Ghost Time

when she hadn’t talked to Raymond in two weeks. It was the longest she’d ever gone, and I was so proud of her, but of course Ray kept calling her. So one night, he tried her cell phone first, and then he got bold and left a message on our landline. Bold because he knew I could hear him, and obviously he didn’t care what I knew about him anymore. So, yeah, I heard his entire message, because we were watching TV,and he goes, I know you’re home, Renee. Please, babe, pick up the phone? And you could see my mom twisting inside, like she was enjoying it so much that he kept pursuing her, and it would be a total mistake to speak to him, but, on the other hand….
    Don’t , I said, looking her in the eye. Don’t do it, Mom. Not this time. You ever think why he keeps making the same mistake? Maybe because you forgive him every time, I said, and she goes, I know you can’t understand, Thea, and I go, Mom, you’ve been through this so many times now, so why do you keep going back to him? Do you really need a guy so badly? It was mean, I know, but I wasn’t even that angry then, and she goes, I want someone in my life, Thea. Yes, she said, I do. I go, Yeah, well, me, too, but not someone who screws around on me. Do you enjoy being treated like you matter so little to him that he’ll—. That’s enough, Thea. She’ll pull it together enough to put on the mom voice with me and say, That’s enough, and I go, You said I can’t understand, so explain it. Why do you keep going back to him when you know he’ll just screw you over again? She goes, We aren’t having this conversation, and I go, Fine. Call him back then, kiss and make up. But that’s a hell of an example you’re setting for me, Mom, thanks, I said, and I got up and went to my room.
    I’m sorry, but I can’t forgive him, even if she does. I mean, you want to know how she found out that time? She found out because she walked in on them—Ray and this girl, having sex in his office. And to have to think about my mom walking into some redneck commercial real estate office to find her loser fucking boyfriend going at it with some chick he’d picked up on his lunch hour, I have to block it out. Because aside from everythingelse I have to censor in that picture, to see the look on my mom’s face at that moment? No, I can’t. After everything that happened with my dad, I can’t do it.
    So I was mean to her, instead. Because I was afraid. Scared of the idea that you can spend half your life trying to figure out who you are, and just when you figure out who that is, that person is destroyed. Scared because if something like that could happen to my mom, it could happen to me, too. And I couldn’t let that happen to me. I’m sorry, I love my mom more than anything, but it’s just really hard to have to sit and watch her turning into this woman who is so much less than she used to be.
    You know she was beautiful once, my mom. More beautiful than I’ll ever be. And when she was in college, like when she met my dad, she was gorgeous . I’m serious, you look at pictures of her, and then you look at my dad from back then, and you think, God, you got so lucky, dude. I used to be really proud of her, proud introducing her to people. Saying, This is my mom. But when I look at her now, I think, Who are you? How do I even talk to you anymore?
    Now, when I see her sometimes, turning her head in the aisle at the grocery store or getting out of the car at night, for a second, I see the beautiful woman she used to be, almost like this ghost that slips out for a second. And whenever that happens, I can’t help thinking about those people, you know how parents say things about when adolescence hits, it’s like aliens have abducted your children or something like that, right? The thing is, that can happen, no matter how old you get. Except in my mom’s case, she wasn’t abducted by aliens; it was just life.

THURSDAY, MAY 12, 2011
    (SIX WEEKS LATER)
    3:30 PM
    Jenna Darnell: I knew the second she opened her mouth. Hello, Thea, she said, standing above me. I’d gone to Silver Top so I could be alone for a couple hours; I was trying to draw, but mostly just staring at the white pages, left side, right side, empty, and the bell rang above the front door. May I sit with you? she said, and I nodded. Okay, I said, not having much choice, really, but at least she cut to the chase.
    She reached in her leather bag, pulled out a big envelope, and put it on the table,