A Reason To Stay (7 page)

Her mother rolled her eyes and repositioned her legs. No one was going to change Melanie’s plans for dinner. Elise just wished it was already done. She felt her insides fighting over the last peanut that remained from the airplane ride.

Aunt Hildie began packing up, gathering a deck of cards from the table and putting her books in a pile. There was a large bag on the floor that she would be soon shoving them all into. She had to leave before dusk hit the back roads that she needed to travel to get home. “I’m sure I’ll see you again, Elise. I’ll be back tomorrow, and I’m making tuna salad.”

Elise’s stomach kicked her, letting her know how much she hated tuna. “Okay, Aunt Hildie. Although I do think I’m going to go downtown for some sightseeing. Maybe just make enough for you and Mom.”

She shook her head, pursing her lips. “Okay, Lyla, I’ll see you tomorrow.” She hung the bulging bag on her wrist and walked toward the door. “I’ll bring extra just in case.”

“Thanks, sissy.” Her mother smiled and blew a kiss just as Hildie turned back around. Who was this woman? A public display of affection? Even if it was an airborne kiss.

Elise shut the front door and then quietly strolled to the kitchen to check on Melanie and grab whatever morsel she may have dropped on the counter. She pinched her gently on the side. “I thought you said Aunt Hildie was too old to take care of Mom?”

Melanie turned around. “Elise, don’t even. You needed to come home. You haven’t been back in years. Now just be quiet and take your mother her pills and a drink.” She handed Elise two capsules from the container on the bookshelf. “And anyway, you are going to be helping me too.” She slipped it out, kind of like a few extra chips before you close the bag you’ve practically emptied.

“Excuse me?” Elise knew nothing about watching kids. Nothing. She could barely watch them in movies. They made no sense to her at all.

“I have to work tomorrow.” She raised her hand to block whatever Elise was going to say. “It’s only a twelve-hour shift.”

“Twelve-hour shift?! Are you freaking kidding me?” Elise’s eye sockets kept them from leaping out into the open air. “Someone will not be surviving by the time you make it home.” She was growing fatigued from lack of food and exasperated from the thought she’d be left in charge of a hop-along mother and two tiny, energy-charged children.

“Breathe, Elise. They’re good kids. Take them to the park or something.” She patted Elise on the shoulder and stirred the rice into the boiling water.

“And wheel Mom around to the monkey bars, too?” She hyperventilated just imagining the scene in her overactive mind.

“Aunt Hildie is going to spend the day with Mom. You just have to make sure she gets her pills and has dinner. I’ll be home to put her to bed.”

Elise buried her head in her elbow. It was too much to think about on jet lag and low blood sugar. Not only did she have to deal with the dynamics of being home, but also the flippin’ mess she left back in California. Spilling out words like ‘I love you’ all over the place at that damn airport. And no, she was not going to check her phone. She couldn’t deal with that tonight, too. The fact that Darren couldn’t pop over made her feel as secure as her mother looked, wrapped up in her chair as she approached her with medicine.

Dinner was finally served. Melanie set her mother up with a tray and the rest of them ate at the dinner table. Mason spread his rice expertly to the four corners of his plate and managed to “accidentally” knock a few pieces of chicken on the floor. Faith boycotted her fork and ate like a monster that had just received its daily rations of meat.

Elise gobbled hers and filled up before her stomach could alert her that it had had enough. In a few minutes it would feel like she was going to give birth to the couple of chickens she just inhaled. “That was really good, Melanie.”

Melanie finished her last bite and began stacking the dishes and clearing the table. She was rather an expert at the regime of eat, sort, and sanitize. All in under the fifteen or so minutes it took for it to happen, too. “You sound surprised.”

Elise grabbed the cups and silverware. “No, it’s just that you didn’t cook very much before.”

“Well, when you get married and have kids, you really have no other choice.”

“I wouldn’t know,” Elise said under her breath.

