We stand by the front of my car.
“Um, no!” Her jaw hangs. “What’d he want?”
“His shirt.” I laugh and quote the air.
Adriana squints. “Ugh. Why do guys have to be so transparent? I can see through that a mile away. He just wants ass.”
Lucky Adriana is blissfully unaware of our families’ history. While she’s a local, she’s not a local-in-the-know. Some people around here fashion themselves official town historians. Her parents are Rhode Island transplants who moved here when Adri wasn’t even a year old. There’s a lot they don’t know, a lot that they probably don’t even care to know.
“So you going to do it?” she asks. “You going to hook up?”
“Of course not.”
“Dang. I mean … if you want me to take one for the team.” She winks.
“If you want him, he’s all yours.” I lift my palms in surrender.
“Really?”
“Totally. He’s not my type. At all. Not even close,” I say. “I think it’s the long hair.”
And the tattoos. And the nose piercing. And the last name.
“Seriously? He’s, like, every girl’s wet dream.” Her eyes widen and she studies me, as if I’m trying to punk her. “But if you like those clean cut good boys, you do you.”
Yawning and eyes watering, I say, “I should get going.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah.”
“You’re still covering for me Saturday, right?” My parents would be heartbroken if we had to cancel our afternoon shopping plans.
“Eight to four. I’ll be here. ‘Night, babe.” She struts to her driver’s door and ducks inside. The engine of her little blue Dodge fires up with a purr, and she plugs her phone onto her charger before buzzing away.
I stop for a few gallons of gas on the way home. And when I pull into the driveway, I sit in my car, AC blasting, for a solid ten minutes. The second I get inside, I’m going to melt into a puddle. Last night the thermostat read eight-seven degrees at bedtime. I’m about ready to fix the dang unit myself.
“Hey, Mama,” I call from the front door when I finally come inside. I kick off my shoes and head for the living room, where the TV flickers against her sallow complexion. Credits roll on the screen. Another Lifetime movie. I swear she must have seen them all by now. “What’d you watch? Anything good?”
“Dancing with Danger,” she says. Her eyes light the way they always do when she’s no longer alone. “I’d give it an A minus.”
I take a seat beside her and she spreads her throw blanket out until it covers both of our laps. Sometimes I get sad thinking about her like this—sitting here watching TV all day like a zombie, barely able to get around. Living for those moments when my father or I come home so she has company again. Then I think about all the loss and misfortune that’s blanketed her life in her forty-odd years and how she still manages to smile through it, never once asking for pity or feeling sorry for herself.
I refuse to believe life’s going to rain on her like this forever.
It has to get better.
“Mama, aren’t you hot?” I ask, gently shoving it off my lap. “I’ve been inside less than a minute and I’m sweating already.”
She frowns. “No, actually. I was feeling a little chilly.”
“You’re not getting sick again, are you?” I don’t know how she could get sick—she never leaves the house. Daddy or I must’ve brought something back …
“I’m fine. Maybe I’m just a little too acclimated to this heat.” She sells me on a smile I desperately want to believe. But we both know this is exactly what happened last time she got sick. It started with chills and ended with her in the hospital with an immune system gone haywire.
Mama yawns, and I suggest she head to bed, but she flicks to the news instead. Lord help her if she doesn’t watch the nine o’clock news every night.
We sit in silence, listening to the weather and some interview with a local kindergarten teacher who donated a hundred knitted scarves to a school in Alaska. Then there’s the piece about the thirty-two car pile-up on the freeway at rush hour. No deaths, thank goodness. But it’s the next segment that sends a chill to the humid air.
“Local Meredith Hills man, Vincent Monreaux of Monreaux Corporation, has recently acquired Starfire Granite and Quarry in Emmetville in a record deal—” the handsome news anchor reports.
Mom lifts the remote to change the channel as an image of Vincent Monreaux, a silver fox of a man with the same wicked gray glint as August, fills the screen. Her hand trembles and her breath heaves.
“Mama …” I say, trying to calm her.
“Evil bastard,” she speaks through gritted teeth. She’s going to work herself into another episode if she isn’t careful. Her vagus nerve is finicky. Sometimes it takes the littlest upset to make her black out for a few seconds. Some people react to stress with a surge of adrenaline, but Mama’s brain has the power to make the whole operation shut down.
The segment ends almost as soon as it started. They’re on to discussing an upcoming career fair at the local community college.
“Don’t let him have this power over you.” I place a hand over hers.
She draws in a jagged breath, eyes fixated on the screen as if she’s watching but not paying attention. Lost in thought, maybe. It isn’t often we get an opportunity to discuss the Monreaux family, but with all my August run-ins lately, I’d have to be remiss not to seize the moment.
“Why didn’t you and Daddy leave Meredith Hills?” I ask. “After everything that happened?”
She doesn’t answer immediately. Instead her gaze falls to her lap as she picks a thread in her blanket.
“Your father’s too prideful to be run out of town with his tail between his legs,” she says. “Plus, the public defender said running off would only make him look guilty. And we both know your father’s as innocent as the day he was born. He’d never hurt a soul.”
“Yeah, but don’t you guys feel like you’ve been living in this heartbreaking shadow the past twenty years?”
Turning to me, her eyes are filled with a spark of clarity. “No. This is our home. We grew up here, your grandparents grew up here. We wanted to raise our family here, and that’s exactly what we did. We live in no one’s shadow.”
I don’t bring up my aunt. Breathing her name is a surefire way to bring tears to Mama’s eyes, and she’s already worked up enough.
“Have you taken your night meds yet, Mama?” I change the subject.
“Not yet.”
I hop up and head to the kitchen, retrieving five pills from her organizer and a glass of tap water. A minute later, I’m helping her into bed.
“’Night, Mama.” I kiss her forehead and pull her blankets up. Her skin is cool beneath my lips and she shivers. “Get some rest, okay? We’ve got big plans for Saturday.”
She manages a smile before cupping my cheek. “Wouldn’t miss it for the world, sweetheart.”
Mama gets out of the house once, maybe twice a month. It’s always an exhausting endeavor, but seeing the smile it puts on her face makes it all worth it. Even if only for a few hours, we get to pretend we’re just a normal family doing the sorts of things most families take for granted.