Maria looked at me, exasperated. “I’ve had enough. I’m not a pinche babysitter. You deal with this, I’m leaving.” She stormed off and I ran up the deck to the French doors in the kitchen. By the time I got upstairs, Mom had managed to toss most of Neil’s clothes outside.
She was stalking back to his closet and I grabbed her wrist. “Mom! STOP!”
She yanked her arm free, spun, and crumpled into a sobbing heap on the floor.
I looked around, trying to catch my breath. The room was absolutely destroyed. Like a tornado had hit it.
There was a trail of men’s clothes from the walk-in closet to the sliding glass door. Belts, shoes, ties, suits. A purple wet spot dripped down the wall with a shattered wineglass under it on the hardwood floor.
I looked back at my mother, heaving into her hands. She was in a stained white robe. Her hair was matted in the back like a messy bird’s nest.
My stomach sank.
I hadn’t seen her in weeks. She’d made zero effort to see me and I was so busy with Justin I decided not to care. But now I realized my mistake.
“Mom? What happened?” I said. “Tell me.”
She was hiccupping and gasping. “He’s kicking me out.”
I blinked at her. “What? Why? What did he say?”
“He said it might be better if we take a little break,” she said, putting her fingers in quotes.
“Did you guys have a fight?”
“He accused me of stealing.”
I pulled my face back. “He accused you of stealing?”
“I guess some watches are gone and some cuff links. It’s that maid. I know it. She hates me and they’re always taking things.”
I blew a breath through my nose.
I did not for one second think Maria took something.
“Mom…” I said, carefully. “Did you?” The question was tentative. But I had to ask it.
She glared at me. “What the fuck is that supposed to mean, Emma? You think I took it. Why would I take it?”
“It’s just—”
“Are you kidding me? You know what? If you’re here to talk to me about shit that happened twenty years ago, you can just go. Seriously. Go.”
“Mom… you do take things. I’m sorry, but you have.”
She pressed her lips together. “What the hell does he care? He has more money than he can spend. He can buy more.”
I squeezed my eyes shut. And there it was.
“Why do you always do stuff like this?” I whispered.
“Like what?”
“Ruin things when they’re good.”
Memories pinged off me like little jagged barbs. This exact same situation, over and over when I was a kid. She’d have these eruptions, every time things were happy or we were somewhere stable. It was like she hated the calm and I didn’t know why. Why did she always need this? This chaos?
Her chin started to tremble and the indignant expression dropped off, and she became the sobbing little girl again.
I didn’t know what she was. But she was not okay.
I put a hand to my forehead and looked despondently around the room at the evidence of her decline. Empty wine bottles and glasses, garbage on the dresser, burned-out candles on the nightstand. There was no way Neil was sleeping in here. If I had to guess, he was sleeping in a guest room when he was home and he had been for a while. He’d never said a word of it to me at work. He was just trying to deal with it.
Guilt overcame me.
I hadn’t been here. If I had, I would have seen she was struggling again. I could have gotten ahead of it. I could have saved him the grief.
“Mom, what time does Neil get home?” I asked.
“Who knows,” she sniffed. “He can tell me ten and it ends up being two,” she said, wiping her cheek with her sleeve. “He wants me committed, did you know that? He told me he’d pay for an inpatient program. It’s either that or I leave. He thinks I need help.”
“And you said no? You do need help!”
“I’m not crazy, Emma!”
“Well you’re not okay either!” I snapped. “Look at this! Look what you did! We need to clean this up. You know that, right? We can’t let him walk into this.”
“Fuck him.”