She took the dirty items to the kitchen sink and began rinsing the food off them. She didn’t want to invite that conversation with her sister. The stickiness of it all made her queasy. She now remembered the number one reason she never made trips back home.

“What are you going to do when you see him?” Melanie laid the dishes down next to Elise. The kids began running around them, chasing one another with their cups of juice.

It wasn’t easy to concentrate with the chaos swirling in the room. Elise wasn’t ready for ‘Ben talk.’ Melanie took the cups and escorted the kids to the living room to color. She brought back their mother’s dirty plate and turned the water on.

“Did you hear me, or are you selectively ignoring me?” She talked to the backsplash behind the sink, not looking directly at Elise.

“I heard you, Melanie. I’m hoping I don’t see him. I’m hoping I can do the impossible and avoid him for the next eight days. I’ve made it through today without seeing him.”

Melanie shook her head continuing to eradicate the stuck-on rice from the dishes. “Good luck with that. You were on a plane for most of it.”

Elise moseyed out of the kitchen in search of her niece and nephew. The innocence they provided was just what she needed. Living life in the present. Not the variables that came with her visit home or what she left behind. She sat on the floor with her legs under the coffee table and began coloring a page with three ponies drinking from a stream. No wonder people facing mental breakdowns enjoyed painting. There was something therapeutic about it. The kids were fascinated with the notion a grown-up would sit among them. They giggled and pointed to the picture, telling her which colors to use. Faith handed her green to color the smallest pony.

Her mother stared at her from her perch through her round, clear glasses. Regret seemed to rest in the lines of her forehead. “Elise, how are things in California?”

“They’re fine, Mom. I’m doing great.” Elise didn’t look up from the largest horse she was coloring peony pink, just for Faith.

“Is there anyone special in your life?” She shifted on her chair, wincing from the discomfort her foot was giving her.

Special? Weren’t all guys the root of all evil to her mother? Was this a trick question? “There is someone I date pretty regularly.”

“Hmm...What’s his name? What’s he do?” A tiny flicker of stimulation danced on her cheeks.

The kids began getting possessive over Elise’s attention, grabbing her by the cheeks to talk to them and explain what the ponies were talking about; why were they at the stream; were they going to get bit by a snake? She politely took their hands from her face and smiled at both of them.

“His name is Darren. He’s a doctor.” She didn’t want to put too much weight into details about him. It was important to not seem too happy about him. About anything, for that point. Wasn’t she still serving her life sentence of solitary confinement, with all the amenities of misery? For something that happened when she was in elementary school.

“A doctor? Interesting.” She put down her magazine and rubbed her lips with her stiffened fingers.

Melanie came in with a fresh bottle of water and one more pill for her mother. She pulled the blanket back and inspected her foot. Elise peeked over Mason’s head. Her mom’s foot was completely bandaged except for the tips of her toes, which looked like the plum purple in the crayon box.

“Mom, take these and then I’ll get you to bed. I have to go home and get to sleep. I work from seven to seven tomorrow.”

“Good Lord, Melanie, you work too hard.” She took the pill and swallowed it down.

Melanie helped lift her mother from the sofa and got her stable on her feet. Her sister held on to her mother’s arm and walked her slowly back to the guest bedroom. Lyla maneuvered cautiously on her crutches, her hands barely able to curve around their handles.

Melanie didn’t take long putting her to bed. Elise had just finished cleaning up the table where she’d been coloring with the kids. She had to search for some of the tops to the markers. Thank goodness she read on the label they were washable. In the time she grew up there, she and Melanie weren’t even allowed to eat in the living room, let alone use markers in it with the names of Permanent Magenta and Van Dyke Brown. Not in Lyla Newton’s formal sitting room, you didn’t. Half the time, actually more than half, they weren’t even allowed to sit on the furniture. It was only for guests. If you wanted to sit down, you went to the kitchen table or to your bedroom.

