“You have time. I don’t.”
I let that sink in. Lower and lower until panic twists my stomach in a knot. If she doesn’t have time, I don’t have time with her.
“I can’t get there on my own.” She squeezes my hand, and it feels like she’s crushing my heart. “Promise to take me home before I forget. Please, Lou.”
“I promise.” Because what else can I do? My heart is crushed beneath the weight of my sadness. I want to make new and lasting memories before time runs out. I want to write them all down so I won’t forget.
“Mon mouche a miel, cher,” Mom whispers, and rolls to her other side.
She hasn’t called me her honeybee love since I was a child, and I raise a palm to cover the thumping coming from my heart. I can’t imagine my life without my mom, and I take a deep, shuddering breath. I’ve always known the time would come when I needed to focus less on work and more on my mother. I’ve known since her diagnosis that I needed to have plans in place for this eventuality, but I don’t. Maybe because planning for it would make it too real.
Memories are more important than ever, and I know I’ll deeply regret not writing them down once she is gone, but I also know myself and know I won’t. I’ll start out with great intentions, but I write for a living almost every day. Writing in a journal or diary will feel like a lot of pressure and I’ll put it off. Horrible guilt will add to the pressure, but if I give myself permission to skip days, I know I’ll be less likely to let weeks and months slip by. If I don’t place expectations on myself and keep it as simple and as easy as jotting a little something in my day planner on my cell phone, I can do this.
I’m Lulu the Love Guru and I can do anything.
Except move to Louisiana. I can’t imagine life without Mom, but I can’t imagine living in Louisiana, either. The last thing I want to do is move to the land of stifling humidity and attack bugs and live the next few years in a musty plantation house. Mom will have to adjust to a new routine just as she’s settled in and adjusted to living with me in my condo. I feel a little panicky until I realize that there is a real possibility that Mom won’t remember this conversation by morning.
4
March 16
Alaska flight 794. I lost my mind.
Mom lost her mind.
Hell in a handbasket.
MY BIGGEST fears in life are all related to control. More specifically, loss of control. When I fly, I control nothing but the peanuts I chomp and the wine I swill. I try to control the fine line between a few calming drinks and a few too many, but sometimes the line blurs. Things quickly go from Calm Town to Delusional Drunk-ville.
Running a very close second to my fear of flying is my fear of fainting. I’ve never fainted in my life. Sure, I’ve felt light-headed, but I’ve never actually blacked out. I’ve never fallen like a bag of laundry. I’ve never opened my eyes and looked up at people staring down at me. I am disoriented and confused, and it seems like everything is moving at a slower speed than usual. Someone calls my name, but I don’t answer.
“Goodness, Lou Ann. What are you doing down there?” Mom peers at me from her aisle seat.
“What happened?” My voice sounds weird, hollow and distant. I try to sit up, but my shoulders are firmly weighted to the floor.
“You fainted.”
I roll my eyeballs toward my brows. “I don’t think so. I’ve never fainted in my life,” I tell Mom’s nurse, Lindsey Benedict. She’s put a blood pressure cuff on my arm and is listening to my heart rate.
“I guess this is your first time.”
What are the chances that the first time I experience my second-biggest fear happens when I’m enduring my first? Or something like that. My head hurts. “Why now?” I ask.
“Might be Wild Turkey,” Mom speculates. “That’ll lay ya out.”
Looking up makes my eyes hurt and I close my lids.
“Is she dead? She used to play dead all the time.”
More like sometimes, and only on days when Mom was busy with a new man and I had to do something to get her attention.
“She’s not dead.”
“Sure looks like death.”
More like I’m embarrassed to death. “How can I be dead? I’m talking to you right now.”
“Then quit playing around down there.”
I open my eyes and look up at Mom’s red lips. I can’t think of anything nice to say and am saved the effort by Lindsey ripping the cuff from my arm. “Your levels are still a little low, but you’ll be okay.”
“My forehead hurts.”
“You smacked it fairly hard on the floor.”
“I fell forward?”
“Like a ton of bricks.”
A whole ton? “I’m on my back.”
“The male steward and I rolled you onto your back.” Great. Lindsey helps me sit up and my gaze travels up the legs and torso of the steward Mom’s been flirting with since we boarded in Seattle. My right arm has been pulled from the sleeve of my St. John jacket and my skirt is up around the tops of my thighs. Thank God I’m wearing black hose. One black Manolo is still on my left foot while the other is MIA.
“You’re lucky you didn’t hit your face on the way down,” says the male flight attendant, whose arms are so buff and his bald head so shiny that he’s probably gay. No, he is gay, no probably about it, not that Mom would stop even if she noticed. I write about love and finding love, and those topics are universal. For the most part, gay men and women want the same thing as straight men and women. Love and happiness with a person who returns love and happiness. After a couple of decades in the love business, my gaydar is finely tuned, an invaluable tool when it comes to Love Guru advice.
“How are you feeling?” Mom asks.
Groggy and disoriented. “Okay.”
Before I can grab onto something to help myself stand, Lindsey hauls me to my feet. First class breaks out in applause, and I’m so embarrassed that I think I just might pass out again.
“Scoot over, Pat,” Lindsey says, and dumps me in the aisle seat.
I knew Lindsey was strong the moment I opened the door a month ago. She’s tall and big-boned, like a Valkyrie—the kind that sings opera and wears a big iron breastplate and horned helmet. Instead of golden braids, her hair is different shades of fried blond that she pulls back in a stubby ponytail. She towers over Mom and me and is a little rough around the edges and some of her manners are a bit raw.
“We’ll need some water and juice,” she tells a flight attendant as she takes her own seat across the aisle from me.
I didn’t think she was going to work out at first, but I was wrong. Lindsey’s a godsend. Mom really likes her, and they have several things in common. One, they talk about Mom’s daily bowel movements. While I understand that Lindsey needs to know if Mom’s insides are working properly, it’s not a proper topic for discussion at the dinner table. Two, they both think it’s necessary to announce when they’re “feeling bloated and gassy,” any time of the day or night. Like anyone wants or needs that information. It’s like they have a membership to the same bad-manners club, and I am the odd man out.
Which is fine with me.