I came here to help my mom through an emotional crisis and she has sent me spiraling into one of my own. She's a lawyer, it's what she does: she has made a living out of finding weaknesses, loopholes, insecurities. She is an expert in digging her fingers into the meat of any hint of uncertainty and flaying it open for everyone to see, and the next morning I still feel raw. Like she opened the drawer where I hide my worries and she set each one on a tray for cross-examination.
I can't even be mad because I did the same. I asked too many questions and she retaliated with her own, and I didn't like it. The worst part is, she's right. I don't have a plan.
So I do what I do best, and I run. I don't have my proper running kit with me but I have cotton shorts and a sports bra so that'll have to do. Mom's still asleep. I eat a banana and send her a text, letting her know that I'm going for a run at Dinosaur Park, this kitschy park a mile from here, and I set off. As soon as I have music pumping in my ears and my feet are pounding the sidewalk, my anxiety starts to dissipate. My brain has something else to focus on: a new route, new dangers, the constant awareness that comes with running alone.
With Harry Styles keeping me company, I jog up the steps to the concrete dinosaurs that give the park its name; I run down Skyline Drive until I reach a viewing point for Rapid City's skyline. It leaves a lot to be desired. I'm not sure it can even be called a skyline when the tallest building has about six floors and nothing is taller than the sloping hills that provide the city's backdrop. I pause to take a picture and I carry on, looping back and forth up a narrow, anticlimactic trailhead until the only way to go is back the way I came. I'm sweating buckets by the time I get back to the dinosaurs and take a few more photos and on the way back, I lengthen my run with a detour to a Black Hills Bagels.
I get back an hour after I left, sweating and panting and red as a tomato. It's still only nine. I have another twenty-four hours with my mother and I don't know how to fill them. I start by getting a couple plates for the bagels: blueberry with blueberry cream cheese for Mom, her favorite. Cinnamon swirl for me, with brown sugar cinnamon cream cheese.
My phone buzzes. A text from Lou.
Hey, just checking in. I didn't hear from you after we talked yesterday, I hope everything's ok. I missed you in my bed last night x
Sorry it was kinda full on with mom but i did manage to get 3 of my brothers to schedule visits! Idk about "ok" but we'll get there, I say. I missed you too.
All I can hear is Mom's voice last night. Is this long term or is it a summer romance? Am I piling my future onto Lou's shoulders, praying that she won't shrug me off?
I send her the pictures from my run this morning. To the dinosaurs, she sends a couple laughing emojis. To the skyline, she says, it's a bit rich calling itself a city, isn't it.
Doesn't seem particularly rapid either from what i've seen, I reply.
What're you up to today?
Waiting for mom to wake up, see how she is, I say, glancing at the ceiling as though I'll be able to see through to her room. I don't know really. I need to get her out of the house I think.
You're not far from Mount Rushmore, you know! It's about a half hour from the city.
Wait, what? How did I not know that? I check google maps and sure enough, from here to Mount Rushmore is about twenty-three miles. A thirty-one minute drive.
You're a genius, I say. Lou sends back a kiss and says, have fun x.
It's another fifteen minutes before Mom comes downstairs, looking disheveled but well-rested. Her neutral expression turns into a smile when she sees me and she pulls me into a hug, her arms tight around me.
"Morning, Charlie," she says.
"I got you a blueberry bagel."
"Ooh, thanks, hon. You've been out already?"
"I went for a run, I texted you. Just round Dinosaur Park and back."
She bites into her blueberry bagel, the cream cheese threatening to ooze out of the sides. "Getting to know the area, huh?"
"I just like to run. Too much energy otherwise." I tear my bagel in half. The first bite is heaven. My eyes almost roll all the way back into my head. "Oh my god, that is fucking amazing."
"Black Hills?"
"Mmhmm."
"My favorite."
I wonder if we're going to address yesterday at all or if it has been brushed under the rug. I'm not sure which I'd prefer. "How'd you sleep?" I ask, going for the safe option of small talk.
"Pretty well, once I got to sleep."
"Yeah, I always struggle if I've had a nap," I say, but Mom shakes her head.
"It wasn't that. It was more that I felt bad," she says. "I kept thinking about what I said and I was too harsh. I know I upset you last night and I didn't mean to. I was unfair. Every time I started drifting off, I saw your face and I know I fucked up."
"That's a bit strong," I say. "You didn't fuck up."
"But I did upset you."
"Yeah." I bite into my bagel, too big a mouthful, and choke on the bread. "But, like, I figure you get a pass. You've got shit going on."
