“Mom?” I yell, stepping inside our house and out of the scalding sun.
Silence is the only reply I receive.
I close and lock the door before shuffling into my childhood home, soaking in the smell of burnt orange and an array of fresh flowers as I go. When I enter the kitchen and pass the thick stack of envelopes full of unpaid bills on the table, my muscles grow taut, bunching beneath the cover of my running gear.
Grabbing the stack, I flip through them for the fourth time this week and make a mental note to pay them for my mother before we end up without electricity. I would—should—have done that for her already had my head not been in the dirt all week.
Heaving a sigh, I grab a cup from one of the mint-coloured cabinets and fill it with cold water from the tap. The greenish-blue paint on the cabinets is chipped in several places, but my mother wouldn’t dare touch them up.
“It gives the kitchen a rustic feel, my darling,” she says whenever I mention sprucing the space up a bit, as if in her terms, rustic means unique, not outdated and falling apart.
I all but inhale my water before placing the cup in the dishwasher and heading back through the house, past the small den and half bathroom. My room is at the back of our home, with a window that looks out to our small backyard that’s more like the inside of a greenhouse now than anything else.
Since I moved back home and discovered the state my mother had fallen into while I was gone, she’s spent more time pruning the hedges and caring for her vines of tomatoes than she has doing anything else. I’ll admit that she has quite the green thumb—something she most definitely didn’t pass down to me.
I can’t even keep a succulent alive.
Gardening helps her feel sane. Like the disease plaguing her mind hasn’t poisoned her yet.
Stepping into my room, I keep my focus on the window. On the flowers swaying in the light Vancouver breeze like a bride and groom on the dance floor and the sun’s glittering reflection off the small pond that rests below our giant oak tree, warming the home of the koi fish that live there.
And when my mother’s small figure wanders out from behind the garden shed, I smile—a big genuine smile—at the happiness that stretches her features.
Mom’s sunflower-yellow watering can is in her hand. She’s wearing a floppy hat on her head and a pair of oversized overalls. Her feet are bare, showing off the pedicure I gave her last night.
Neon green.
That’s the colour she wanted me to paint her toenails, and I sure as hell wasn’t about to say no. Even if I were the only one who remembered how much she hated when I painted my nails that colour growing up. How she had always said it reminded her of snot.
I shake my head to clear away those thoughts and step up to the window, tapping it with my knuckles, hoping to draw her attention.
Amelia Carter spins in my direction and lifts her watering can into the air, waving it around.
A rough laugh escapes me as I wave my fingers in reply. Mom’s cheeks and shoulders are pink from the sun, and I can’t help but wonder if she remembered to put sunscreen on before going outside.
After a few seconds of smiling and waving, she turns back around and heads toward a clump of daisies. I release a breath and let my smile slip as I grab a change of clothes from my dresser and go to the bathroom in desperate need of a shower.
I’ve just put the freshly poured glasses of lemonade on a tray to take outside when Mom comes tearing through the porch door.
“My darling Scarlett!” she sings. There’s dirt smudged between her brows and on her chin. “When did you get home? I would have come inside had I known you were back.”
My grip on the tray wavers before I steel myself and force a smile. “Just long enough to pour some drinks, Mom.” The damp hair on my shoulders from the shower I took nearly forty minutes ago suddenly weighs a ton. “How is the garden looking?”
“Oh, it’s lovely. We’ll have so many tomatoes we won’t know what to do with them all!”
“That’s great,” I say genuinely and tip my chin to the patio door swinging open in the warm breeze. “Sit with me outside and tell me all about it.”
She nods giddily. “I would love to. We’ll have to sit in the shade, however. I’m feeling a bit crispy from the sun.”
“Of course, Mom.”
Stepping ahead of her, I lead us through the door and onto the back deck. I place the tray of drinks on the glass table and pull out one of the four patio chairs surrounding it. Mom flashes me a grateful smile and sits. When she looks comfortable, I set her glass in front of her.
The patio umbrella in the centre of the table is closed, so I make quick work of opening it. When my left shoulder groans with the effort, I chomp down on my tongue to stifle my whimper as I finish and then sit on the chair beside her.
The open umbrella provides more than enough shade to keep Mom safe from the sun, and she sighs happily before taking a long sip of her drink.
“So, my sweet, sweet girl.” She sets her glass down and pins me with a knowing look. “How is your shoulder?”
I stiffen, subconsciously rolling said shoulder. “What do you mean?”
“Don’t play coy. I saw your pain just now.”
Like she had just reached over and shoved at it, a shallow pain trickles up my back, contracting around my left shoulder again.
