I expected her to be standing by the stove or cleaning the counters like she was prone to do in the morning, but to my surprise, she was sitting at the kitchen table. Her back was to me, so she didn’t see me. I had the chance to grab the keys and just go, but when I heard her let out a soft sniffle, I hesitated. An unexpected pang went through me when she lifted her hand to her face and wiped at her eyes.
She was crying.
“Mom?” I asked as I rounded the table so I could see her.
To my amazement, she didn’t try to hide what she’d been doing.
She was a mess. Her eyes were red-rimmed and swollen behind her glasses and her hair hadn’t been brushed. Her robe was hanging open. If I hadn’t known better, I would have thought something had happened to my father, but I’d seen for myself that he was fine.
“It’s really true,” she murmured. “I…I didn’t know.”
At first, I thought she was talking about the fact that I’d slept with Dallas, which didn’t make sense since she’d already seemed pretty certain of that fact.
But then I saw the credit card beneath her trembling hands.
Her pained eyes lifted to meet mine. “Edith and I went with some of the ladies from the church outreach committee to dinner last night. They’ve all been so kind with helping me out with the cooking these past few weeks that I wanted to thank them, so I offered to treat them. The bill, it was expensive, but nothing too bad.”
I already knew where she was going with this since I managed the money in my parents’ accounts. They’d had even less money than I had in my own account, which was what I’d used to pay for the dog food the previous day. I’d warned my mother not to spend any more money this week until I got my paycheck, which was happening the following day.
“The waiter, he…he told me my debit card was declined, so I gave him a credit card. I thought it was a mistake.”
I sighed. While I’d made enough of a dent in the credit card bill to keep the company from calling the debt collectors, they’d frozen the account.
Another fact I’d shared with my mother.
“He said the company told him to cut up my card, but he gave it back to me instead.”
“Mom,” I murmured. “I told you all this-”
“I know,” she said with a nod. “I know you did, dear. But I thought you were just being argumentative.”
I ignored the stab of pain that her comment sent through me. “I’m trying to fix it, Mom, but I need more time. Which means you need to be careful about what you spend for a while.”
I was shocked when my mother reached across the table and patted my hand. She wiped at her eyes with a tissue she’d pulled from the sleeve of her robe. “I called Mr. Wilson last night when I got home – his wife’s on the church outreach committee with me,” she explained. “He said you paid the overdue mortgage with your own money. Is that true?”
“Yes. I paid all the bills as best I could with the money I had left in my savings.”
My mother nodded and dropped her eyes. I waited for her to say something else, to thank me, at least, but she didn’t. Anger burned through me, but I quelled it. It was just a reminder that I was here for one reason and one reason only. To get them back on their feet.
It wasn’t to fall in love with a group of broken animals.
It wasn’t to live out some fantasy with their equally broken rescuer.
It wasn’t to try and fix something that was unfixable.
“I have to go,” I muttered. “Don’t spend any money until I can deposit my paycheck tomorrow, okay?”
I got up to leave, but my mom said, “Nolan, wait.” She dabbed at her eyes and then stood, straightening her robe as she did. “I’ll make you some breakfast.”
“No, thanks, I need to go.”
She stepped into my path and put her arms up as if to grab me. But she stopped at the last moment. “Please, Nolan, let me make you something. I can make you a sandwich with some nice ham and eggs and cheese on it…to take with you. It’ll just take me a minute, I promise.”
Her tone was so uncertain that I hesitated. My mother never offered to do things for me. She told me what she was doing and that was that. No argument. And while she hadn’t exactly asked this time around, it was still different.
I wouldn’t allow myself to read too much into it. “Fine,” I said. “I’ll, um, go start the car to get the heater going. Be back in a minute.”