All Who Dream (Letting Go) (15 page)

Why is it that when we are in our
most fragile, helpless state as moms, we don’t want help? Does anyone else
experience this phenomenon?

Asking for help has almost become
a foreign concept for me, even when help is offered with the best of
intentions, even if it’s offered to me by my son. I realized while lying on the
bathroom floor that in my desire not to be a burden…that I’m actively training
my child to think it’s better to be self-reliant than to admit weakness.

Though I believe independence is
a necessity in our world today, self-reliance can be crippling. I cringe at the
idea that I have taught him to exhaust every effort BEFORE accepting or asking
for help. For a woman who has benefited so much from the concept of community
and pushed it like a bad habit on this blog dozens of times, I fear that I have
missed the boat in this particular life category. A community of friends and
family shouldn’t be limited to
invitation-only
status
. What purpose does that serve in Cody’s life to only have people
around when life is on the up and up?

My tendencies will quickly become
Cody’s tendencies if I don’t change them. If I never allow him to see me
vulnerable, then he might never think vulnerability is okay. I will have done
him a tremendous disservice if that is the case. Life is full of moments that
drop us to our knees unexpectedly. I want him to know how to reach out, to
pray, and to seek help when help is needed.
That
is a type of strong that I missed out on for too many years.

I want better for him.

“Good
morning!”
Pippy
sang as I walked into the reception
room of the KDAK 97.9 radio studio, Cody in tow.

Pippy
handed me a large plastic cup filled with a thick,
green concoction. A straw was poked through the middle—apparently the contents
of the cup were edible.

“This
green smoothie is like magic for a tummy-upset. I got Cody one, too.”
Pippy
pointed to a small table in the corner of the room. My
son looked at me for a rescue plan, but I had nothing.

“That’s
very thoughtful,
Pippy
. Thank you.” I nudged Cody to
say the same. He did so, begrudgingly.

Pippy
smiled, completely unaffected by our less than
enthusiastic response to her thoughtfulness.

I scanned
the room. Everyone was here for our first family group interview—everyone but
Jackson. Biting my bottom lip at this discovery, I worried that our time
together the night before was the cause for his absence.
Had I said too much? Had we gotten too personal? Were my feelings
becoming too obvious?

“Nothing like spinach in the morning.”
Jackson’s voice spoke
softly into my ear. As I spun to face him, relief radiated through me.

“Hmm…you
can have mine if you feel a craving coming on,” I said, careful to make sure
Pippy
was out of earshot.

“Not on your life, sweetheart.”

I’d never
admit what his word choice did to me.
Ever
.

The next
twenty minutes were spent getting briefed on the agenda for the interview by
the station manager. We also heard how our time would be divided up within the
hour-long segment. My part would be relatively small, but exciting nonetheless.
The radio host was a man by the name of Kent Brown. He was an older gentleman
with a round face, large glasses, and a white, wiry beard.

Jackson
seemed unusually pleasant this morning. Was the chipper mood due to the fact
that we were not sitting in front of Brian—the
nice
radio DJ? That thought reminded
me,
I
needed to tell
Pippy
to use more discretion with
giving out my phone number. Brian might be cute, but I wasn’t looking to date,
or at least, I wasn’t looking to date Brian.

The
interview began with Mr. Brown speaking to the
Zimmermans
.
I enjoyed hearing the
couple speak
about marriage.
They seemed so down-to-earth, yet their relationship appeared extraordinary.
They spoke on the importance of
tone
.
“Our tone is far more important than the words we speak…it is the indicator of
what’s in our heart,” Tom Zimmerman said.

I turned
my head just in time to see Jackson leaning over Cody, showing him something on
his IPAD. The compartmentalization of my heart was slowly melding into one big
pile of mush. I took another deep breath and tried to regain focus on the
interviewer.