“Will she need help in the middle of the night, or something?” Elise asked, suddenly concerned for her mother.

“She never gets up. And I’ll be back before work to get her situated before Aunt Hildie gets here.” She began packing up the kids, putting their books and colors in a large tote.

“Am I staying here, then?”

“No, I need you at my house. I’m leaving before the kids wake up. You’re going to have to drive Mom’s car to my house and I’ll leave you mine tomorrow to watch the kids.”

The responsibility of everything Melanie had just said bombarded her like a cannonball to the chest. “So, you’re going to really leave me with your kids?”

Melanie jerked her head back, laughing hysterically. “You’ll be fine, Elise. It’s not like they aren’t potty trained.”

“Faith poops her pants,” Mason shouted.

Horrified, Elise zeroed her gaze on her sister. 

“He’s lying, Elise. Faith poops in the potty. You just have to take her when she tells you...and sometimes wipe her.”

“I thought I came to watch Mom. You know, the woman who
does
poop in the potty and wipe herself.” Elise took Mason’s hand and grabbed her pocketbook on the way out.

“You’ll be fine. If it gets too bad, just call their father. He’s free this weekend.”

“No, thank you.” Elise felt her teeth grit. “Why doesn’t he watch them in the first place?”

“It’s not his weekend, and anyway, I think he’s got plans.”

Elise waited for Melanie’s entourage to get in the vehicle and get seat-belted before she got into their mother’s car. She pulled out slowly and followed Melanie. The steering was tight and the faint scent of newness told her that Lyla Newton probably didn’t get out much.

The trip wasn’t long. Melanie didn’t live far from their mother. Close enough to be there quickly if she needed anything. Elise took her phone from her pocket when she felt the vibration. It was Darren. Her heart stopped mid-beat, and her mouth became the Mojave Desert as the saliva dried up from the convulsions in her body. Her lip became stuck to her top row of teeth. On reflex, she swiped the phone left to right.

“Hello.”

“Hey, I’ve left you a couple messages. Did you get there all right?” His voice sounded like another lifetime away.

“I’m fine. I’m following Melanie home in Mom’s car. I have babysitting duty tomorrow.” She wiggled her lips to produce some moisture.

“How is your mother?”

All right, maybe she
hadn’t
blurted out the three-worded devil in her fit of leaving the state of California and the arms of the man she might’ve been harboring feelings for.

“She’s fine. But it seems that I’ll be babysitting Melanie’s kids.” Emphasis on kids, not adult mother.

He was quiet for a second. Elise checked to see if the call dropped. “Do you know how to keep babies?”

She laughed as she swung the car into the driveway behind Melanie. A nervous laugh. The kind where you don’t admit to the cashier that the last three items didn’t ring on the register. Is this really what she wanted to be saying, right now? What about what she’d said to him? She needed to know it was buried six feet deep and not a chance anyone would ever find it again.

“They are four and six. I think I’ll be all right. I’m just a little thrown by the new duties of my visit. I mean, I could have sent her money for daycare if that’s all she needed.”

“You’ll be fine. You’ll find something to do with them. I miss you.” His tone was cautious. His words were cautious. Perhaps she was paranoid. Was this considered throwing dirt on the grave of her three indelicate words? Worked for her.

“Miss you, too. I have to go, babe. I’m here and I have to carry in my suitcases. I’ll call later.” Words rushed out of her like a runaway teenager. Urgency to end this unusually meek telephone call was pounding in her ears like a fire alarm.

“I love you.” With a thud, his words landed in the receiver of her phone. Grave-digging came to an abrupt stop.

In the cross hairs of his well-played words, she froze momentarily. “I know you do. Sleep well.”

Elise closed the phone and turned off the car. The center lights by the rearview mirror turned on automatically, forcing her to see her reflection.

It wasn’t long before her sister banged on the car window and snapped her out of whatever had her trapped. “Let’s get your bags into the house. The kids are becoming whiny from the broken schedule of their day.”