Chapter 10

Cecilia

I stared blankly out the rounded window at the lights disappearing below me. Alex was down there. The look on his face when I left him at the airport had almost broken my heart. If I had stayed a second longer I wouldn’t have been able to leave him.

Something dripped on my hand, and I saw it was a tear. They were streaming down my face and I lifted my cuffs to my cheeks to stop them. It was useless.

I thought I was probably in some kind of state of shock, because I couldn’t believe at all what was happening. My mom had gotten arrested. She had to be bailed out of jail. She hadn’t called me, even though Paulo told me he had given her my number. I had packed a bag with almost all my clothes and was now on a plane, for the third time in my life, going to San Francisco. I had left Nina behind. I had left Alex behind. I felt an actual pain in my chest thinking about him, right where I thought my heart was.

The flight seemed endless. The lady in the middle seat had a baby, which usually I would have loved, but I could only look at her and feel a jealous pit grow in my stomach. What was the matter with me? When the baby cried and cried, I didn’t even help the mom. I didn’t want to read, even. I rested my forehead against the window, and just when I thought the crying was over, I would find myself doing it again.

The pilot came on to say that there were weather delays in San Francisco due to a pineapple express, which sounded really interesting but turned out to be a terrible rain storm. We circled endlessly, bumping around through the clouds. The baby just cried harder. I felt sick. It reminded me of sailing around St. Kitts in November during hurricane season, with a terrible storm bearing down on us. I had put on my lifejacket and tied down everything we owned, and huddled in my bunk, waiting for the water to overtake us. I felt like it was overtaking me now. Especially when the plane dipped down and it looked like we were landing right in the bay we had been circling, until suddenly the wheels hit the runway hard and we started to screech to a stop. Everyone on the plane clapped. I just closed my eyes.

I followed the herd through the terminal at SFO and down to the pit where we would collect our bags. I pulled out my phone to call Alex, but then thought how late it was in Michigan. I would let him sleep. I leaned against a pillar, knowing I had to get it together. If my mom’s friend Kaito was here he would definitely be putting his round magnet thing on my forehead. I needed all the healing vibes I could get.

But by the time the bags finally got offloaded, soaked and dripping, I had gotten myself under control. There was no reason to fall apart. I could handle this. I was the one who put out the fire in the galley when my mom forgot about the teapot on the burner. I was the one who talked us into new passports, even though she had lost my birth certificate. I was the one who convinced the high school in Miami to take me, even though I didn’t have one transcript to give them. I got myself, and my wet bag, onto the dirty aboveground train to head into the city, the last one of the night. A lady was standing in the corner, rocking herself, and a man told me to get my fucking bag off the seat, then wedged himself in next to me.

When I got to the 16 th Street station, I pushed past the mean man and headed up to street level. My mom’s old friend Ema lived near there, and I had called her from Alex’s house to ask her if she minded if I bunked with her. Alex. I shook my head to get him out of it. Ema had sounded a little weird, but said that yes, I was welcome. I trudged through the dark streets. It was well after midnight, California time, and three something AM in Michigan. I was exhausted. The streets were scary. And people made fun of Detroit? I was running by the time I got to Ema’s building. I hugged Ema, and after a little hesitation, she hugged me back.

“I’m so sorry for disturbing you, and making you stay up so late,” I told her. “I didn’t know who else to call. It seems like everyone else we knew has gotten priced out of San Francisco and moved out! And I can’t stay in a hotel because I have to save all the money I can to pay Paulo back for the bail and my friend in Detroit for the plane ticket.”

Ema finally smiled at me a little. “Always the responsible one. Even when you were a little girl, you were. Come on in, I’ll make you some chai.” When I asked about my mom, Ema just shook her head. “Let’s talk in the morning.” She made me go to bed on the couch with a smoky quartz crystal under my pillow. The bump annoyed me but I was too tired not to fall asleep.

When I woke up I immediately reached for Alex, then sat up straight, calling to him. Where was he? I looked around, confused. I was on Ema’s couch. She was at the stove across from me in her studio apartment, watching me with concern.

