Because You'll Never Meet Me by Leah Thomas Read Free Book Online Page B

mother’s sneaking along behind you, lurking beneath trees with all the grace of a drunken amputee. But if I was in my bedroom, Mom checked on me almost every seven minutes. Sometimes she brought warm macaroni from the woodstove or cold milk from the garage.
    I told you she has hobbies. She’s got a brain like mine, a brain that wants to be busy all the time. She knits, sews, paints, crafts model train layouts, collects flowers and presses them, makes mobiles and pottery, and binds books. But her favorite hobby is watching me, I think.
    She watched me from my bed while I studied or folded or drew at my desk. Occasionally she spoke. More often, she only peered at me with fingers on her lips, that expression (you know which one) on her face.
    â€œCan you go do something else?”
    â€œ
Can
is a fun word,” she answered. “But if I
can
put up with you, you can put up with me.”
    She told me once, when I asked about Dad, that she’d promised not to trap me. Whether my dad wanted what was best or worst for me, I don’t know. He died and left us enough money to live on, but with one condition: if I ever decided to go, Mom must let me. He put it in his will. Mom can’t just keep me here forever.
    She
promised
him.
    But the way Mom looked at me, I didn’t think she could keep that promise.
    Maybe that’s why I was always trying to leave.
    I was almost eleven when Mom finally let me take the training wheels off my bicycle.
    She and I played mechanic. Mom used to be a lot more playful. She lay down on her back on the grass with the bike frame over her nose while I watched, suck-chewing a banana.
    â€œScrewdriver!” she cried.
    â€œDon’t you need a wrench first?” I passed her my banana peel and she didn’t flinch. Just dropped it and held her hand out again.
    â€œScalpel!”
    â€œBut you’re not a doctor.” I held out the socket wrench. “Doctors have goatees. ’Staches of auburn.”
    Her fingertips were cold when she took it, because even in those days her circulation wasn’t great. The rusty bolts ground when she twisted them.
    â€œOllie, does Dr. Auburn-Stache talk to you about the past?”
    â€œI wish. He’s too scared of you to answer my ‘lab!’ attacks.”
    â€œ
Tch
. He’d better be.” It was a murmur, but I could hear it under the clicking of the tool in her hand.
    â€œIsn’t he your friend, Mom?”
    â€œNot exactly, Ollie.”
    â€œThen … what are friends like? Do you think I’ll ever have any?”
    I was smiling, but Mom dropped the wrench. She frowned at me through the wheel axle. “I wish that … well, for now you have me, Ollie. Better than nothing?”
    â€œS’pose.” I grinned wide to scrunch up my eyes because for some reason they were damp and I didn’t want her to see that. “S’pose you’ll do. Tell me about Dad?”
    Needling immunity! Mom inched out from under the bike frame and stood up to look at it. “There. But you have to be careful. If you kick up the kickstand now, the bike will just fall over.”
    â€œThat’s okay. Mom?”
    She was wiping her eyes, just staring at that bike. I felt like if I climbed on it she’d push me right off it again, or she was fighting a powerful urge to reattach the training wheels or cement the whole frame to the ground.
    I let myself fall to lean against her—she put a foot out to her left to catch herself.
    â€œI’ll be your kickstand.”
    She snorted and rested her elbow (
articulatio cubiti
) in my hair. The bone was sharp. “Nah. You’re my armrest. You aren’t going anywhere.”
    Mom means well. But do you see why I couldn’t buy her promises, Moritz?
    I’m a lousy kickstand.
    A few days later, I stole the keys from their most recent hiding place on the second oak bookshelf (I
always
find them), burst out onto the lawn, and pulled