My doorbell chimes, and I lift my gaze. Through the door’s three rectangular, diagonal glass insets, I see my mom on my front porch.
Frowning, I save my month-end bank reconciliations and set my laptop aside. Pushing up off the couch, I cross the living room and swing the door open. “Mom… what are you doing here?”
“I had to come talk to you,” she says, brushing by me.
I sigh with a bit of frustration. She texted this morning, wanting to get together for lunch, but I have too much to do. I’m heading in to work early tonight to train a new bartender.
“I’m really busy,” I say, a reminder that I don’t have a lot of time, but also a slight brush-off because I’m not sure I want to hear what she has to say. She’s been barraging me with texts every day about her “situation,” and it’s stressing me out because I don’t have answers for her.
“I won’t stay long,” she says as she shrugs her purse off her shoulder and removes her coat.
I move back to the couch and motion for my mom to take a seat. She does, looking around my house with interest. She’s only been here a few times since we’ve “reconnected.” Her eyes land on the coffee table, locking onto my leather-bound diary. It’s open but facedown as I’d been doing some journaling this morning while I sipped my coffee. That was not long after Hendrix called, pulling me out of a deep sleep. It was such a sweet conversation, although very short. Just wishing me a good day, but rather than falling back asleep, I got up and wrote about him.
I’ve kept a diary since I was ten years old. It was a way for me to purge all my bad feelings at first, particularly about the woman sitting next to me. Over the years, it became a way to memorialize events, random thoughts, dreams, and goals.
This morning it was about the new man in my life.
My mom reaches out for it. “What’s this?”
I lunge and snatch it up. “It’s my private journal.”
“Oh,” she murmurs as I close it, securing it with the leather string. If she ever saw my older diaries and the entries I wrote about her when I was ten, she’d be horrified by the feelings I put to paper.
I lean to my left and place the journal on my side table.
“So, what’s up?” I ask, and then silently pray she has somehow miraculously found her way out of trouble and that’s why she’s here—to report the good news.
“I wanted to let you know Randy has bought us some time.”
“What does that mean?”
“He gave them some bullshit story that we had to slow down the time frame between purchases and returns and had to extend our territory to decrease suspicion. They weren’t happy about it at all, but they did give Randy more bills to clean, so I guess they trust what he’s saying.”
I don’t really know what that means, and I don’t want to. “That’s good, right?”
“No,” she snaps in exasperation. “I feel like someone’s going to jump out at any moment to hurt me. It’s an awful feeling not knowing when they’re going to demand their money. But Randy said we have thirty days, so I’m just going to have to trust that.”
I don’t like Randy. The one time I met him he seemed like a weasel, and now he’s got my mom messed up in this shit.
“I think we’re safe, though. They’ve given us more dirty money to put in circulation, so that means they still trust us, right?”
“Mom,” I say, reaching out to grab her hand. “You cannot continue to do this. If you get caught, you’re going to prison.”
“It’s fine,” she assures me, giving my hand a squeeze. “I’m just returning stuff Randy buys. I’ll play dumb if he gets caught and he’ll cover for me.”
“He’ll let you burn,” I say as I pull my hand away, rubbing at the back of my neck.
“Well, that’s moot if we don’t come up with the original money we lost, isn’t it?” She pauses and sucks in a wet sniffle. Her shaking hand flutters at her neck. “When Randy went to tell them we’d be late with the money, they hurt him.”
“In what way?” I ask, my stomach rolling.
She reaches into her purse and grabs her phone. Flipping through photos, she turns the device to show me one. “They beat him up,” she says with a quavering voice. I wince as I take in Randy’s swollen face, blackened eyes, and busted lip. “They said this was just a taste if he doesn’t show up with all the money—including the new job they gave him—in thirty days.”
“Jesus.” Nausea surges as I think of someone doing that to my mother.
“Have you been able to figure out a way to get me the money?” she asks, her eyes filling with tears.
“No.” I feel utterly helpless. “I told you I don’t have that kind of money, Mom. Can’t you go to the police or something?”
“And what?” she asks with a warble to her voice. “Go to jail? Do you want that for me?”
“It’s better than getting hurt.”
My doorbell rings again, and I take a deep breath before pushing off the couch. I see a man through the glass holding something.
When I open the door, I’m met with a man holding a massive bouquet of white roses in a blue vase. “Stevie Kisner?”