“Who is Alex?” she asked. I rubbed my eyes.

“He’s somebody in Detroit.” I looked at the clock, and saw that I had slept in, even for this time zone. He would have been up for hours, gone rowing, headed to work. Maybe he had already gone down for coffee. My throat got tight.

“Come to the table and have some raw buckwheat groats,” Ema told me. I hadn’t had buckwheat groats in years, purposefully. I reluctantly joined her at the table, shoving my hair back. I wondered if I would be able to find someone who could tame it like Diana, Neveah’s mom. My throat got tighter.

She poured me a cup of tea. Smelled like jasmine, and I wrapped my hands around the cup. “Ok?” Ema asked, and when I nodded, she got right into it. “Let me tell you what I know about your mother.”

She did, and it was appalling. My mom had come out to San Francisco about six months before, when I had still been in Fort Wayne. Ema said they had gotten along well in the beginning, but that my mom had been acting strange. We had always paid our way when we visited people, either by buying groceries or supplements, paying some bills, things like that. At least, that’s what I had always done when we stayed with my mom’s friends. But Ema said that my mom was shirking everything. It got really uncomfortable, and expensive (my mom really never learned how to economize) as Ema had been paying for everything for her. Finally she asked my mom for some cash, and she told Ema that she didn’t have any. It appeared that the trust fund had finally run dry .

I sat with my mouth hanging open. Ms. Eubank would have told me I was going to catch flies in it. “So she was just living here, sponging off you?” I asked.

Ema shook her head at me, a little incredulous. “Cecilia, it’s as if you’ve never met your mother before! Of course she was, that’s what she does.”

“Wait a minute, I always tried to pay our way when we stayed with people! When we were with you for all that time, I remember going down to the PG&E office every month to pay your bill for you. And I bought groceries, and cooked dinner, almost every night! I’m sorry that wasn’t enough.” I could feel my cheeks heating with shame.

Ema patted my hand. “It was enough that a twelve-year-old girl did that. You did that. But you are not your mother. Katharine does not behave that way when you’re not there to force her to. She is a selfish, self-centered woman.”

“Ema!” I stood up angrily.

“Cecilia, you’re old enough to recognize that for yourself,” she said calmly.

Then she told me the rest. My mom had taken up with an acquaintance of Ema’s, a guy named Allen who owned a reiki studio. Reiki, Ema repeated, like it was a bad word. Anyway, the next thing Ema knew my mom had moved in with him into the apartment above his studio in the Sunset, without even saying goodbye. I should have known that a new boyfriend would be involved in all this. Then Paulo had called Ema from New York, telling her that my mom had been arrested and asking if she could help with bail money, which she had declined. She didn’t know why my mom had been arrested but assumed it had something to do with Allen, the reiki guy, because Ema had a very low opinion of him as he apparently also had a record, for something to do with minors. I choked on my mouthful of raw groats. At that point she patted my back and reached for some more tea for me to correct any qi deficiency I might be developing due to the shock, but I refused.

The upshot was that Ema had no idea where my mom had gone, but suggested that I ask Allen the creeper. I nodded mutely when she told me she was going to the farmers’ market, and left me with my congealed bowl of buckwheat and cold tea.

Alex

I texted Steve around three AM that I was going to be late for work. I hadn’t been able to sleep the night before, and the valerian, lavender pillow, and chamomile tea hadn’t helped. I went first for a run, which left me breathless. It had been a while since I had run. Then I went to the river to scull. Then I went to the Y to swim. By the time I got to work, my body was exhausted. My left hand was shaking like crazy. Unfortunately my mind wouldn’t seem to turn off.

I woke up my computer, checked my voicemail, did all my usual morning tasks. I looked at my phone. Again. After dicking around for a couple of hours, successfully deflecting Steve, I went down to the coffee shop. Neveah and Jason were both there, looking depressed, but both of them brightened when they saw me.

“Hey, Alex!” Neveah said. “Have you heard from Cecilia? What’s going on? She left me a weird message that she had to go to San Francisco. ”

“Her mom needed her,” I explained.

