My mother wasn’t wrong about Chinese food, but she wasn’t right either. I end up finding orange chicken too spicy while pepper chicken makes me gag. Sweet and sour chicken isn’t bad, and I really like teriyaki chicken. Fried rice and chow mien are good too.
“I think Mom probably tried something and didn’t like it and figured everything tasted the same way,” I say after setting aside what I can’t eat in my to-go container.
“Do you have a fridge at your house?” Chipper asks, leaning back in his chair and looking too flawless for a fast food restaurant.
“Of course.”
Chipper reaches back to toss his plate in the nearby trash. When he looks at me, I shiver at the sly grin on his face. “I mean a safe one where the homeowners won’t steal your shit.”
“There’s a mini-fridge in the attic where I sleep.”
“Is it creepy up there?” he asks, and I love the playful meaning behind his words.
“Not really. Well, yeah, a little at first, but I’m above Paige’s room, and she plays her TV really loud. I think if the house was quiet, it might be creepier.”
“What kind of place did you live in back in Florida?”
“A three-bedroom ranch,” I say, immediately deflated at the thought of crying again.
“Did it have that stereotypical Florida feel?”
“We had tile floors in a lot of rooms. We also had a palm tree in the front yard. Otherwise, it looked a lot like the houses here.”
“Do you miss it?”
Exhaling unsteadily, I’m afraid I’ll cry soon. “I miss her. She knew I couldn’t afford to stay in the house after she died, so she put it on the market and got it sold fast. That way, I’d have money to support myself until I figured things out.”
Standing suddenly, Chipper takes my to-go container and gestures for us to leave. Even startled, I’m quick to follow him out the door and back to the SUV. Once there, he doesn’t start the car but asks me a question I’m grateful he didn’t ask in the restaurant around strangers.
“How did she die?”
“Cancer,” I whisper, hating the word. “Pancreatic. She found out in June and died last month.”
Somehow, I don’t shed a tear, though the heat behind my eyes tells me I’m close.
Chipper takes my hand. “She did everything she could to prepare you to be alone.”
“Yes,” I say, gripping his hand. “She cried for a week and then she started getting things in order. She gave our daycare clients three weeks’ notice. Found a realtor and priced the house aggressively. She had a garage sale to get rid of everything we didn’t need. I kept thinking something would happen to save her. She was so young and didn’t really seem sick. Like you think of cancer patients as being bald and pale, but that’s the chemo, and the doctors said it was too late for that. She was going to die soon. That was it.”
I wipe my eyes but don’t sob like I expect. My sorrow eases by sharing with Chipper. No one’s talked to me about my mom since she died. All of my toxic pain remained inside where it’s festered until I can barely breathe.
With Chipper, I release a little of the pain. Something else happens too. Talking about my mom makes her real again. She exists outside my head.
“When people die,” I whisper, staring at his hands, “they just disappear from the world, and no one cares. It’s almost hard to believe they ever existed at all.”
“The only person of value I lost was Hayes’s father, Balthazar. For ten years, he was my grandfather. I saw him nearly every day. His caretaker too. Then he got sick with pneumonia. One day, he was sick with a cold. The next day, he was at the hospital. A day after that, he died. Balthazar was an old man, and he lived a good life, but it still shocked me by how quickly he was gone.”
Chipper pauses to caress my cheek. “His death wasn’t as hard to deal with as how quickly no one mentioned him. His caretaker, who I’d known for most of my life, got another job, and I rarely saw her. She ended up leaving the state to be closer to her family. Balthazar’s house wasn’t his anymore. Hayes sold it to a young family with fat kids whose clothes never matched. I still drive by the house sometimes, even though the fat kids are off at college and probably not even fat anymore. It’s just weird to me how he’s not there, and someone else sleeps where he slept.”
“So you do understand.”
“I wasn’t close with Balthazar like you were with your mom, but I do understand how people want to forget the dead.”
“My mom’s life revolved around me,” I say and bring up a picture of her on my phone. “She tried dating a few times over the years, and I remember one boyfriend when I was young, but he went away at some point. It was just Mom and me after that.”
“And you think if she didn’t focus on you, more people would care that she’s gone.”
Nodding, I exhale unsteadily. “She gave up so much for me. If she had done what Howler wanted, she could have stayed here with her family and friends. She would have met a good man eventually and had kids with him. Her life would be so much fuller.”
“Your mom wasn’t a child when she chose to keep you. She could have dated more and had girlfriends. Except she enjoyed spending time with you. You said she was your best friend. You were hers too. She chose that. It wasn’t forced on her.”
I’m so grateful for Chipper’s words that I nearly jump across the seat and attach myself to him forever. I don’t, though, because talking about my mother zaps my energy, and I’m exhausted after crying again.
“I chose her over other people too. With her gone, I’m alone. The world feels too big and crowded. I’m surrounded by strangers, and I don’t know how to survive.”
“You have me now.”
Despite grinning at his words, I say, “We just met.”
“I know, Tatum. I was there when it happened,” he says, smirking.
I smile at his snide comment. “Are you taking me home now?”
“No. It’s boring at your house. You want to spend more time with me.”
“I do. I can breathe when I’m with you, and I haven’t caught my breath since Mom was diagnosed.”
Chipper starts the car. “Let’s go to my house, and I’ll introduce you to my cats. We’ll talk more, and I’ll kiss you some, and you’ll swoon because I’m a great kisser. Then I’ll take you back to your house if you want or you can stay in the guest room again. My place is relaxing, and no one will expect anything from you.”
“You expect to kiss me.”
“Only because you’re sending me wildly inappropriate signals, and I don’t know how long I can hold out under such pressure to perform.”
Chipper’s deadpan delivery kills me, and I burst into laughter. Every time I think I might gain control of my giggles, I remember his expression when he sold his crap about me sending sexy signals. In fact, I laugh the entire drive to his house, and every minute of laughter liberates me from the pain a little more.