“What have you done?” a woman screamed through Alicia’s bedroom door while simultaneously pounding on it.
Alicia groaned. She hadn’t meant to fall back asleep, and now the winter sun was high in the sky. “Hang on, Mom,” she called back, her throat still scratchy with sleep.
“You threw away my blue hot pads, didn’t you?” her mom shrieked.
Alicia felt ill. She’d thrown away the food-crusted, half-burned hot pads weeks ago, hoping that the other dozen or so sets that her mom kept around would mask the missing blue ones. Apparently not.
Alicia nearly stumbled when her foot caught on the edge of the small area rug in her room. She unlocked and opened the door to face her mom’s reddened face.
“Those hot pads were a wedding gift!” her mom said, not yelling quite as loud, but her voice still had plenty of power. “They were from Aunt Irma, who knitted them herself.”
“I’ll help you find them,” Alicia said. “Have you checked all the drawers in the kitchen?” She was lying to her mom, but she had to talk her off the ledge and get her calmed down before she told her the truth. Today might require an emergency therapy session.
Her mom’s voice was calmer when she said, “I looked everywhere.”
“Okay, I’ll start looking too.” Alicia led the way down the hall and walked into the kitchen. The place was a disaster—more so than usual. In addition to the stacks of clutter, every drawer was open, and kitchen towels, ketchup packets, bread bag ties, and various colored hot pads were scattered about the floor. There was also a very distinct smell of something burning in the oven.
Alicia flew to the stove top and turned off the oven. “What are you cooking?” she asked as she opened the oven door. Black smoke poured out, and Alicia waved it away so she could peer inside.
“I’m making cookies—is that a crime now?” her mom said.
Burned lumps on the cookie sheet were all that were left of her mom’s creation. Alicia grabbed a hot pad from the floor and pulled out the cookie sheet. Then she moved past her scowling mom and opened the front door. Alicia set the burned pan with the black cookies on the front porch.
She hurried to open the kitchen windows, even though it was cold outside, while her mom stood and watched, her eyes narrowed.
“We don’t want the smoke detector to go off,” Alicia said, as if she needed to explain this to her mom.
“They won’t go off because I disabled them,” her mom snapped.
“Why did you do that?” Alicia folded her own arms. There were some things that were just plain unsafe, and not having working smoke detectors was one of them.
“The chirping drives me crazy!”
Alicia wanted to laugh, a crazy laugh. Her mom was driving her crazy. “The chirping sounds means you have to change the batteries.”
“I know,” her mom said. “But one of them kept doing it even after I changed the battery.”
Alicia blinked. “Then it probably just needs to be completely replaced. How long have the smoke detectors been disabled?”
Her mom shrugged and turned away. All of the yelling must have drained her, because instead of continuing her search for the blue hot pads, she sat at the table and propped her elbows on a stack of grocery coupons that she religiously cut and saved but never used.
When her mom was quiet and pensive like this, Alicia found that she felt a lot more compassion for her. She wished her mom could have a normal life, that her phobias and anxieties didn’t keep her home-bound. That she could garden, walk around the neighborhood, go to a mother-daughter lunch.
Alicia took a deep breath and sat in the other chair at the table. “Those blue hot pads were so damaged that they couldn’t even be washed,” she started. “And I’m sorry that I didn’t know they were a wedding present. When I moved in, I didn’t think they were usable anymore, and you had so many others I didn’t think to ask you about them. I’m sorry I didn’t ask.”
Her mother didn’t react for a moment. This was actually a good thing. In therapy, they’d both been told to listen to each other, then take a moment before replying. Alicia had also learned to not call her mother’s things “clutter” or “garbage” but to understand that they were valuable to her mom.
Alicia was also supposed to ask permission before throwing anything away—but until the therapist saw the actual state of their house, Alicia had to take some things into her own hands. Her mother had never given her permission to throw anything away, and every request turned into a major argument. Thus, Alicia’s early morning forays to a dumpster.
Her mother finally lifted her head, and it tore at Alicia’s heart to see the tears. Yet, on the other hand, their therapist had told her that tears were good—it meant that her mom was allowing herself to feel emotion instead of covering it up with more hoarding. “Blue’s my favorite color.”
The statement surprised Alicia—not that her mom’s favorite color was blue but that she wasn’t demanding to search a dumpster to get back the hot pads.
She swallowed back her relief, then did something she’d sworn never to do. “What if we look up blue hot pads on Amazon? See if there’s any you like.”