The
questions that were asked of me this morning were of a new variation, mostly
about how I balanced my time between work, social engagements (ha!), and Cody.
All of the questions were on the “approved” list that Dee had gone over with me
before I left for New York. I appreciated the way she navigated my request and
honored my boundaries.

It was
hard to believe that Briggs and Charlie would be here in just shy of a week to
take Cody back to Dallas. Each day that passed now was like the silent tick of
a bomb. Though I was confident in my brother’s ability to care for my son, I’d
never been apart from Cody for longer than a day. This time, we would be separated
for two entire weeks. My stomach rolled in nervous apprehension. As I peeked
back over my shoulder, I made eye contact with Jackson. The uneasiness quickly
faded into something else entirely.

My time
in New York has felt a bit like my own summer camp.

I could
remember with stark clarity the day my dad dropped Briggs and I off at Camp
Kingston in Boulder during the summer of my eighth grade year. I’d stood on the
steps of the registration building, bags in hand, thinking that my life was
over.
Seven days with no friends?
I
knew no one except for my brother, but unfortunately
his
friends had also decided to attend that summer, so basically I
was on my own if I didn’t want to spend the week hanging out with sweaty boys.
I’d felt so overwhelmed and alone at first, but in mere hours that feeling had
faded. How quickly one could connect to people when eating, sleeping, dressing,
playing and endless chatter were involved. In a single week I had made closer
friendships than I had during the entire previous school year. The experience
was remarkable.

Thinking
back over our last three weeks spent with the Pinkerton Press bunch, I’d had a
similar revelation. We were no longer strangers, or even business
acquaintances. The relationships I’d made so far were ones I hoped to cherish
for a long time to come.
 
I would miss
each of their faces when I left, especially
one
in particular. He was the same one that was currently laughing with my son and
pointing at me through the glass.

My heart
squeezed again.

Sooner or
later I’d have to face the facts: summer camp
always
came to an end.

“I won’t
be at dinner tonight,” Jackson announced as we made our way through the lobby
of the radio station in Brooklyn.

“Oh…okay.”
My surprise was not that he couldn’t make it, but that he’d felt the need to
tell me of his plans, a fact that did not go unnoticed.

“I have a
board meeting. They always go late.” He
sighed,
dropping
his phone back into his suit pocket, ruffling Cody’s hair as he walked passed
us with
Pippy
.

“We’ll be
fine finding something on our own.” I smiled weakly and shrugged a bit, still
stunned that he’d shared his schedule with me so openly. What had he expected
me to say in return?

He smiled
down at me, narrowing his eyes as if dissecting my words in his mind.

“I’d
never doubt your resourcefulness.”

My face
flushed hot, betraying my feelings like a newspaper headline. I reached for my
necklace, weaving the tiny pendant back and forth between my fingers. I stared
down at my feet, swallowing before speaking again.

“Jackson…I
hope you know Cody and I have been grateful for our time with you in the evenings—going
to out to dinners, I mean. But please don’t feel obligated to us. I know you
must have a lot of other clients and work you need to attend to. I realize
we’ve taken up a lot of your time lately.”

Through
my peripheral vision I saw him cross his arms over his chest, a movement that
caused me to look up. His expression reminded me of my first impression of him:
Hollywood renegade on a mission to save the world.

“That
sounded
dangerously
close to an
apology, Miss Flores.” He took a step closer to me, lowering his voice into a
deep, husky rasp. “You haven’t taken anything I haven’t offered. Finding food
in this city might be easy for a man like me, but finding good company to share
it with...not so much.”

I was
locked into his gaze when I felt a tug at my arm, pulling me back into reality
once again.

“Mom…
are
you ready? We’re supposed to meet Peter at the park to
play soccer on his lunch break, remember?”

“Oh…right.”

Jackson
smiled at me as molten lava bubbled-up in my core.

“Don’t
let your mom take any headers. She has an important interview on Friday,”
Jackson told Cody with a broad wink
..

Cody
laughed. “Okay, I won’t.”

