“About that…” She pulls another piece of paper out of the envelope. “One of the ladies at the facility has a daughter that owns a recruitment agency in California. She’s looking for a personal assistant and it pays four times the amount you earn here. I’ve recommended you for the job.”
She hands the paper to me. It has the name of the agency and a description of the job.
Personal Assistant to a well-known client. Must have extensive organizational skills with the ability to multitask and handle all matters in a confidential manner.
“I can’t move to California!” Arguing, I almost throw the paper back at her in disgust. This idea is ludicrous. “As if I could leave you here…and what about Flynn?”
“Your brother would go with you. Besides, you’ve come a long way from your teenage rebellion days. I think this will be good for you.”
Flynn’s chair scrapes along the wooden floor as his body reacts instantly. “Move to California? Us?”
“You always said you wanted to become a musician. This could be your chance.”
“Mom, he plays the drums and I’m sure a million people in California do. No, we’re not moving, end of story.” My arms fold, demanding this conversation stop.
Mom remains quiet, lowering her brows and retaining a concerned expression. She is deep in thought; staring at the two of us with her motherly stance. She knew we were angry, she knew that all we had known was this house and her. Change didn’t exist in our world, and there was absolutely nothing wrong with that.
“If you are hired for this job, I’ll reconsider selling the house. Perhaps we could rent it out to a family and that could pay for the facility.” She clears the plates off the table and places them in the sink. Running the water slowly, she turns back around with a stern look on her aged face. “Otherwise, I’ll put it on the market.”
I wanted to scream at her. Tell her to stop being selfish and think about our needs. It wasn’t just about the house, it was about her. I needed her. The thought of her being alone terrified me. Yet deep inside, underneath all the resentment and rage, I knew that she wore the burden on her shoulders every day and no matter what we did, nothing could erase the diagnosis we had been given. Mom had early-onset Alzheimer’s disease and nothing in the world could stop it.
Not me.
Not Flynn.
And no amount of money in the world.
I had taken the mature road and said yes to moving to California.
That lasted one day.
I spent hours researching places to rent before stumbling on crime stats which had me retracting my words faster than you could say ‘gunshot wounds.’
Apparently—it was too late. Mom had put a down payment on a small condo in the facility and bought us one-way tickets to Los Angeles. For weeks, I tried to find another job, but no matter how many interviews I went on, the reality was that nothing paid as much as the jobs in California.
The change brought on a wave of emotions. I was mourning a life I once knew. The nights were hard, lying in bed and counting down the days till this room became a distant memory. I’d fall asleep dreaming about a different time when things weren’t complicated and life was just…simple.
Fl
ynn barely said a word; keeping quiet and distancing himself from me like this was all my fault. Instead of spending these last moments with Mom, he chose to hang out with his deadbeat friends down at the local billiard.
My time was filled with tying loose ends at my current job and countless interviews for this new role. The recruiter, Jan, prepped me as much as possible, giving me a head start when it came to the interview process and what the role entailed. I had passed the first round of interviews which were conducted over video conference. It lasted for two hours. Question after question. By the end of it—I was beyond exhausted. Never had I experienced an interview so formal.
So, it came to this—the final goodbyes.
Aside from when my grandparents passed away, I’d only ever said goodbye to one person: my father. I was seven years old when he officially left for good and barely knew the guy. He had worked on an oil rig somewhere in Asia and came home every couple of months. My grandparents didn’t approve of him. They thought Mom deserved better and someone not Korean. My grandpapa’s words to Mom still ring in my head: “You have Russian blood. How dare you dishonor us and marry a Korean!”
Despite his racial slurs and creating this great divide between himself and Mom, he loved me and Flynn like his own. His death was like the loss of a father, and at the age of fifteen, my coping mechanism was not of mature thinking.
I did things I shouldn’t have.
Boys, weed, and anything I could get my hands on that involved danger.
My dad made an appearance a year later, showed me photos of his new family like I would be excited to know that I had a sister he actually spent time with. Flynn was different. He craved a father figure in his life and begged to move to Hawaii with him. Stupid moron said no. Mom was thankful, and for the next year we dealt with Flynn and his anxiety. The doctor suggested he take medication and for that—I hated my so-called father and welcomed the goodbye.
This wasn’t a real goodbye though. This was a see-you-soon type of goodbye. Maybe that’s why I didn’t shed the tears or drink the entire bottle of wine like my best friend Phoebe. This trip to California would be short term—a year max. I would return once I had saved enough money to keep the house and maybe start my own business or something.
This isn’t a goodbye forever.