“I know it’s not easy, but—”
“I don’t even like my mother,” she says. “I mean, I love her, but she’s never been the kind of person that I could really share anything with. Every fucking thing I did was never good enough, and even now, laying in that stupid hospital bed, she’s still telling me that I should sell the store and go back to working as a waitress—something about how it’s more suited to my capabilities. Even with all that, she’s still my mom and I still love her. I don’t know that I can get through this unless I have some detachment, so come here,” she says, unbuttoning another button, “hop on.”
Hop on?
“Jessica, I don’t know what our relationship is and I don’t know where it’s going, but I do know that we’re never going to be on a solid footing unless we can start talking to each other about things.”
“I’ll tell you what,” she says. “There’s something from you that I want and there’s something from me that you want. I’d be willing to give you yours if you’ll give me mine.”
“What do you mean?” I ask.
“We do things my way for a while,” she says, “and when we’re done with that, I’ll answer any question that you have.”
“Just one question?” I ask.
“That wasn’t it, was it?” she returns.
“No,” I tell her. “But I think I’m looking for a little bit more than that.”
“I don’t think I’m there,” she says. “Maybe if things wouldn’t have happened with my mom the way they have, it might be different, but we are what we are and the facts are the facts.”
“I don’t think it would be any different,” I tell her.
“What do you mean?” she asks impatiently, sitting on my couch, the front of her blouse coming open.
“I mean that you’ve got this need to control everything, even to the point of self-destruction,” I tell her. “Right now, you’re trying to control the chaos in your life by turning it into a giant distraction that’s going to end up solving nothing, only making you resent me for going along with it, and I’m not going to stand for that.”
“Oh, you’re not going to stand for it?” she asks. “That’s some pretty tough talk.”
“I’d rather have no relationship with you than a relationship where you just use me until you get sick of me or start resenting me or both,” I tell her.
“Use you?” she laughs. “You think I’m using you?”
“Yeah,” I answer. “I think it’s pretty clear that you are. We don’t talk for days and then when you show up on my doorstep, quite literally, you expect me to just fold and do what you want me to do, regardless of how I think it’s going to only end up hurting both of us.”
“You didn’t seem so principled the other night,” she says.
“Yeah, well the other night, I thought you were just trying to get through a tough moment. I didn’t know that you were planning on turning it into a means of evading the harder facts of your life permanently,” I respond.
“Sweetie,” she says, “you’re good, but I’d hardly say you’ve got the stamina to help me ‘evade the harder facts of my life permanently.’”
“You know exactly what I mean,” I tell her. “Now, I would love to sit down and talk and to be here for you, or if you don’t want to talk, I’d be happy to just sit here and hold you or just sit here and do nothing at all, but I’m not just going to let you turn you and I into an escape from reality.”
“And why not?” she yells. “You know what it’s like, having a parent with cancer! Your mom died; do you really think life would have been easier if you sat down and talked endlessly about something that you couldn’t control?”
“No,” I tell her. “I don’t think anything would have really helped me at that moment. I don’t think that anything’s going to make it all better for you right now, either. The situation here is terrible and nothing’s going to change that. All that we can do, all that anybody could do, would be to do our best to get through it.”
“That’s what I’m doing,” she says, her voice filled with anger. “I’m just trying to get through it.”
“Then quit running away from it,” I tell her. “Listen, you don’t have to talk to me about it if you don’t want to, but I have a feeling you’re not talking to anyone about it.”
“That’s not true,” she says. “I talk to my sister about it all the time. It’s all we ever talk about anymore. It’s the same with my dad. It’s the same with my mom. I’d just love to have one part of my life that wasn’t about that, but I can’t even stay at work long enough to get anything done. Every day since Mom went in for surgery, Cheryl’s ended up taking the store because I don’t know how to even be there right now.”
“How’s she working out?” I ask.
Jessica looks up at me with equal parts confusion and irritation. “She’s doing fine. That’s not my point. The point is that I would like to have just one fucking person that I didn’t have to talk to about what’s going on with my mom—someone I can just have fun with without having to worry about every horrible thing that’s happening in my life right now.”
“Okay,” I sigh. “We don’t have to talk about that if you don’t want to, but I want you to know that I’m here if you change your mind.”
“Does that mean you’ve changed your mind?” she asks. “I’m pretty pissed, but I have heard some good things about angry sex.”
I smile.
She smiles.
“It’s not that I don’t want to be with you that way,” I tell her. “I just don’t want to be part of the problem. I’d much rather be part of the solution.”
“See, that’s where you lose me,” she says. “You tell me that we don’t have to talk about what’s going on with my mom or at the store or whatever, but then you tell me that we can’t have sex because it’s going to somehow make things worse.”
“I don’t think it’s the sex itself, but everything that comes with it. Sex is an emotional thing, especially when you’re going through an emotional time. I just don’t want you forever equating being with me with everything else that’s going on,” I answer.
“I won’t,” she says. “Look, I’m not even in the mood anymore, anyway, but can we just sit here and not talk about anything?”
“Sure,” I tell her. “Can I get you something to eat, drink?”
“No,” she answers.
“All right,” I say, “what would you like to do?”
“Nothing,” she says. “I really don’t think there’s anything in the world that’s going to make me happy right now.”
“I know,” I tell her. “Is there anything that might make you at least feel less of what you’re feeling now?”
“Other than sex?” she asks.
“Yeah,” I answer.
“Nothing’s coming to mind,” she says and puts her feet up on the couch.
“All right,” I tell her. “Why don’t we just sit back and watch a movie? I’ll even give you a massage.”
“How romantic,” she says blankly.
“You’d be surprised the difference that comes with the release of tension,” I respond, but when I’ve said the words, a glimmer of my own hypocrisy becomes clear and she picks up on it.
“A release of tension is kind of what I was hoping for in the first place,” she says.
“Why don’t we start with a massage and see where it goes from there?” I ask. “Are you sure I can’t get you anything to drink or eat? I think I have microwave popcorn around here somewhere.”
“I’m fine,” she says. “Would you mind if I take off my shirt? You know, for the massage.”
At this point, I’m not entirely sure whether standing my ground is going to be a helpful or a harmful tactic. Denying her what she came here for seems like a good idea in theory, but I can’t help thinking back to what it was like when my mom got sick.
I would have done just about anything to try to get away with what was going on, and I did do just about everything.
I was nineteen when it happened, when she was diagnosed anyway. After that, everything just happened so fast.
She was diagnosed. She was in the hospital. She was gone. I know there was a lot more to it than that, but it’s the way that I remember it. There was no time to adjust, to make peace with the fact that she was sick, only after she died.