Jason started filling up a to-go cup for me without being asked. He nodded sympathetically. “She told me about her mom. Did you know that she once left Cecilia on the boat alone so she could go to Florida to meet a guy? Cec was only thirteen and she ended up having to get emergency repairs done on the boat by herself and was really scared. That’s not how she described it, but I read between the lines.”

It didn’t surprise me. As she kept telling me, Cecilia was very self-sufficient. “I’ll let you guys know how she’s doing when I talk to her.”

“Yeah, let us know,” Neveah said. “Tell her we miss her, right, Jase? We’re taking care of Smokey. And Keri is freaking out already because she is just figuring out how much Cecilia actually did around here. It only took until about five minutes after she tried to open alone.”

Jason nodded, and they were both looking at me sympathetically. Cecilia had said that there was some tension between the two of them, but I didn’t see it. “I’ll tell her. I’ll see you guys tomorrow.”

When I was leaving the coffee shop, my phone rang, and in my rush to answer I dropped the full paper cup on the ground. “Hello?”

“Alex?”

I felt myself relax at the sound of her voice. Even my ears seemed to loosen up. “Hi there. How are you doing?”

There was a slight pause before Cecilia answered. “The flight was ok. It got delayed because it was really raining here. But it’s pretty sunny today.” I knew all that. Flight tracker, weather apps.

“But how are you?” I pressed.

“I’m ok, too. I’m staying with my mom’s friend, well, I guess she’s my friend. Anyway, her name is Ema Markowitz. Let me give you her number.” She recited it and I typed it into my phone. “I can’t really talk, because on this phone I’m roaming. I’m going to get a new phone today and I’ll call you later from that. Can you do me a favor? Can you call Ms. Eubank and tell her where I am? She didn’t answer last night and she doesn’t have voicemail.” She gave me that number too, then paused again. “How are you doing?”

“I’m fine.”

“You don’t sound fine.”

“It’s a bad connection. You sound like you’re in a wind tunnel.”

“Yeah, I’m outside. I’m going to look for my mom today. Ema gave me an idea of where she might be.”

“Ceci, have you thought about what you’re going to do when you find her?” I asked.

“I’ll find out what’s happening with the criminal charges, if they haven’t been dismissed, make sure she has a lawyer. I’ll check where she’s living and see if it’s safe, make sure she has a plan for what’s next, stuff like that. Maybe I’ll try to get her to leave San Francisco, since she must not know a lot of people here anymore. I can get her settled somewhere less expensive, get a lease signed, turn on utilities. She’s not really good with practical stuff.”

“But it’s been months since you’ve seen her, right? She had to have survived without you.” I tried to sound reasonable. I had been trying to figure out how to say this to her so she would look at the situation rationally.

“Obviously she hasn’t been surviving very well, Alex!” Cecilia said angrily. “She got arrested and Ema said—”

“What?”

“I have to get going, ok? I’ll talk to you later.”

She had hung up before I said goodbye. I stared at my phone.

Then I went back up to my personality-free office, to wait until the end of day so I could return to my empty house. I thought back to before I knew Cecilia. What had I been doing with myself? Maybe my empty house, empty life, hadn’t bothered me before, but they were really bothering me now.

I picked up the phone again and dialed the number for Ms. Eubank.

“Hello?” an elderly voice answered.

“Ms. Eubank? Hello, my name is Alex Whitaker.”

“Cecilia’s Alex?” she asked.

“I guess I am. She had to go to California to visit her mother, and she asked me to call you to let you know where she was and why she wouldn’t be coming to visit. She called last night, but didn’t get through to you.” I had an idea. “I was also wondering if I could stop by and meet you in person.”

“Of course,” she told me. “I’d be glad to meet you in person too. I’ve heard so much about you.”

“As I have about you. What time will you be home? ”

“What time am I not at home? The only reason I missed Cecilia’s call was because I was asleep. But I’ll stay up, if you’re coming.”

We settled on 5:30, which I hoped wasn’t really her bedtime.

I preemptively visited Steve’s office before I left. “I’m heading out,” I told him. “I’ll be in at my usual time tomorrow.”