Her mom’s eyes immediately brightened, making Alicia feel even more guilty. She was totally playing on her mom’s weaknesses to deflect the guilt from herself. But sometimes, a girl just needed a break.
While her mom browsed Amazon and undoubtedly ordered more things than just blue hot pads, Alicia quietly cleaned up the floor. Her mom didn’t even say anything when Alicia brought out the broom and mop and scrubbed it clean. Perhaps they’d reached some sort of truce. Although it pained Alicia to put all the hot pads back into the drawers. Several of them were in no better condition than the blue ones had been.
Next, Alicia retrieved the pan of burnt cookies from the front porch. It gave her a few moments to stand in the cold air and breath it in. It was a beautiful, cold afternoon, and the layer of snow on the lawn had frozen. As a kid, she used to love to try and balance on frozen snow. Invariably, her boots would crack through, and Jeff would laugh at her.
Jeff. His laugh.
She shook her head, dispelling the memory. A car drove by, and someone waved. Alicia couldn’t see who it was, but she waved back—it was sort of a tradition in these types of neighborhoods. People waved to each other. Alicia had been gone for a long time and hadn’t kept up with all the new move-ins, but she did know that the Finch house had seen people come and go. She glanced over at the yard and noted that it was its usual pristine self. Even in the dead of winter, the bushes looked neatly trimmed, and the two pine trees held an elegant dusting of snow on their branches, making it look like a postcard house. The driveway and sidewalk were clear and completely free of ice. Alicia could almost picture Mr. Finch outside, methodical in his yard work no matter what time of year. And Mrs. Finch . . . she was one of those moms who baked cookies after school.
Speaking of cookies. Alicia looked down at the burnt mess she was holding as tears pricked her eyes. She was being ridiculous, of course. No one’s life was perfect, not even the Finches. But right now, anything sounded better than the situation Alicia was in.
She sniffled and wiped at her eyes, knowing she was just tired. Sleeping four hours hadn’t really been enough, although she’d survived it plenty of times. She wanted to call her dad and lay it all out on him, but she already knew what he would say. He’d tell her to let her mom figure things out on her own, that if she got arrested, then she got arrested. He’d tell her to move out and to get her own place.
But the problem was, Alicia couldn’t leave her mom alone. Her mom had literally no one. And she couldn’t imagine that jail would help her mom at all—and then what? Would her mother become a permanent resident of a psych ward somewhere? Alicia squeezed her eyes shut, and not sure if she was saying some sort of prayer or not, she pleaded to find a way to help her mother. The therapy had helped, but it wasn’t enough. And Alicia didn’t know how much longer she could live here.
She wiped at the tears again and inhaled sharply. She couldn’t go back inside crying. Finally, feeling calm again, she entered the house. Her mother was still on the computer, so Alicia started to scrape off the burnt mess into the sink. She scrubbed the baking sheet clean and dried it. After putting it away, she glanced over at her mom, who was in her own little world, a crooked smile on her face. Alicia scanned her mom’s ratty bathrobe, her unwashed hair—another battle Alicia had fought and lost—the way her mom’s skinny foot tapped at the floor.
And suddenly the tears were back. Alicia hurried from the room and walked to her bedroom, where she changed her clothing. She’d go for a long, cold walk and clear her head. Then she’d take a nap before work.
When she returned to the kitchen, she told her mom, “I’m going on a walk. You can call my phone if you need anything.”
Her mom barely looked up, then refocused on the computer.
All right, then. Alicia left the house, locking the door behind her. She set off down the neighborhood and ignored the childhood memories that flooded through her as she passed landmarks that had connections to Jeff Finch. She’d been fine in this neighborhood for months, but seeing him last night must have triggered everything. It was probably why she was so emotional today.
She wished she could call Gwen and dump everything on her, but the nice thing about Gwen was that Alicia hadn’t told her about her mom. So it meant that time with Gwen was like a break from worrying or talking about her mom. Alicia could separate herself from all of that and just have a good time with her friend.
She kept her pace brisk and turned the corner. The next neighborhood was as old as hers, but many of the residents had done major remodels on their homes, so the prices were much higher. A couple of the houses were for sale, which surprised her. Usually houses didn’t go on the market until spring.
She continued walking. Across the street about another block down, a young couple came out of one of the for-sale homes. Another man was with them. They seemed to be in an animated conversation over something, and Alicia decided they were potential home buyers with their realtor.
Then she nearly stumbled on a sidewalk crack she hadn’t been paying attention to. The single man—the realtor—was Jeff Finch, and he’d just seen her too.