“Yes, Honey. I know. But it’s still so hard. I never realized how bad things had gotten until that moment. How far gone he was. I screwed up so badly.”
Now she was sobbing almost uncontrollably, so I simply held her for as long as she needed. When I tried to soothe her by stroking her hair, her sobbing intensified instead, and she clung to me like I was some kind of life boat in the middle of the ocean. Only then did I finally grasp just how badly this encounter with Logan had affected her. For me, it wasn’t nearly as surprising. And I had written him off long ago. For Mom, it was all relatively new.
“It’s not all on you, Mom. But at least you are trying to fix it.” I tried, but it did not have the desired effect.
“But it’s so bad, Honey. What if I’ll never get through to him?” she asked, clear anguish in her voice. So, I tried a different angle.
“Mom, look at us right now. Remember how fucked up our relationship was just half a year ago? I was done with this family, and convinced there was no happy end for us. We still got ways to go, but you did manage to prove me wrong by constantly showing me that you do care So ... if you managed to hold onto me, who was dead set on leaving to never hear from any of you again, I don’t see why you couldn’t get the same result from Logan.”
Her initial response wasn’t verbal. Instead, she simply pushed her arms around my torso to pull herself back into me. I was a little unnerved when I heard her take a deep breath while her face was still buried in my chest, and felt her arms squeeze me. This wasn’t her taking a steadying breath. This seemed like she wanted to take in my scent. It got a little more unnerving when she spoke.
“Thank you, Darling.” she said, her face still buried in my chest. That was the first time I heard her call me that. Until that moment, Ava was ‘Sweetheart’, I was ‘Honey’, and ‘Darling’ was reserved for Aaron. Her husband. “But I don’t think your situation is comparable to your brother’s.”
“Why?”
“Because what you wanted was a family that cared for you as much as you cared for them. Even then, it only worked because you gave us the opportunity to work on it. Logan...” she sighed. “Logan wants something else. And it doesn’t seem like he’s willing to accept anything else.”
“So ... you gonna give up?” I asked, more in a teasing manner than as an accusation.
“No!” she said firmly after tilting her head back and finally looking at me. “My decision still stands. I screwed up, so I have to fix it. But I’m glad I have you and Ava supporting me. Especially with the divorce still going on.”
Not sure how to respond to that myself, I chose to simply hug her tightly, hoping it would be enough encouragement for her. Of course I was planning on supporting her. Everything I did so far was in the hopes of them taking the chance and working on our problems. However, I felt like this conversation had taken on a rather emotional tone, and I was worried she would use the L-word again, about which I was still unsure how to respond. And if I refused to say it in this kind of situation, it would only discourage her.
Thankfully, Mom chose to rest her head on my upper arm, closed her eyes, and soon I heard her slow and deep breathing telling me that she had fallen asleep. Knowing that me moving would only wake her up, I soon followed suit. Though, the real shift in our relationship started the next day.
Ava, again, chose to help me with the condo renovations after I got back from work. We painted Maggie’s room in a faint baby blue, that I found equally horrendous to the faint mint green Ava chose for her own room. Then we also managed to finish painting the third room in a barely noticeable beige that made me wonder why we even bothered to paint at all.
Pleased with our progress, we arrived home to yet another surprise from Mom.
She was standing in the middle of the living room, fully dressed and made up like she had always done for work, her hands folded in front of her body.
“Hi!” she said with a smile, before her face and tone changed to show determination. “Tim, Darling, I need to speak with you.”
“What happened?” I asked, in a tone that maybe was a little too stern.
“Nothing bad! I just ... I have to ask you for a favor.” she said, while silently asking me to sit on the couch with a gesture of her hand.
As I sat, I noticed that she had moved the armchair so it stood directly opposing the couch. When she sat in it, dressed the way she was, it felt like I was called into HR. Not entirely sure what to expect or how to react to this situation, I waited for her to start. She took a deep breath as if to steel herself, and began her sale’s pitch.
“Darling, I need to ask you for some money.” she declared, then looked at me with her lips pressed tightly together, apparently in anticipation of my refusal.
I immediately had my suspicions and threw a look at Ava, who raised her hands in defeat while shaking her head, informing me that she did not tell Mom about the cash in my bedroom.
“Okay. This looks like you put a little too much effort in to just ask for twenty bucks for gas money. So ... how much do you need?” I asked.
“You know how I’m still looking for a job.” she rushed to continue, completely ignoring my question, and reached down to pull a stack of papers from underneath the coffee table. “I am looking, but it seems I’m ... not what they’re looking for.”
She finished that sentence with a mixture of regret and embarrassment as she handed me the stack of paper. As I inspected them while trying to contain my confusion, I realized that the first page was a list of potential openings for law office clerks, the job she had performed in the past. The rest of the stack were rejection letters. As far as I could tell, she had sent an application to each and every job offering she could find, and got rejected every time.
My brows furrowed as I skim-read some of those rejection letters. I would’ve expected a certain level of professionalism from law firms, but some of them made no secret of the fact that the only reason Mom got rejected was her age. At forty, she was somehow too old for them to do their filings. At least that explained the embarrassment that had found its way into Mom’s voice.
“Then, what do you need money for?” I asked, still not picking up on what she was trying to achieve.
Before she answered, she pulled another stack of papers from underneath the table and handed it to me as well. This time, it started with a printed sheet listing job offerings for legal assistants. This list was a lot longer than the one for office clerks. The rest of the stack was a bunch of information from HCC regarding their workforce certification programs. Now her question made sense.
“Alright. So, how much do you need?” I asked again, causing her to tense up and regard me with a tentative look.
“Thirteen hundred dollars for the first semester.” she finally said barely loud enough for me to hear, and with her eyes locked onto the table between us. Then she looked up at me and continued with hurried words. “I know how hard you’re working to keep food in the fridge, so I wouldn’t ask if I wasn’t convinced that it would help! It’s only two semesters in total, and you can see how much more job opportunities it would get me. I saved as much as I could from the money you already gave me, but I just don’t have enough. And I promise...”
As she continued her rapid-fire delivery of arguments for why this would be beneficial for us, I felt a little smile spread on my face. If she was this reluctant to ask for that amount of money, and had put in so much effort to sell this idea to me, I could be sure that nobody had told her about the money. Or the holding I was now partnered in with her brother. It also told me that she was still trying to set a positive example, instead of being content with using my money.