7
(Garrett)
My mom lives in an apartment. An apartment.
Or, as I prefer to call it, a jail cell. I’d live almost anywhere else before I moved my crap into an apartment. A hut. A lean-to. A tent. Shit, give me a tarp, a couple of trees, and a handful of stakes to work with, and I’d be good—at least that way you have plenty of blue sky around you, not just the hint of it through a few cereal box–sized windows. Here, it’s just hundreds of human beings piled together like rats in a science lab.
What hurts is that this isn’t even one of the nicer apartment complexes in Grand Junction. Although it is better than the place she rented after she and my dad split up almost ten years ago. I was fifteen when they divorced, and shared custody meant I spent more weekend nights than I ever wanted to in that first near-ghetto dump, which probably has a lot to do with why I hate apartments.
Now that I’m a bill-paying adult, I get why she couldn’t afford much more. Any alimony from my dad had to be a joke given the state of the farm, and there weren’t any full-time jobs to speak of in a small town like Hotchkiss, so she took the only decent gig she could get, cashiering at a big-box hardware store in neighboring—and significantly bigger—Grand Junction. Since then she’s found a better job with the city and moved here, to the Grand Glen Lodge, where shabby siding is covered in flaking paint and the landscaping consists of ugly bushes seriously in need of a good whacking with some hedge clippers. Technically, it was moving up, but without fail, every time I pull into the parking lot all I can think about is how it isn’t grand, or part of a glen, and doesn’t look at all like a lodge.
But I love my mom. She’s the only parent I have left, and even if she lives in what I think is the equivalent of a hamster cage, as long as she does, I’ll keep making the hour-long drive from Hotchkiss to see her.
One lonely parking space is available in the guest lot, small enough that I may have to roll down my window, crawl out the opening, drag myself onto the truck’s roof, then leap into the truck bed and over the tailgate—all to avoid dinging the Mazda or the Honda boxed in on either side of me.
Fucking hamsters.
I avoid all that shit by creaking the door open slowly and sidestepping my way out between the cars, holding my mom’s birthday present up above my head. A short walk and up three sets of stairs, I round the corner and head down an open-air walkway to my mom’s door, where a decorative sign hangs: “Holy Spirit, You Are Welcome Here” penned in fancy cursive writing, surrounded by colorful painted flowers. After the divorce, my mom found religion. Although she claims she just found it again, back to the faith she grew up with, instead of the one my dad believed in. Weather was Dad’s church and the only thing he would pray to—but he was devout, no question.
I give three knocks on the door and almost immediately, it swings open.
“Garrett! Good to see you, son!”
Randy, my mom’s boyfriend of three years, opens his arms and grins. He’s wearing a chef’s hat, white and billowy, atop his balding and perpetually sunburnt head. I stick one hand out for a perfectly acceptable handshake, hoping this might be the time we leave it at that.
But Randy does his usual: latches on to my hand and yanks me forward into a bear hug, complete with a hearty, hammering back slap that always knocks my breath away. My theory is he’s trying to prove something when he does it: that behind the goofy chef’s hat and the bald spot, he’s a guy’s guy. Which is pointless because Randy sells life insurance for a living. He sports chinos with polo shirts and boat shoes, and a pinkie ring on his right hand. He drives a used red BMW convertible . . . that he calls Scarlett.
And you just can’t back-slap your way away from all that.
Also, he doesn’t need to try so hard, because I already think he’s a decent guy. Short of the times I catch him leering at my mom in a way I’d rather not see, he treats her right and loves her. He’s also been trying to convince her to move into his place with him, which I think is a good idea because I’d much rather see her shacked up with Randy than here. So whether I would or would not want to go fishing with him, doesn’t matter.
I catch my breath and lean back. “Hey, Randy. Good to see you, too.”
My mom pops her head out from around the wall to the kitchen, where something smells damn good. “Peanut, get in here. I want my birthday hug, but my hands are covered in cracker dust.”
It’s her birthday, but Mom loves to cook, so she’d take slaving away in the kitchen any day over any trip out to a restaurant. Do I have a list of top-pick dishes I’m hoping make an appearance at the table today? Selfish or not, I do. Her Delmonico potatoes are one, as is a certain broccoli-cheese casserole that’s topped with a butter-soaked crumb topping made out of Ritz crackers, evidence of which I can see all over her fingers at the moment. I’m an only child, so there’s always a strong chance my mom will indulge my favorites, even if it’s not my birthday.