“How about dinner?” he asked, then looked anxiously at his screens.

“No, I can tell you have things to do here. I’m meeting Cecilia’s friend now, anyway.”

“Oh? Who is Cecilia’s friend?” He tried to sound nonchalant.

“An eighty-year-old woman. I think I’ll be safe with her, but if she gets rough with me, I’ll text you.” He still looked worried. “I talked to Cecilia. She made it out there ok.” Now he looked like he was going to burst and I shook my head at him. “Just spit it out. You have the worst poker face I’ve ever seen.”

“It’s nothing really, I was just wondering if Cecilia said when she’ll be back. It’s a roundtrip ticket.”

“Yeah, I don’t think she has a specific plan to come back here. She took most of her clothes, it sounds like she’ll have a lot to do with her mom. I’ll see you tomorrow.” I took off fast.

I realized how tired I was on the drive over to Ms. Eubank’s house. My hand was shaking again, a lot. Her house was small, and looking a little worse for wear. I parked in her driveway, which needed weeding.

“My,” Ms. Eubank said when she answered my knock. “She was right, you are a tall one!” It would make sense if this really was Cecilia’s relative. She was equally tiny. “Come in, come in!” she told me, and hustled me into the living room. I sat uncomfortably on a plaid couch, which felt too small for me. I thought I might break it.

“Now, explain to me what happened with her crazy mother.”

Apparently we were all of one mind about Cecilia’s mom. I didn’t give her any details, just that Paulo from New York had called and Cecilia had run to the rescue.

Ms. Eubank looked pissed. “I’m not sure why a grown woman needs her daughter to go two thousand miles to help her out of trouble, but from what Cecilia has told me, they don’t have what you’d call a traditional relationship. Did you know that Cecilia worked during high school to pay rent to her mother’s friend, so she could stay with her to have residency to attend the local school?” That didn’t surprise me either. She wasn’t afraid of work, that was for sure. “While her mother has never held a job. Hmph.” The noise she made was between a disgusted snort and angry laugh.

“Cecilia feels like she has to do this. I hope someday she’ll be back.”

Ms. Eubank looked alarmed. “You think she won’t come back?”

“Well, she left her van, Nina, so she’ll probably want that. And I know she really cares about you, and finding her father. So maybe she’ll come home, I mean, back to Michigan, when she wraps this up with her mom. We’ll see.”

Ms. Eubank was watching me, and it made me want to squirm. I was already holding my left hand so that she wouldn’t see it shake. “I was just about to have some dinner,” she announced. “Would you like to join me? It isn’t much, some soup and crackers.”

I stood up. “Would you like to go out to dinner with me instead? I’m pretty hungry, and I know of a few good places we could go. How do you feel about Greek food?”

∞

Ms. Eubank had been a very nice dinner companion. She told me more about Cecilia’s purported father, who sounded even worse than her mom. If that was really her gene pool, it was amazing that she had come out so wonderful. The worst stories Ms. Eubank would preface with, “Now, I didn’t tell Cecilia this, but…” and give me a worried glance before launching into another story about Roger’s bad behavior. The guy was a crook. “I took the DNA test that she gave me, and I mailed it in, and the results will be here in a few weeks. I’ll be anxious to know what they say. I’m sure Cecilia is, too.”

When I dropped her off, I decided that I’d come back soon and do some yardwork. Her back yard had looked like a mess when I had seen it from my perch on the plaid couch.

Lying in bed, I tried to plan my days. I would do it the way I had when I had first left the rehab hospital, section by section. Morning section: I would row every day. Coffee, talk to the kids at the coffee shop. Middle section: Work, focus completely on that. No distractions. Evening section: I would run and swim on alternate days. One new recipe every night. I would read, if I could. The urge to draw had ebbed a bit, but maybe I would do that too. I would go to bed early, and get sufficient sleep. So that I would be ready to start it up all over again in the morning.

