Janie

The news at Red Hall is not good. Gloria’s bullshit little stunt is, somehow, so much worse than I could have imagined it would be. “Tim,” I say into my phone, desperate to not sound as desperate as I am, “come on. We’ve known each other for six years. You know I want to do this for you, and you know I can make it amazing.”

Tim sighs, and I can already tell I’ve lost. “You know I wish I could, Janie,” he says finally, “but it’s not just my day, you know? And as much as I hate this part of it… well…”

“You don’t want the bad press after the incident with Martin,” I finish for him. “I’m going to strangle that little — ”

“I won’t tell the press that’s how you feel,” Tim laughs. It’s short- lived. “Look, I’ll make it up to you some other way. Once all this wedding buzz is over and we can get back to living a normal life, Jenna and I will come by for a visit. I’ll even have Penny leak our plans to the paparazzi.”

“You don’t have to do that,” I say. Tim hates the paparazzi, and while I don’t know Jenna very well, I suspect she also does. Most celebrities do. “I mean, you do have to come by, but you don’t have to alert the vultures.”

“It’s fine,” Tim sighs. “They’ll probably find us anyway. They can get some pics of us being friendly. Look… I’m really sorry about changing the venue.”

“I’ll be fine, Tim.” I am not sure of that, but it pays to be optimistic. Most of the time. “Go get married; you two have fun. Just promise me you won’t have your reception at Ferry Lights. I couldn’t handle it.”

“You have my solemn oath,” Time swears. “I’m not setting foot in that shit hole. Love you, girl.”

“Love you, too. Jerk.”

Tim pauses, and I can hear him holding his breath.

“I’m kidding,” I assure him. “Good bye.”

We hang up, and I’m alone in the office long enough to have a mini break down. Just five seconds of abject panic, just to get it out of my system.

Gloria.

I want to string that woman up over the doors as a warning to anyone else who thinks they know better how to manage my PR profile better than I do.

Five seconds are up. Pity party over. Blow out the candles, put away the hats. Back to business, girl.

Mama should be up about now, and I’m certain that if anyone is there with her, they’re probably tired of it. The dinner service has started out slow but steady, and given the sharp decline in business recently I don’t expect I’ll be needed. So I find Chester, who barely has any work to do with his second bartender taking most of the drink orders.

“I need to go check up on my mom,” I tell him as he gives me that sympathetic smile of his. He knows how stressed I am. Chester’s good like that. It’s too bad he’s gay, because that’s a man I would snap up in a second. “Will you just generally keep an eye on things? And especially Gloria? Just like… tranq her if she looks like she’s about to talk to someone.”

He chuckles, and rolls his eyes at me. “Will do, boss lady.” We’ve had the conversation before — unprofessional, I know, but Chester is great for venting — about possibly firing Gloria. He knows all the reasons I can’t. Gloria doesn’t know that if Mama were to die, she’d be out of a job. I try not to think like that, but I just need any little excuse.

“Thanks,” I tell Chester, and we exchange Parisian-style faux cheek kisses before I hightail it out of there and to my car.

After repeatedly texting my stepfather and my brothers to no avail, I arrive at the hospital to find that, in fact, Mama is there alone. She has been since I left her with George this morning.

“It’s okay,” she tells me. “George has work, you know and… I know the boys are busy. You didn’t have to come.”

I sit down in the chair near her bed, and hold her hands tightly in both of mine. She returns the squeeze; she doesn’t mean it when she says I didn’t have to come, and she doesn’t mean it when she pretends not to be hurt that she’s here alone.

We’re quiet for a moment, and Mama gets a certain look in her eyes — a kind of feigned casualness that always precedes the same question. “Have you… have you heard from him?” she asks.

Of course, by “him” she means my father, her ex-husband. All these years later and she’s still in love with him. She’d never admit that, of course. It seems so strange to me that she would, like she never drew the connection between his leaving and her neuroses getting markedly exaggerated almost overnight. Before he left, they were manageable. Stressful on Dad, I know, and a big reason why he left but… if he’d known how bad it would get, then who knows? Maybe he wouldn’t have.

“He… hasn’t called, Mama. But I could call him, if you want.”

There’s an instinct to lie to her, tell her he asked about her. But the fact is, my relationship with my father is really just beginning, and we haven’t yet broached the subject. I’m pretty sure he doesn’t want to, and there’s a part of me that’s worried that if I bring it up, he might withdraw. Run off, again.

Abandonment issues; I have them. I’m aware, and I have the reports of several therapists to back me up. But I don’t have the time or the energy to spare to steamroll my way into Dad’s life and get the answers that might resolve some of that. I will, one day. Maybe.

Mama nods slowly, and swallows back something that might have been an impending crying fit. Funny how weak she can be when her own brain turns against her. When it comes to Dad, she can put on a strong face like no one’s business. Maybe we only have so much... maybe that’s where she spends all of her strength and resolve.

“I ran him off, you know,” Mama sighs, waving at her prone form under the hospital blanket and at the room around us. “With all this. With my… nervousness. I’m sorry he wasn’t around for you, Janie. Sorry that I made him leave.”

“Don’t say that, Mama,” I chide her. “I never felt that way. We’re all responsible for our own decisions.”

Mama isn’t buying it, I can tell. She’d much rather heap the responsibility on herself than admit it had nothing to do with her. Even if her attacks had anything to do with it, it wasn’t her fault and I really believe that. I want to be connected to Dad, but I’m not naive about him — he left because it was too much for him, and it was too much because he wasn’t the man he should have been. Parents are human too, weak and fallible like the rest of us.

“Get some rest, Mama,” I tell her as her eyes droop closed anyway. “It’s his loss. It always has been.”

She probably doesn’t hear that part. Her eyes close, and she’s sleeping peacefully from the sedatives in her system.

I lean back in the hospital room chair and watch her sleep, wishing I could make it all better.