I slide past Randy and make my way into the kitchen, slinging one arm over my mom’s shoulder and tucking her into my side for a hug, the top of her blonde head reaching only to the middle of my chest. Balancing her birthday gift in the palm of my free hand, I present it to her with as much flourish as a boring gift set of bath products can justify. Thank God for Bath & Body Works, especially the one located three miles away from her apartment complex.
“Happy birthday, Mom. Ta-da, bubble bath and shit.”
“Don’t curse, Peanut.” She leans in to peer at the bottles, her dangly turquoise earrings tinkling quietly when she does. “Ooh, gardenia. Thank you, sweetie.”
Randy strides through the kitchen and flips the latch to the slider door that leads out onto the so-called balcony. I’m not sure what the exact definition of “balcony” is, but somehow I think that a six-by-four-foot space that overlooks a dingy parking lot doesn’t qualify. Randy grabs a bright red apron off the back of a chair by the kitchen table and slips it over his head, slightly deflating his chef’s hat. Today’s polo shirt is yellow, so adding in the red of that apron means he’s one seriously colorful being right now.
He thumbs toward his chest, where the words “KING OF THE GRILL” are printed on the apron.
“This guy’s going to fire up the grill.” Randy realigns his chef’s hat and pats the sides to pouf it up properly. “We picked up some rib eyes at the store. Sound good, Garrett? We went with choice. Nothing but the best for my Paula.”
He throws a pleased grin my way, followed by a wink for my mom.
Note to self: Stop winking at girls. It’s lame.
But Mom laughs, throaty from the Camels she smokes but swears she’s someday going to give up. Then she smiles big for Randy, with a tilt of her head that confirms she truly does feel like he’s giving her the best.
Moments like these make it hard to ignore how much has changed in those years since my parents divorced. It’s more than the apartment—it’s everything.
When Mom left, I couldn’t understand a thing about what she was doing. I knew my dad was a stoic guy, but even if he didn’t say much, when he did I listened—he taught me every farming, hunting, and life-living lesson I’ve ever needed, and as a kid I believed the sun rose and set on his watch. Which is why no one questioned whether I was going to stay with Dad in Hotchkiss or move with my mom.
And after I watched him go from stoic to silent in the six months after the split, during one of those shared-custody weekends at my mom’s first apartment, she and I argued over something stupid and I snapped. The next thing I knew, I was telling her exactly what I thought about what she’d done. That she was heartless and hateful, that I hated coming to her shitty apartment, and she didn’t deserve my dad anyway.
She cried. Big, fat, silent tears. And for the first time since the split, I could see how she was hurting as much as my dad was.
The second those tears started, I wanted to take back every word. Then she tried to explain how a girl from town could fall for a kid from the farm and want desperately to love the life he did, but after twenty years of trying, had to accept that she hated being a farmer’s wife and for all the years she’d thought it would grow on her, it didn’t. It wouldn’t. She said Dad knew it, too. And his way of dealing with it was to not deal with it. He shut her out until they had grown too far apart to find their way back.
I understood better then, because love might grow your heart, but it doesn’t rewire who you are, and even the fifteen-year-old me could see how expecting another human being to be happy where they don’t belong was too much to ask.
And my mom belongs here. With Randy, who makes her happy, and working a nine-to-five job doing payroll for the city.
Now, this doesn’t mean I can overlook everything about her life these days. When Randy squeaks open the slider door to light—translation, plug in—their grill, I have to stop from rolling my eyes. Their grill is electric. Not charcoal, or a pellet grill, not even propane. It’s electric, endorsed by the illustrious George Foreman, and putting three steaks on there will be a tight fit, although given the size of that balcony, anything bigger would be a joke anyways. The fact that the steaks came nestled in Styrofoam and wrapped in plastic is even harder to bear.
Growing up, my dad did his best work on a Traeger, and more often than not, what landed on there were elk steaks and antelope burgers. When beef did make an appearance, it was from Euland’s or the Mahon’s ranch, not the Kroger grocery down the street.
Still, I try to play along when my mom opens the refrigerator door to extract the large plate of steaks.
“Those steaks look good, Randy. I should get over here more often,” I manage, watching as Mom shakes on a healthy dose of Lawry’s Seasoned Salt, then hands the plate off to Randy when he steps back inside.