Cecilia hadn’t called, and no one had answered the number at the place she was staying. After about twenty rings, I hung up. She was probably pretty busy, cleaning up after her bat-shit crazy mom. I thought back to my conversation with Dr. Mavromatis about the worst possible outcome of my situation with Cecilia. I thought that maybe I was living it. Her leaving, losing her, was definitely the worst.

Cecilia

I held my stupid phone in my shaking hand after I hung up with Alex. How dare he question me about trying to help my mom? He just didn’t understand. That’s what I told myself repeatedly as I rode the bus to the reiki studio. The phone number I had found for it had been disconnected, which really didn’t bode well. It was obvious that my mom needed me if she was living with a guy who got his phone disconnected! Alex just didn’t understand how it was with us.

But Alex wouldn’t get his phone disconnected. He was very responsible. He thought of himself as incapable, but he managed just fine—better than fine! He just didn’t give himself enough credit. If Steve could have maybe relaxed his grip a little…

I made myself stop thinking of Alex. He would come after I got my mom all straightened out. He would be fine for a few days, or weeks, or whatever it took. First things first.

The bus stopped a few blocks away from the studio, and I walked quickly toward the address that Ema had given me. The neighborhood was a little shabby and definitely residential. I arrived at the address, but it was just another house. Maybe Ema had gotten it wrong. I tried to peer into the grimy garage windows, which were totally blocked with filth and paper tacked up. Then I went up the narrow staircase to the front door. How many times had I done this, knocking on doors, looking for someone? Looking for my dad, now looking for my mom? I was tired of it. I squared my shoulders and pushed the plastic button for the doorbell.

And my mom answered the door. “Cecilia!” she squealed happily, and grabbed me in a hug. “Come on in!”

Yep, this was my mom! She just always picked up right where we had left off.

“Mom, Paulo called me—”

“Yes, yes. Come first and meet Allen!” She pulled me from the narrow hall into a nearly empty living room, the heavily curtained windows blocking the sunlight from the nice day outside.

Allen was standing in tree pose. He drew his arms slowly up in a circle over his head, then lowered them and pressed his thumbs into his bare chest at his heart chakra. His loose, flowy pants dipped low on his waist. Yep, I was getting an eyeful of Allen.

“Hi, I’m Cecilia, Katharine’s daughter,” I told him.

He smiled at me beatifically. “Isn’t he cute?” stage whispered my mom. “Very flexible.” She winked significantly.

I nodded, knowing now what she meant, and internally gagging. Allen was kind of good looking, I guessed, for a hippie old dude. Kind of weathered, kind of oily. And I had to wonder why he was at home at eleven o’clock on a Thursday morning, instead of being at somewhere at work. I also wondered what his criminal offense with minors was. I turned away from Allen .

“Can we talk somewhere?” I asked my mom, as she continued to stare at his chest. It was clear that he was not going to stop his practice long enough to chat.

She nodded brightly, and led me into a cluttered kitchen. Dishes were piled in the sink, and there was a strong odor of curry and onions. She pushed some papers out of a chair, and I sat down in it after checking it briefly for stickiness. “What’s up, darling? What have you been up to?” she asked me.

“Mom, we haven’t seen each other in two years. I haven’t talked to you in months. I’ve been up to a lot!”

“Where have you been living?” she asked. “Still in that silly old van?” She giggled.

“Yes, still in the van, until recently. I was in Pittsburg, then Fort Wayne, and for the past five months I’ve been in Detroit.”

“I’ve never been there,” she said, shaking the kettle, then adding more water to it from the tap. “Tea?”

“No, thank you.”

“I’ve been busy too. I’ve been having an amazing time with Allen here! He’s really a guru, you know?”

“I heard he had a reiki studio.”

“Yes, but unfortunately he had to close it. There are so many silly rules for running a business. You’d think in San Francisco they’d be a little more open-minded! Like he was going to hurt anything by clearing our energy!” She shook her head, laughing a little. She had never understood things like rules and regulations very well. What a nut, I tried to tell myself. But instead of being amused, I found I was getting annoyed! If you didn’t follow rules and regulations, you could find yourself arrested.

Which led me to ask her, “Mom, Paulo said you had been charged with disorderly conduct and possession of a criminal substance.”

