Not What I Expected

“We want you to come to Arizona with us so that we can take care of you. Just until you recover.” Mom glanced at my dad as he wrapped his arm around her shoulder.

“Take care of me? Recover?” I couldn’t hide my reaction. Just totally aghast. “You can’t be serious.” I was planning on moving to Arizona after Bella graduated, just temporarily—and not for anyone to take care of me because I needed to recover from anything.

“It’s just that your actions have been a little reckless. And not everyone experiences grief at the same rate. And given the fact that you were unhappy in your marriage before Craig died, well … all the more reason for your timeline of grieving to be off or delayed. When we’re grieving, we’re not always ourselves.” Mom eyed the kids as if to let them know she had things under control … she would make me see why I needed an intervention. And my kids seemed comforted by her doing that. Finally, a solid mother figure taking charge.

I waited for it all to sink in because it was really hard to swallow. Had I been that bad? “I was honest with the women at church, and in return … they felt safe to be honest too. And I never wanted to take over the store. So … I don’t see what I’ve done wrong.”

Craig’s poor parents. I wasn’t sure how much they were following everything or how much my family had disclosed to them before dragging them into such a mess. They didn’t need to know about me and Craig, not like that. And if they didn’t know about the store before Finn brought them to the house, then it was a really shitty way to break the news to them in the context of me asking their son for a divorce. It was all too much.

“And the young man you’ve been seeing?” Mom continued, as moms did—poking, prodding, interrogating.

“He’s thirty, not thirteen. And we …” The “we were only having sex” defense didn’t feel appropriate, but it was the best defense that didn’t make it look like I was trying to replace Craig with a much younger man—or infatuated with him in a way that would seem desperate and truly edging the midlife crisis explanation. I sighed. “I’m not moving to Arizona. Not now, anyway. And if or when I do, it won’t be for anyone to keep an eye on me or help me through any sort of grieving.”

“Mom …” Bella broke her silence. “I’ll be fine. I can stay at the house until it sells and then stay with a friend until graduation.”

The little shit. I mean … I wasn’t trying to be mean or let angry thoughts take over my mind, but she was the instigator. I thought we were good. Why didn’t she talk to me more about everything—about Kael—if she was really that bothered by it? I told her I would end things with him, and I did.

I laughed, making brief eye contact with every single person at the table so they would know there was nothing wrong with me. “I’m not leaving my senior in high school home alone and then off to live with someone else.”

“Mom…” Linc gave me the most pathetically sad smile “…do this for us. If you love all of us, you’ll take care of you.”

“I am taking care of me!” My anger built because I didn’t like the looks they were giving me. “I’ve been going to a grief group for months, and I’ve finally started sharing my feelings. I’m so fucking sorry if they’re not the feelings you want me to have. But they are mine!”

Shock.

They all looked shocked.

“And yes … I’ve started using the word ‘fuck.’ And I like it. I like to say it, and I like to do it with Kael Hendricks. I like to do it in the back of my Tahoe, at his store, at my store, in the shower, and on the sofa.” I pointed to the living room. “So yeah … next time you go to sit on the sofa, just know that I fucked Kael on the sofa and the floor too. That’s me taking care of me. So I don’t need to go to Arizona for therapy. I need to do what I want when I want for one goddamn time in my life. I’ve raised four kids, helped run a family business, gone to church every Sunday, and been the only person standing between Ron and Mary and a retirement home. So if you really care about me the way you claim to, then you’ll back the fuck off!”

A note about crazy … most people weren’t truly crazy until someone tried to make them feel crazy. And in the midst of making the case against being crazy … crazy sometimes happened.