“That’s me.” He hands me the vase, and it’s so big, I can barely hold on to it. There have to be at least two dozen roses, maybe more.
“Enjoy,” he says.
I close the door and bring them to the coffee table, my pulse hammering. There’s only one person who would send me a gift, and my hand shakes a little as I pull the card free of the plastic stake.
No one has ever sent me flowers before, and while I don’t know much about the business, I assume this many roses cost a small fortune.
The card slips free of the envelope, and I read a typewritten message: Wear the necklace as a reminder of how we first met. Hendrix.
Necklace?
My gaze goes back to the flowers, and nestled in the middle is a white box with a white satin ribbon tied in a delicate bow.
I take a breath to calm my racing heart, but my hand shakes harder as I lift the box free. I untie the bow, lift the lid, and then laugh in delight as I see a delicate silver chain with a single pendant—a porcelain nine ball painted in yellow and white.
To symbolize the first game of pool we played that entitled him to ten minutes of my time, which then secured my agreement to go out with him.
I lift the necklace free, my fingertips brushing the links.
“Who’s that from?” my mom asks. I actually jump because I was so immersed in the romantic gesture, I’d forgotten she was sitting a foot from me.
“Hendrix,” I murmur. “He’s in Nashville on a road trip.”
“Oh, wow,” my mom says, reaching out for the necklace. I hand it to her as I read the card again. “What does it mean?”
“We played a game of nine ball when we first met.”
I read the card a third time, unable to control the smile on my face.
“I take it this is getting serious,” my mom says softly, and I turn to face her. She hands the necklace back to me with a knowing grin. “I’m so happy for you, Stevie.”
“No,” I immediately deny. “We started dating less than a week ago.”
“And he’s giving you roses and jewelry, and not just any jewelry. It has meaning. I wonder how he found a necklace with a nine ball on it while he’s on a road trip? That took some serious effort.”
Okay, that makes me flush with pleasure as my gaze drifts to the flowers. The great lengths he went to get me something meaningful… while he was in another state. I know it’s been six days since we first met, but maybe this is serious. Does time matter when you have a really great connection?
We have amazing conversations, comfortable silences, and our sex is through-the-roof hot. I actually crave him with the ferocity of a starving animal.
“You could get the money from Hendrix,” my mom says.
My head whips her way as I exclaim with astonishment, “What?”
She shrugs. “He’s a wealthy guy. He clearly likes you a lot. I’m sure he’d hand over ten thousand without even batting an eye.”
Jaw dropping slightly, I give a slight shake of my head. “Do you even hear yourself sometimes?”
“Why? What’s wrong with what I just said? He has so much money, ten thousand wouldn’t mean anything to him.”
“It would mean everything to him,” I say harshly. “It would mean he had misjudged my character because he knows money doesn’t mean anything to me. You’d want me to put myself in a disingenuous position with him?”
My mom crosses her arms over her stomach and folds in on herself. She rocks back and forth, her expression awash with fear. “I’m scared, Stevie, and you’re the only person in the world who cares about me. I’m desperate and afraid of getting hurt or killed or whatever is going to happen to me when we don’t come up with the money. I have no one else to turn to.”
I’m practically knocked backward as my mom throws herself into my arms and starts sobbing. I’m a good judge of emotions, and there’s nothing fake about the tears. She trembles hard as she cries. “I’m so fucking scared. I know how stupid it was getting involved in this, but that’s me… I’ve made stupid choices my entire life.” She lifts her head, stares at me with tearstained cheeks. “Look at what I did to my own daughter. I’m the worst human being in the world to have walked away from someone as precious as you and now here I am, asking you to give me support when I could never give it to you. You should kick me out of your house right now and lock the door. You don’t deserve what I’m asking of you. You have to push me away, Stevie, because I’m too weak-willed and will keep coming back, asking for help I don’t deserve.”
Every single word is like a knife jabbing into my heart. As much as I’m pissed at her, I’m equally brokenhearted for her.
My mom has incredibly deep flaws and has made horrible choices, but she is a human being in pain, and I don’t want her to be scared.
I pull her back into my arms and make a promise I have no idea how I’ll keep. “I’ll get the money somehow. I’ll help you out and keep you safe. I swear it.”
♦
I didn’t rush my mom out but let her sob through her fears. Once I made the promise, she settled and didn’t feel the need to throw ideas at me anymore.