“Oh, it’s all a misunderstanding,” she told me breezily, rummaging in the disorganized cupboard.

“Really? So you weren’t arrested?”

“No, I was. But there was no reason for it.” Now she was going through a drawer.

“Mom, can you sit down and talk to me for a second? Why would they arrest you without any reason?” She ignored my question. “Please talk to me! I came all the way out here when Paulo called me. He said he sent you bail money. Do you not have any money?”

She started humming, now mixing tea into her cup. “Mom!” I kind of yelled. She looked at me in surprise.

“Cecilia, don’t raise your voice like that! It will disturb Allen.”

“Sorry,” I muttered. “Can you please tell me what’s going on? Why did you get arrested?”

“There was just a little issue with one of the women that Allen was working with. She misinterpreted some of his healing touches.” Clink, clink went her spoon. “Anyway, she seemed to think that they had more of a relationship than just practitioner and student.”

Oh, lordy. “What did you do?” I asked my mom.

“Well, I let her know she was wrong. Allen may be her guru, but he’s my boyfriend.”

“What did you do, exactly, that led to the police being called?”

“Really, it’s not important!”

“It is if you got arrested over it!” I exclaimed.

“She and I had a disagreement, and it got just a little loud, and one of the neighbors called the police, which was just ridiculous! The busybody. That person better hope I never find out who made the call. None of this would have happened if someone hadn’t interfered.”

“So it wasn’t your fault,” I said slowly.

“Exactly! But it turned out that I had some X in my bag—”

“Wait, Ecstasy, like the drug? That was the controlled substance you were caught with?”

“Yes,” she explained with a smile, “but just enough for personal use. That’s why the charge will probably be dropped.”

“You take X? You were the one who wouldn’t let me go get antibiotic drops for my swimmer’s ear! I couldn’t hear right for months,” I said, aghast.

“Allen introduced me to it. It really does heighten the orgasmic response. For example—”

“I don’t need an example!” I told her. “Tell me more about the criminal charges.”

“They’re not a big issue, really! I have a public defender, and as I told you, he expects the controlled substance part to be dropped. I’ll probably just have a little fine to pay. You know, I was only explaining things to Allen’s student. This is all absurd! We had a private disagreement, and there was no need for the police to get involved.”

“How little a fine?”

“A few hundred,” she said easily.

“Do you have that much money? What will happen if you can’t pay, do you have to go to jail?”

“Cecilia, you’ve always been such a worrywart! The fine won’t be a problem. Can’t you just go with the flow?”

Suddenly I got really angry. “No, mom, I can’t just go with the flow when you could be incarcerated! Why don’t you have any money to pay for a lawyer? Ema told me the trust is all gone. Is that true? Did you really spend it all?”

She gestured at me wildly with wide eyes. “Keep your voice down!” She looked anxiously toward the living room.

“Allen doesn’t know you’re broke?”

“I’m not broke! I’m fine, and that Ema Markowitz should keep her mouth shut! Talk about busybody.” She patted my hand. “Cecilia, you have to relax. Try your diaphragmatic breath. You know, I think your root chakra is overactive!” She looked at my crotch appraisingly. “But you’ve just always been much too conventional , always worried about material things.” She wrinkled her nose. “I’m more concerned with the spiritual. Ooh, speaking of that, I didn’t tell you something important. I went to a medium, and I talked to my Great-aunt Martha!”

“I don’t think she’s dead, Mom. I visited her when I was in Connecticut, and I write her cards. I think they would have let me know.” We were getting side-tracked.

She looked confused. “Martha must be dead, because the medium channeled her! Anyway, I’m supposed to receive good tidings from that direction. Isn’t that exciting?”

I breathed out. “Yes, that’s great. I just, can we talk a little bit about your money, or lack of it?”

“Katharine?”

Bare-chested Allen came in, shaking back his long hair. My mom lit up with a smile. She really had a nice smile. “Tell me who this is,” he said, pointing at me.

“I’m Cecilia, Katharine’s daughter,” I repeated to him. “We met in the living room.”