Mom slips the broccoli casserole into the oven and gently smacks my arm with an oven mitt. “You should. I miss seeing my boy.”
Randy chimes in with an agreement from outside, where the saddest-sounding sizzle rises in the background as he puts the steaks on. “Tell me what’s going on with you these days, Peanut.”
I snag a handful of shredded cheese out of the zipper bag on the counter before she puts it away, then slip off my coat and hang it on the back of the chair.
“Not much. Work is same, same. Nothing to hunt until turkeys at the end of March. But I need to spend some serious time shooting my bow before then. I’m trying out a new release, so I want to make sure I’m ready when the season opens. Need to change the oil in my truck and swap out the plugs, shit like that.”
“Are you helping Kenny Euland out? I’m on Facebook with Barb, and things don’t sound good. If things keeping going this way, they might end up losing eight percent this season.”
That helps explain Kenny looking like shit and sounding like gloom and doom. Losing eight percent of his calves would be a huge blow to his year, even in an operation his size, not to mention the mental kick in the gut that comes with watching that many little ones die. Commodity or not, even the toughest of ranchers can’t watch that without feeling it.
“I saw him yesterday and he didn’t look good, but I figured it was just the usual. I’m planning to head over early tomorrow, see if I can get Kenny the hell out of there for a while. Do what I can to help.”
“I’m sure he’ll appreciate it. I still remember how those guys need all the hands they can get this time of year.”
I make to steal a Hawaiian roll out of the basket she’s about to put on the table, but she dodges the move and I come up empty-handed. A stack of place mats, napkins, and silverware are in the middle of the table, so I start to set them out. Mom’s all hands talk reminds me of the extra set of hands I’m taking along for the ride tomorrow, and even though I might regret bringing it up, the idiot inside me wants to mention Cara. Why? I have no fucking idea.
“Well, I happen to be bringing another pair of hands with me. Not sure if Cara’s going to be any help, but—”
“Cara? Who’s Cara?”
Yep. Regretting it already. I can practically hear the whip of Mom’s head in my direction, along with the pitter-patter of her grandmotherly instincts firing to life. Given that the last girl to meet my mom was my high school girlfriend, I should have known better than to think she might play it cool when I drop a woman’s name in conversation. Not that I’ve been considering the priesthood or anything over the last few years, I just haven’t dated anyone seriously enough for it to matter.
But now, two syllables (Ca-ra) and Mom’s possibly already trying to determine if we should plan a fall or summer wedding. Which isn’t even a question, because when I do find the right girl, there is no way I’m getting married in the fall—that’s prime big-game hunting time, after all. Any woman I marry will have to accept hunting widow status from Labor Day to Christmas. As for the specific woman in question, Cara is about as unlikely a candidate for a hunting widow as exists.
I sigh. “Simmer down. Cara is a reporter out here from Chicago, and she’s writing a story on the ag industry. I’m helping her out with a few introductions so she can interview people, that’s all. So you can stop knitting those baby hats or socks, or whatever, in your head.”
She cocks a hip and sets one hand there, looks at me squarely. “Is she cute?”
I groan. “Mom.”
“Is ‘cute’ not the right word? Pretty? Hot? Maybe smokin’ hot?”
Idiot mouth of mine and those two innocent syllables. I can’t even explain how much I want this conversation to be over.
“Jesus Christ. Stop. There’s no way I’m going to have a conversation with you where I tell you that I think she’s hot.”
“You just did. And don’t say JC’s name unless you’re praying.”
“I am praying. Praying you’ll stop asking me these questions.” I cock my head in the direction of the balcony. “Wait, did you hear that? I think Randy needs my help. Maybe the George Foreman singed his apron. I should go check.”
She cuts me off at the pass when I head for the slider door, narrows her eyes as I try to avoid her unflinching mom stare. Another tilt of her head. Then a raise of her brows, and I crack.
“Fine. Yes, she’s hot. Gorgeous. Beautiful. Tall,” I answer, giving in because there’s no other way out of this conversation.
And it’s like I can suddenly hear those baby-bootie-knitting needles clacking away in my mom’s head. Outside, Randy is whistling the theme song from Bonanza. Fucking apropos, really, given the way my pint-sized emotional-gunslinger mom is grinning at me.