She’s gone now, and I slump down on my couch, giving a baleful look at my computer. I should jump back into my end-of-month reconciliations, but my mind is too preoccupied.
Instead, I lean over and grab my journal, opening it up to the last page I’d written on.
I read the last entry.
December 6, 7:20 a.m.: Hendrix called this morning. Woke me up from a sound sleep. He told me he was going to call and hinted it might be early. Despite getting to sleep around three, I was invigorated when I answered his call. He was so sweet. Just wanted to wish me a good morning and then demanded I get more rest. Yeah, that didn’t happen, so here I am sipping coffee and wondering how I got so lucky to hook up with such a sweet guy. I’ll see him tomorrow and to say I’m excited is an understatement.
I flip to the prior entry that chronicles his call after the first Nashville game.
And the one before that, which was our second date. I didn’t focus so much on the date as I did the sex, which was intense. My cheeks heat as I read through the play-by-play.
Damn, Hendrix pushes all my buttons in the right way, and I found myself last night… as well as I’ll find myself tonight… using my toys to memories of this entry.
I flip back to the note after the first time we had sex. For that entry, I didn’t focus on the sex but rather on our talk after. The physical intimacy busted any constraints either of us might have had about opening up to each other. I shared more about my mother, and he opened his heart about Rachel and the teammates he’d lost.
He made me think about the frailty of life and about making the most of our opportunities. I read the entire entry again to take me back to that connection we made.
December 3, 8:22 a.m.: I had sex with Hendrix. I’d like to blame it on the knee-wobbling kiss he gave me at the bar, but I had been primed since our first conversation in the storeroom. The sex was mind-bending, but I want to get down my thoughts about the man himself. Our lives don’t exactly parallel each other, but we’ve both suffered losses, and the ways in which we’ve handled them have similarities. Those losses have shaped the values by which we live, and that’s where we’re most alike. Hendrix didn’t fully appreciate the frailty of life after his sister Rachel died. He was a kid and he grieved, but he bounced back. It wasn’t until an entire plane full of his friends went down that he understood. The tragedy made him realize—coupled with therapy with a man named Pete—he had to live more robustly. So, when he told me there was nothing wrong with me for attempting to build something with my mom, I listened to him. I can’t wait around for things with her to be perfect. I have to make the effort now.
I read the last line one more time. I have to make the effort now.
I click on my pen, my eyes drifting to the flowers. My other hand comes up and plays with the nine-ball pendant at my throat. I should write about that, and maybe I will later, but I need to purge some dark feelings about the encounter with my mom.
December 6, 11:43 a.m.: Mom came by, and she’s a mess. Supposedly she’s been given a thirty-day grace period to come up with the money. It didn’t stop them from beating the shit out of Randy, and the picture mom showed me wasn’t pretty. I can’t stand the thought of that happening to her. I’m fucking scared for her, but I’m also pissed that this has become my problem. When I reconnected with her, I thought we could at least be friends. I didn’t expect her to be a caring, doting figure for me, but I thought, given I’m an adult, we might at least have an easy friendship. There’s nothing easy about her dragging me into this, and now I have to figure out a way to save her from getting hurt, maybe even killed. At this point, I have a few options, none of which seem good. I can get some money off my credit card… maybe a few thousand bucks, but it won’t be enough. It could hold them off, though, if she offered it. I’ve been thinking about selling my car. I might get five thousand out of it as it’s almost twelve years old. It would mean I’d need to buy a new car, and I don’t have the money for that. I could ask my dad. It would be an all-out war bringing this to his doorstep, and he’ll most likely say no. Just me asking is going to dent our relationship because he’s bent over backward to raise me when Mom walked away. I’d go so far as to say it might even ruin our relationship, and I don’t know if I can do that. It’s a lot to think about.
Sighing, I chew on the end of the pen, wondering if I should write about my flowers and necklace. I decide against it because I’ve got ugly feelings rolling through me regarding my mom, and I don’t want to taint my words. I reread my entries often, and as much as they are a way to purge, the good things help me reconnect with glorious feelings.
The flowers and necklace produced some serious warm and fuzzies, and I want to make sure I soundly connect those to the page. I’ll reread that entry many times, I’m sure. Just like I’ve reread my entry on the first time I met Hendrix, and the recap of our first date, and that first kiss at the bar, and the first time we had sex. The second time too.
Within these pages, I’m chronicling this new journey I’m on with Hendrix, and I have a feeling it’s going to be a long, steady one.