“It’s fine. I hardly notice it.”
“Unless you’re doing something as simple as cranking open a patio umbrella?”
“Mom, please don’t start.”
She guffaws, “Oh heavens, Scarlett. You can’t expect me not to show concern for you. Especially when it’s my fault that you had to quit your physiotherapy.”
Tears fill her eyes, and I want to beg the earth to crack open and swallow me.
I reach across the table and cover her calloused fingers with mine. “I chose to come home, Mom. You didn’t make me do anything.”
What was the alternative? Fly back to Alberta and continue rehab with therapists who worked for a team we all knew I would never play for again while my ill mother was home alone, struggling with a new Alzheimer’s diagnosis?
Not likely.
“They were taking good care of you over there,” she states.
“It was time for me to come home.”
She shakes her head furiously, sending tears flying through the air. I flinch when she smacks the table hard enough to shake the pitcher of lemonade. “You’re stuck here because of me. I will never forgive myself for that.”
“Mom, look at me,” I beg, squeezing her hand tight. She does so reluctantly, her piercing green eyes the shade of freshly watered grass meeting my sky-blue-coloured ones. “There is no place I would rather be than right here. Look around us. This is the most beautiful place I have ever seen. And I’ve travelled the world.”
She blinks at me, squeezing my hand back before slipping her stare to the background. At the sight of her garden, she relaxes.
“I’m here because I want to be. Don’t even for a second think otherwise.”
“I’m sorry, darling. You know how I get.”
I nod and brush the bulging blue veins on the back of her hand with my thumb. “Tell me about what you did while I was on my run.”
Her eyes light up. “Oh! How could I forget? I have such exciting news.”
“Let’s hear it, then,” I encourage.
She leans forward and pulls her hand away from mine to clasp it with her other one before tucking them under her chin. I brace myself for the gossip that usually follows that move.
“So, when I was at Charlotte’s Flower Shop Saturday, I ran into this man and his son. And I mean really ran into them. My arms were full with my new fiddle-leaf fig—you know, the one in the corner of the den, by my reading chair.”
I nod, and she continues. “Anyhow, I hit that poor man right in the chest with it. I obviously started apologizing profusely, but he started laughing and took it from me. Oh, Scarlett. He and his son brought it to my car like true gentlemen.”
“That’s nice, Mom. But you should have asked an employee to help you in the first place.”
A call from the hospital informing me that my mother had gotten hurt while trying to carry a heavy plant out of a garden shop would have been a nightmare.
She slices a hand through the air. “Save the scolding for another time. I have more to say.”
“Go on.”
“As I was saying, he brought my plant to the car, and before I could ask his name, I recognized the name on his jacket. You remember White Ice Training, right? It was you that mentioned it to me, wasn’t it? Oh dear, that must have been years ago.”
Of all the things she has forgotten over the past six months, I’m not surprised one bit that she hasn’t forgotten WIT or anything to do with my hockey career. It will be a devastating day when she does. If there’s anybody who loves hockey as much as I did, it’s my mom.
“I remember WIT, yes. That’s where Leo trained before getting drafted.”
I’m sure there isn’t a single person in the North American hockey world that doesn’t know of White Ice Training and Adam White himself. Leonard Orlo is just one of many who spent most of his career there before making it big time. As one of my closest friends, I’ve heard a good amount about the place.
“Oh great! Because I got you an interview there with Adam on Wednesday.”
My jaw slacks. Annoyance licks my spine. “You did what? That’s tomorrow, Mom.”
“Oh, you’re right.” She blinks a few times before shrugging. “He has a position open for a new trainer, and as soon as he heard your name, he insisted you come in. I barely even had time to talk you up, and you know how much I love doing that.” She has the nerve to look disappointed.
“An interview is pointless. I don’t want the job.” I push away from the table to put our glasses back on the tray. Mine is still full, but the idea of drinking from it now makes my stomach sour.
Mom’s mouth drops open. “What do you mean you don’t want the job? It’s perfect for you.”
“I appreciate the thought, but I’m done with hockey. I don’t want to work there.”
“That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.”
“You need to call him and cancel the interview. I’m not going.”
“Scarlett Jasmina Carter. You are going even if I have to drag you there myself. I refuse to let you stay here and act as my shadow. Until I need that from you, you will continue to live your life as a regular, twenty-three-year-old woman. That’s final.”
She jerks to a stand and stalks off into the house before I can tell her how not final it really is. The door slams shut, and I hold the edge of the table in a white-knuckled grip.
Hockey has already broken me once. I’m terrified I won’t survive if it happens a second time.
