and conversations my mother and Eric had shared, jealous of both of them. I’d been cheated out of so many things.
“Do you want some coffee?” my mother asked.
“Don’t you still have some?” I asked, picking up the travel mug.
“Nope,” she said. “Time for a refill. And a donut.”
“Okay, where to next?” I asked.
“Dry cleaners.”
17 Carson
My mother waited until I had taken a large bite of my maple bar before attacking me. “Were you serious about thinking that Bob kicked you out? And for being gay?”
“I was,” I said around a mouthful of sugar.
She took her eyes off the road long enough to give me an incredulous look. “That isn’t what happened at all.”
“Isn't it? Are you a hundred percent sure? The way I remember it, Bob walked in on me and Eric making out and freaked out. He told me to my face I wasn't welcome in his house anymore because I was corrupting his son. He was pissed, mom. The only reason he didn’t call me a fag was because it was obvious Eric was a very willing participant and if I was a fag, then Eric was, too.”
Mom swallowed hard. “I admit, Bob did not handle that part well. And obviously, he’s changed since then. He has no problem with Eric being gay.”
I snorted. “Sure. Let’s see how that works out with Eric living in the same town. I bet Bob is the kind of guy who is fine with people being theoretically gay as long as they don’t have to flaunt it. Did he let Eric and Ryan share a room when they visited?”
“Don’t be ridiculous. They got a hotel.”
“Way to avoid the question,” I said. “And that doesn’t change what he did. And you…” Goddamn it. I blinked away the tears that had hijacked me.
“I what?” my mother asked after a few seconds, her attention shifting from the road ahead of her to me.
“You didn’t stick up for me, Mom.” My voice was thick. I cleared my throat, trying for some of that Carson Grieves detachment. It was nowhere to be found. “You took his side. How do you think that made me feel?”
The car lurched to the right as my mother changed lanes abruptly and pulled into the parking lot of a strip mall. She slammed on the brakes, and I caught myself with a hand on the dashboard. Throwing the car into park, she turned to face me. Her eyes with bright with tears but her voice was strong and angry. “Do you have any idea how hard things were for me back then? Any comprehension at all?”
“I mean, I know things were kind of stressful.”
She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, a mannerism I remembered from childhood that meant she was searching for some inner strength to keep from yelling. From what little I’d heard about her parents, they were more liking to hit their kids than talk to them. Mom had never wanted to be that. She did it again, and then opened her eyes and gave a shaky laugh.
“Kind of stressful.” She shook her head. “I’m going to cut you a little slack because you were a kid back then, but you are a grown-ass man now. Put yourself in my shoes. How old was I when you left?” She didn’t wait for me to answer. “Forty-one. Bitty didn’t even make it to forty. We were robbed of decades together. Decades. Bitty was the only one who had been there for me for almost my whole life. I was devastated when she died.”
“So was I,” I said, maybe a bit too accusingly.
“Not the same thing,” she said immediately. “Imagine if Eric died in ten years.”
I shook my head. I couldn’t imagine it. I didn’t want to.
“Now imagine how much worse it would feel if you hadn’t spent all these years apart?”
I stared at the stores standing on the stretch of blacktop. Chinese food. A dollar store. A liquor store. “I’m not sure if that would be worse, or better. Either way, it would suck.”
“You don’t know the half of it,” she said. “Everything I went through, with my parents, with your father, Bitty was there for. I don’t even want to think where I would be without her. But I didn’t have time to grieve. All of a sudden, I had three grieving children to take care of. Sammy couldn’t even grasp what had happened. He asked every night for months when she was coming back from the hospital.