"Still." She rests her hip against the counter, licking blueberry cream cheese off her finger. "I'm not in the best place right now and I think that, because of that, my protective instincts are coming off a bit strong. I don't want to rule your life, Charlie, and I'm truly sorry that I upset you when you came all the way out here just to make sure I'm alright. I can't remember if I said it already, but it really does mean the world to me that you're here."
I don't know what to say to that except an awkward mumble of a thank you and I hug her again. We've always been the same height, ever since I stopped growing at sixteen, but she feels shorter now. I wonder if she's actually shrinking or if it just feels that way.
"I'm sorry too," I say when I let go of her. "I was needling you when you were already crying, like a total asshole."
"You're not an asshole, Charlie. I understand your need for answers." She polishes off the last of the bagel and says, "Is there anything you want to do while you're here, aside from scrape your mom off the floor?"
"Yeah, actually. I was thinking we could go to Mount Rushmore. Have you been since you got here?"
"Nope. Sounds like a plan." Her smile is bright and sunny, a far cry from yesterday. I wonder when she last slept through the night, when she last went to bed without a drink. "Are you happy to drive?"
"Yup." I prefer to. Mom is excellent at a lot of things, but driving is not her strong suit. Her eyes have a tendency to wander from the road, and ever since I was a teenager and I started to clock what she drank at lunch, at dinner, as an afternoon tipple, I've lived with a constant wariness about her blood alcohol level. Just because she can handle her drink – usually – doesn't mean she wouldn't be slapped with a DUI.
It's a beautiful drive down US-16, a wide tree-lined road that carries us all the way from the city to Mount Rushmore. If I kept going, if I took this road all the way to its end, it'd take me to Connor in Yellowstone. I like that. It makes the distance feel a little less than it is, like we're more connected than we know. I could sail down route 16, five hundred miles across Wyoming, a state I've never been to, and I would find somebody I know.
We don't talk much on the drive, but it isn't an awkward silence. Mom rests her temple against the window, watching the world whizz by. I bob my head to my music, my phone connected to her car's bluetooth to avoid the tedium of the radio; I sing along when a Noah Kahan song comes on, and I know Mom likes the song because she glances at the sound system, checks out the title, asks who sings it. I queue up a couple more after that. Taylor Swift comes on next and Mom surprises me by singing along to Blank Space. It's nice to see her like this, a total one eighty from the Mom of less than twenty-four hours ago, but I can't pretend it's not kind of disorienting, like I don't know where to step.
I catch my first glimpse of Mount Rushmore in the parking lot, once Mom's paid ten bucks and I follow directions for lot two, and I try not to look. I don't want to spoil it. I keep my head down as we walk past the bathrooms, the information desk, through the avenue of flags and the throngs of people who had the same idea for a Saturday morning's entertainment. I don't look up until we get to the roof of the Lincoln Borglum Visitor Center at the top of the amphitheater, where Mom takes my hand and says, "Look, Charlie."
I look.
I have seen so many pictures of Mount Rushmore and it was on the curriculum in elementary school and it still takes me by surprise. I still don't understand how it exists. Holy shit. It's so huge, so intricate. I can't take my eyes off it.
"Pretty neat, huh?" Mom says.
"Very cool. I can't believe you've lived so close for four months and you haven't been."
"I've had a lot else on my mind. National monuments weren't at the top of my list." She holds out her hand. "Give me your phone. I want a picture of you."
I pose obligingly, sitting on the low wall with the mountain and its carving behind me, and I get an over-enthusiastic middle-aged German woman to take a picture of both of us. She takes several. None are great, but they'll do. I send the best one to Lou and say, Great recommendation! #girlstrip.
It's just after ten on a Saturday so I expect her to be in the middle of a lesson but she either doesn't have a student today or she's ignoring them while they do their scales because her reply comes through within a minute: I love this picture!
Still think I look like my mom??
I'm not sure what you want me to say but I really do, you could be sisters
Oh my god. She did not just say that. My thumbs fly over the screen as I type out my reply. Are you kidding me?!!?! Listen I know a lot of people say I look older than I am but I thought that meant like 30 not nearly 60!!
All I get is a string of laughing faces and then, Please send her my love. I can't believe it's been six years since we last had a drink together.
"Who're you texting?" Mom asks, once she's done taking her own pictures.
"Lou."
"Oh "
"She sends her love."
Mom's smile is tight. Not quite pained but not quite genuine. Like she, too, doesn't know where to step.
"Mom, come on. Don't make that face. I know you like Lou. Or you did, at least."
"I did, of course I did. She's lovely, honey, it's just a strange adjustment," Mom says, twisting her bracelets around her wrists. "I know her as the mom next door. She used to come over and we'd share a bottle of something and we'd shoot the shit. I didn't imagine she'd end up dating my daughter, that's all."
"I'll send your love back," I say. I don't want to get into another argument. Mom loosens the screws of her smile.
