Started With a Lie

Chapter Forty

Chapter Forty

July is a hot mess.

            Between my new job as assistant manager of the local ice cream shop, Igloo Ice Cream, and going to summer college classes to get a head start for the fall, I haven’t been able to take a breath. I also have to start annotating and beginning course work for future classes too, just to stay ahead of the game. No time to breathe. No time to focus on other things…or people.

        “Yes, Brent, there haven’t been any problems,” I say, juggling the phone between my shoulder and cheek while watering the plants in Mom’s hospital room. The phone slips but I catch it with my left hand before it falls.

        “Are you sure? Have the bills been paid on time or are you getting any late notices?” he asks a little out of breath since he’s calling me while going on a jog. Of course, he could talk and jog and have time for oxygen at the same time. He’s the athletic one.

        I sigh. “Yes, for the fifteenth time, Brent. With both our incomes combined, we’ve made the cut...for this month anyway.” I set the watering can down and shut the windows in the room. It’s too hot and a waste of free air conditioning—well not technically free because we still have the medical bills. “I applied for the school’s financial aid program and told them about…you know…Mom.”

        “That’s good,” he replies. “Where are you going again?”

        “Pace University.”

            “Where?”

            “It’s in the city,” I tell him. I touch one of the petals of the peonies by the windows. It’s bright and pink with its freshness still intact. I had brought it in this morning. “It’s no Columbia or N.Y.U. but I’m just glad a college has accepted me. And that it’s in the city so I’m close to Mom.”

        “I’m proud of ya. You’re not as dumb as I thought,” Brent responds. I roll my eyes. I hear him take several breaths, probably ending his run. “I’m sorry I can’t be there.”

        “No, no,” I say, “it’s fine. I know you have to stay in Florida with your football scholarship and all that. It’d be stupid to leave all of that. But I hear it’s scorching down there this summer.”

        Brent laughs and I hear him gulping down some water or whatever he’s drinking. He sighs. “It’s a real killer,” he agrees. “I need to get a gym membership. Running outside is deadly.”

        “I bet it’s also sizzling in the city since there’s so many people around and now that it’s tourist season,” I tell him. “I’ll have to go take a full campus tour soon so I don’t get lost during this heat.” I turn around and sit down in my favorite plastic chair—so comfortable by the way—and look at Mom. “Speaking of the city…I’ve been wondering. I want to move Mom into a hospital in New York.”

        Sounds of rummaging and doors closing echo through the phone. “What?” he says. The sounds stop. “Why? Move her into the city?”

        On my end the only sounds are the machines beeping, Mom’s slow breathing, and my voice. “Because. It’ll be so much easier if I want to live in dorms or maybe a shared apartment—I don’t know, I haven’t decided yet—but I definitely want to live closer to campus. The commute would be too much money for everyday and I’d barely have time or cash to see Mom.”

        “Yeah, I guess, but, wouldn’t that be such a hassle?”

        “It’ll be a hassle either way. NYC is too far from here that I go to college and come home everyday and then do my classes and have time for Mom,” I admit and a frown forms on my face. My mother isn’t a hassle to me. She’s my mother. I’d travel oceans just for her. I would never want her to feel that so I correct myself. “If I had the time and money, I’d visit her whenever I could but since we have to be realistic, I just can’t afford it.”