I only made it halfway to school before my crying fit got so bad that I had to pull over. I wasn’t safe to drive. I hadn’t slept in over twenty-four hours. I hadn’t eaten in about as long. The adrenaline was wearing off, and all that was left was exhaustion and tears.
So. Many. Tears.
There was no way I could go to school like that, so I turned my car around and headed home.
Or at least, headed to what I thought of as home.
My parents welcomed me with open arms, but it was clear that my status in their household had permanently shifted from resident to visitor while I was gone.
It had only been four months since I moved out, but in that time, my mom had rearranged my bedroom furniture, taken down all four hundred of the photos, magazine clippings, band posters, and drawings that I’d wallpapered the room with, and painted the whole thing pastel blue. Then, as the final touch in the generic guest-room look she’d been going for, my mom had hung a framed print of Van Gogh’s Water Lilies above the bed.
I was officially homeless.
As much as I wanted to just curl up and die, being in that room only depressed me more, so I sat at the kitchen table instead, drinking the whiskey my mom had given me to help me “calm down.”
She’d tried to give me a Xanax, but I’d told her, “No, thanks.”
If I saw one more orange prescription bottle that day, I was going to lose my shit.
Again.
“Honey, are you sure you don’t want to come into the living room and watch TV? You look so bored in here.”
I glanced down the hallway into the living room where my dad was quietly strumming a red Fender Stratocaster while he watched the daily doom and gloom on CNN.
“Nah, I’m fine. Just need to think.”
My mom smiled and sat across from me, her own wine in hand. “Pretty sure I’ve never said those words.” She chuckled. “Most of the time, I’m trying not to think.”
“Maybe that’s my problem.” I smiled back weakly.
“Yeah, I’m pretty sure you do enough thinking for the both of us.” Her long red hair was loose, and she’d changed out of her teacher clothes into a T-shirt with the Hindu goddess Ganesh on the front and a pair of yoga pants. “So, what are you thinking about right now?”
I sighed and felt my eyes begin to sting before the words even came out. “I’m just wondering…if I should have tried harder. You know?” I glanced down the hallway at my dad playing that red guitar, so kind, so sensitive, so lost to his passion. “I should have gotten him some help. Or gone with him on the road more. Or…I don’t know…supported him more. But I just gave up.” My chin—my stupid, traitorous chin—wobbled uncontrollably as fresh, hot tears began to flow. “I love him so much, and I just walked away.”
My mom reached across the table and squeezed my hand. She bore witness to my pain, sat in it with me, and stayed strong so that I could safely break.
Once my cries dissolved into whimpers, my mom refilled our glasses from the bottle of merlot on the table, stroked the back of my knuckles with her thumb, and said, “Honey, I know you love him, but you did the right thing.”
I looked up into eyes just like mine. Earthy green. Tired. Sad. A little drunk. Haggard from the agony of loving a musician.
“I love your father. I do. He’s a good man, he loves me very much, and he gave me you.” She smiled with glistening eyes and squeezed my hand again. “But if I had it to do over, I’d marry a fucking accountant.” She laughed, wiping an errant tear from the corner of her eye.
“You’re so much like me. I was always attracted to the cool guys with the cool hair and the cool clothes—the bad boys, the musicians—but this is what they turn into.” My mom rolled her eyes in the direction of the living room. “Your father hasn’t worked in almost three years.”
I blinked at her. “Really?” I hadn’t realized it had been that long.
“Mmhmm. And before that, he hardly kept a job longer than a year. I didn’t want to be an art teacher. I wanted to sell my paintings in galleries, but somebody had to pay the bills. Damn sure wasn’t gonna be him.”
“If it makes you feel any better, you’re a really good art teacher.”
My mom smiled. “Thanks, baby. It’s fine. It’s a good life. I can’t complain. But I want so much more for you. Do you know why we named you Brooke?”
“Why?”
“Because Brooke Bradley sounds like a movie star’s name. When your dad suggested it, my exact words were, ‘It’s perfect. If she becomes a movie star, she won’t even have to change her name.’ Then you came out, singing and dancing and being outrageous and making people laugh, just like we knew you would.”
My mom squeezed my hand again, the warmth in her heart making up for her ice-cold fingers. “You have always been the brightest thing in the room, honey, but you dim your light so that your man can shine instead. Don’t do that, okay? You deserve someone who is going to support you, not the other way around. You’re so focused on helping Hans achieve his dreams, but does he even know what yours are? Does he help you achieve them? Does he help you around the house? Does he help you study?”
She kept talking, but I tuned her out for a minute while I thought about what she’d said. Help. Achieve. Study. The only person I could think of who actually knew what my goals were and had offered to help me achieve them was that cold, joyless, defiant, Gatorade-drinking, workout-clothes-wearing smart-ass whose hugs I had to steal.
Ken.
I didn’t even know his last name, yet he’d been more supportive and helpful than my boyfriend of a year and a half.
How depressing.
“I know he’s sweet,” she continued, “and I know he’s exciting. But sweet and exciting don’t pay the mortgage. They don’t sweep the floor. And they damn sure don’t change the diapers. If you’re doing all the giving and he’s doing all the taking, I’ve got news for you, honey.” My mom cast one last knowing look at my father then met my gaze with one of sad acceptance. “You’re not his girlfriend. You’re his mother.”