jumps up and snuggles in her lap again. Mom looks at me with eyes I don't recognize, the skin around them sagging with age, eyelids half closed, exhaustion turning my no-nonsense mother into someone slower, sadder, smaller.
“Yes?” The fact that she phrases it as a question breaks my heart.
“I'll read it for you, Mom.”
“This is silly,” she gasps, but doesn't move. “Having Lyme won't change a thing.”
“Of course it will! You'd use different treatments. You might be able to get rid of the flares.”
“I'll still be sick.”
“But you'll be sick in a way that doctors could try to cure. Fibromyalgia doesn't have a cure!”
We both look at the envelope. She thrusts it at me.
“Yes. You read it.” Closing her eyes, she uses her right hand to scratch Spritzy's forehead. His eyes tighten and he looks like he's grinning.
“Okay.”
I slide the letter out of the envelope, unfold it, and scan the document. My throat tightens, stomach dropping as all the pieces come together in my mind, the implications enormous.
Then I grab her hand and gently, so gently, I squeeze. Years of her pain and suffering, her stoic resolution, of supporting her through it all, have to be expressed in pressure so tender that it conveys love, but not so hard that it adds to her struggle.
That balance is impossible.
“Mom?”
“Yes?”
The tears I'm trying to hold back don't care about what I want, dotting the page as I tell her, “James was right.”
5
Amanda
“Your father!” I say in a voice that even I know sounds accusatory. Andrew just walked in the front door, and he's dripping with sweat, so soaked that I cringe when he wraps his arms around me and tries to kiss my cheek.
“Why won't you hug me? And what about my father? What did he do now?”
I ignore the second part and focus on my husband's sweaty, humid body. “Why didn't you shower at the gym?”
“Vince made me go for a long run.”
“How long?”
“All the way home.”
“To the condo?” We still have his condo in the Seaport District, though we moved to Weston a while ago, renovating Andrew's childhood home. “There's a bathroom there, with a shower.”