Come See About Me by C. K. Kelly Martin Read Free Book Online Page B

happen.”
    Mom’s head drooped
a little in defeat. “At least don’t make up your mind about going back to
school yet. That’s three and a half months away. Who knows what frame of mind
you might be in then. And this apartment…” She tossed up her hands to motion
around her. “You’d be so much better off sharing with one of your friends
rather than being alone this way.”
    “Alone is what I
want,” I told her, and it felt like this most truthful thing I’d said so far.
“Why aren’t I allowed to want that? Why does what you and what everyone else
wants get to be more important?”
    Because I was
not myself. Because I was in too much pain to be objective. Because I didn’t go
out anymore and didn’t talk anymore. Didn’t care whether the sun was shining or
if the city was being flooded with rain.
    My mother
debated with me on and off until the morning she left. Her arguments would’ve
had even more strength if she knew I’d been fired and had flunked most of my
classes, but I still wouldn’t have listened. What I was doing didn’t feel like
a choice.
    In between
debate periods (although the debate was mostly on my mother’s side—I refused to
say much more on the subject) my mother would slip into nurturing mode,
offering to make me soup or toast and bring me beverages. There were
moments—when I was lying on the couch under a blanket (supposedly still
suffering from stomach flu) and my mother was sitting quietly in the wingchair
closest to it, the two of us focused on some mindless TV show—that having her
in Toronto was some comfort. Why couldn’t she let me lie there as long as I
wanted? Why was it okay for me to curl up in a ball with a physical sickness
but not with a broken heart?
    I thought my
mother might make a scene on the morning she was due to leave, stand tearfully
in my doorway and beg me to come with her as the cab driver stared determinedly
in the opposite direction. I braced myself for the possibility, but it never
happened. Having lost the argument I’d refused to fully engage in with her, my
mother chose to tuck her deepest anxieties about me away and maintain outer
calm. Only in the final few seconds in my driveway, once the driver had loaded
her suitcase into the trunk, did she say, “Don’t keep me guessing about how
you’re doing. I can’t stand it. And you know, if you change your mind about
anything your father and I will be there.”
    “I know, Mom,” I
said. “Thanks. I’ll be better about keeping in touch.” I hugged her fast,
before she could really get a grip on me, and then jumped back.
    My mother had
said, days earlier, that I didn’t have to pretend, but that was as much a lie
as my stomach flu. She wanted me to be okay and even after the doses of truth
I’d let spill during her visit, I humored her by smiling and telling her not to
worry, that I’d be fine.
    And by the time
she would’ve reached the Toronto airport I was back in bed, under layers of
blankets, still in my clothes but with the blinds pulled down to keep as much
spring daylight out of the room as possible.

Four
     
    I tried to keep my promise to my
mother. I had call display added to my telephone bill and when my parents’
number came up I answered often enough to keep them from panicking. My mother
would often ask, “Are you seeing your friends?” and I would reply, “I don’t
feel like going out much in the evenings—I have to interact with people all day
when I’m at the museum.”
    The more my
mother pestered me about socializing the quieter I became until she’d usually
be forced to change topics. My father asked fewer questions but was also less
capable of carrying the conversation, which meant I spent less time on the
phone with him than with my mom. If there was a national news item—politics,
sports or crime—that I’d happened to catch on TV I’d toss it into the
conversation to give him something to mull over for a few minutes while I
listened.
    Bastien and I
could