"Of course. It wasn't a criticism, Charlie. You have to understand how it's a bit strange from my perspective. To me she's the neighbor who we befriended because we had kids the same age."
"No, I get it. I get that it's weird for you, but this morning you apologized for being judgemental and you're at risk of doing it again."
Mom holds up her hands. "I'm sorry. I'm not judging." She totally is, but I'm hardly going to change her opinion overnight. She nods at the steps that lead down to the forested trail. "Want to take a walk?"
We wander the entirety of the Presidential Trail, a half mile anticlockwise boardwalk that brings us to a museum. Mom's red in the face when we reach Sculptor's Studio – the trail may not have been long, but it had, like, four hundred steps and it was busier than I thought it'd be.
"Your ticket's good for a year, you know," I say when we eventually end up back at the car. "You should bring the boys when they come."
"I don't think I can do all those steps four more times."
"Send them off on the trail, you can hang out at the top with a scoop of Jefferson's ice cream. I don't know about the others but I bet Emmett would love it here."
"Gray would like it, I think," Mom says. The one brother who isn't able to make it. He texted me back last night – his schedule is rammed until October, and I guess I get it, he's busy, but can he seriously not spare a couple days for his mom? "He's into nature and mountains."
"Kind of his whole job. Ready to go?"
Mom nods, but she pauses and turns away from the car towards Mount Rushmore. "One last look."
If we go straight back to Mom's place, we'll be home for twelve and I don't want to spend the rest of the day in the house. While she's taking in the view, I open the route on maps and search along it until I find somewhere we can while away a couple more hours. Twenty minutes later, just over halfway back to Rapid City, I indicate left and pull off the road.
"What're you doing?" Mom asks.
"We're gonna see some bears."
"Huh?"
"Bear Country. Like a safari, but for bears." I point at the sign welcoming us to Bear Country USA, a winding three-mile drive-through wildlife park full of bears and deer and more. It's not cheap, but it's worth it to keep Mom occupied. I'm scared that the minute we stop doing stuff, she'll have time to think, and she'll get upset all over again. I want to keep this Mom around, the one who laughs and points like a kid when we see our first bear, the one whose eyes shine with glee as we roll through the park, stopping every few seconds for more pictures.
*
Mom's quiet, leafy house is only a ten minute walk from Main Street, the beating heart of Rapid City, so we leave the car and walk in the sweltering eighty-six degrees into the city. We check out the graffiti lining the walls of Art Alley; we grab lunch at Bokujo Ramen and I don't say anything when Mom orders us each a cup of hot sake after the glass of chardonnay she had with her tonkotsu ramen. I take one sip and know it isn't for me. Mom finishes it off. I bite my tongue and remind myself that I'm leaving tomorrow. There's nothing I can do or say today that will make enough of a difference for it to be worth it.
We double back on ourselves to get ice cream from Armadillos Ice Cream Shoppe, and we eat it as we walk back along the length of picturesque Main Street until we meet route 16 at its end point. Mom takes me to Memorial Park, home of the Rapid Creek this place is named after, and we cross the water to check out the section of the Berlin Wall that somehow ended up here. By the time we end up at Starbucks for a much-needed caffeine boost, my feet are aching and I'm exhausted – this morning's run feels like it was forever ago – but I feel good. This place has more to offer than I gave it credit for when I saw it from afar.
"See?" Mom says, poking my calf with her foot. "It's not so bad, is it?"
"It's not so bad."
"I know it's not what you're used to and I know I'm still settling in, but I can be happy here." She pops the top off her cappuccino, taking half of the chocolate-sprinkled foam with it. She licks the inside of the lid and sips her coffee.
"Yeah, it's nice. I didn't realize how beautiful it was here. The Black Hills are stunning. There must be great hiking trails around there."
"So I've heard. You can keep that to yourself, though," she says with a laugh. "It's no Montana, I know, but it is a beautiful place to live. You could be really happy here, too, Charlie. Did you know, this was voted one of the best places to live? We've got art and nature and history, and you said it yourself. It's so beautiful around here."
There's that squirming in my gut again, but before I say anything, Mom says, "Just something to think about. I know you, baby, and I know that you hate feeling unstable. You hate floating around without a plan. I'm offering you stability. Whether you take it or not is up to you."
I sip my iced latte, freezing cold plastic gripped in both hands. I know exactly what she's doing. It's a subtle guilt trip, and I hate that I can know that and still be so susceptible to it – I get that she wants me here, that she hates living alone, and I know that if I turn her down and my life falls apart, she will give me that look, the one that says what did you think would happen?
I don't like this feeling.
*
have you ever been to mount rushmore? i'd love to make it there someday but the midwestern states are so much harder to get to!