“And do
your best to keep the butterfly attacks away from her, too.”

Cody hooted
louder as he ran back out the doors where Walt was standing talking to
Pippy
.

“You’re
so
not
funny,” I said, biting my
cheeks.

“Then
tell yourself to stop smiling.”

My face
broke into a grin. “I wasn’t—I mean—I’m not.”

He shook
his head, a glint of amusement in his eye. Turning to open the lobby door for
me, he whispered in my ear as I slid into the back seat of the town car.
“Don’t ever play poker, Angie.”

“So how was your date with
Caleb?” I leaned back against the shaded park bench, watching Peter kick the
soccer ball to Cody.

Pippy
sighed dreamily. “It was wonderful…he’s wonderful.”

I chuckled at her
dramatics. “So you’re going out again I take it?”

“Yes, this weekend. He’s
actually going to my dad’s birthday party with me on Saturday night. My mom’s
been planning the event for a while—it’s a pretty big deal.” She smiled sweetly
as I remembered that her dad had been sick. I wasn’t sure what the current
status of his health was.
 
Jackson hadn’t
spoken much more about his brother.

“That’s great,
Pippy
.” I bumped her shoulder with mine.

“You deserve to be happy.”

I heard Cody laughing as
Peter dove on the soccer ball to stop it from rolling into a row of blackberry
bushes.

“What about you, Angie?”

“Huh?” I caught
Pippy’s
eyes sparkling in question. “What about me?”

She sighed and shook her
head. “You deserve to be happy, too, Ang.
To find love.”

I squirmed in my seat.
How do I even begin to talk to this innocent
young woman about the precarious thread that held my life together?
We were
as different as night and day when it came to this topic. She was a clean,
starched piece of fabric ready to be stitched; I was a tattered, used remnant.

I watched Cody play, mulling
a response. “I
am
happy—truly. My
life may be more complicated than other twenty-nine year-old women I know, but
I have learned to cherish the happy seasons. Cody is-”

“He’s a great kid, Angie,”
she interrupted. “But even I know that it would be impossible for him to fill
every gap in your heart, or in your life. My dad always says that complications
should be seen as a chance to simplify one’s priorities.”
 

Out of the corner of my
eye I could see her beaming. I took a sip of my ice water, warmth growing in
the pit of my stomach despite the cool beverage.

“When Dee called to tell
us that she’d added a single mom to the tour, you weren’t at all what I
pictured.” She played with the straw of her second green smoothie of the day.

I laughed lightly. “Yes,
I’m sure my laid back mom attire was a bit of a shock compared to the trendy
atmosphere you’re used to around here.” I gestured toward the city.

“No, that’s not it.” She
touched my knee, drawing my attention back to her. “And
I
wasn’t the only one who seemed surprised by you when you
arrived.”

Even without hearing his
name my heart hammered against my chest like a mallet inside a courtroom. Her
smiled grew wide when she saw the shock in my eyes. I shook my head; I couldn’t
talk about Jackson with
Pippy
. Not only was she his
niece, she was his assistant as well.

“
Pippy
,
I don’t think—”

“It’s true. I know my
uncle very well, and he is not easily stunned…but he was that night, the night
he met you outside of your building.”

“You mean the night I
overheard you two arguing about my lack of appropriate wardrobe pieces?”

Pippy
laughed.
” Uh, yes.
I’m sorry about that, but I’ll
never forget the way he looked at you.”

“I think your
twitterpation
over Caleb has twisted the objectivity of
your memories,
Pippy
.”

“No,” she said, scrunching
up her face as if thinking back. “His face was like that of a man who had just
woken up from a long slumber. He’s different with you.”

My heart squeezed in
silent torture.

“Maybe it’s because I
drive him nuts. He seems to get upset with me often,” I countered weakly.

Pippy
smiled again, her eyes twinkling in the sunshine. “Not all people are happy
when they wake up.”