“Cecilia, welcome to my home,” he told me seriously, making a lot of eye contact. It made me squirm.

With three of us in the kitchen, it felt a little tight. “Mom, want to come for a walk with me?”

“Darling, I think Allen needs me to help him come down after his practice. He always gets a little…stimulated. Right?” she asked him.

He nodded, his eyes on her boobs. Oh, lordy.

I jumped to my feet. “Ok, I’m out then! Will you be here tomorrow?” I asked.

She nodded, but I didn’t think she was paying attention to me. “Mom? What’s the name of your lawyer?”

“It’s in my bag in the bedroom.” She pointed to the other door out of the kitchen .

I practically ran into the bedroom to make sure I’d be out of it before they came in, and dumped her bag out on the bed. I quickly checked her wallet, and found that she had $6. I also found a card for her public defender. I gave the rest of the contents of the bag a quick look. There was nothing to give me any other kind of indication of what she was up to. No controlled substances that I could see. I ran back through the messy kitchen, averting my eyes. “I’m coming back tomorrow at nine!” I said loudly from the living room.

“Better make it ten!” she called back, and then giggled. And I was gone.

The rest of the day was not great. I got on the wrong bus and ended up going in pretty much the opposite direction of Ema’s house. Then a guy on the bus tried to steal my bag but I was ok, just a little shaken up. I ended up having to let go of it, but my money was in my bra, anyway. After that happened I waited for the police for a while, and filed a report, then decided to walk.

Walking was a good thing for me. It was a beautiful day, and I needed the exercise! I bought another phone on the way back to Ema’s since my last one had gone with the bag. I also bought a bunch of groceries for her, which were super heavy to carry up all the flights to her house, but exercise was really the order of the day. Wow, stuff was expensive in San Francisco!

While putting away the groceries I found that the phone I had bought was not making any calls outside of the 415 area code. Ugh! I had bought it on my long walk home, and would have to go all the way back there to exchange it. I remembered the name of my mom’s lawyer off the card in my stolen bag, and I called him repeatedly, and finally got through. My mom had missed two meetings with him already! She was just really not good with time and scheduling. I shook my head, feeling annoyed with her. I told him that it wouldn’t happen again and set up an appointment that both she and I would attend.

I looked at Ema’s phone, and thought about calling Alex on it. I felt torn. I missed him, so much! The whole way walking home I had thought about him. I had been a little scared after the purse thing, and it would have been nice to get a hug from him. I thought of how his arms felt around me. In fact, it would even have been nice just to see him from afar! I could at least hear his voice. I reached for the phone. I would just ask him to call me right back so it wouldn’t go on Ema’s bill.

Then I stopped myself. I couldn’t keep anything from Alex! He would know something was wrong and I’d have to tell him about the whole mugging thing, and that the guy had had a knife. He would get really upset about that, and there was no need to worry because I was absolutely fine. I would be able to replace everything that I had been carrying, eventually. I could get a new license and stuff. I decided that maybe I would give myself until the morning to calm down before I talked to him.

Plus, I felt really, really weird about everything with my mom. I somehow didn’t want to tell him what she was up to, with Allen, and being irresponsible with her lawyer, and the trust fund depletion. He didn’t understand how she was. I would be able to work out her issues, eventually. She needed me.

So in the end, I didn’t call him. I made a huge dinner for Ema, and me too (I had been starving after my long walk.) Ema loved the dinner, but told me it was unnecessary.

“You are welcome here, dinners or not,” she told me. She looked at me pityingly. I didn’t need that!

“Ema, I’m going to get all this worked out with my mom as fast as I can. I’m thinking I’ll try to get her to come back to Detroit with me so I can keep a better eye on her. I can’t keep running around to help her out.”

“This isn’t the first time?” she asked me.

“It’s certainly the first time she got involved with the police! I mean, I think so, anyway. But she had some problems in Clearwater, when the boat kind of fell apart and she didn’t know what to do, then she was in Galveston for a while, and she got all mixed up because of not understanding about rental agreements. So I went down there. And in Nashville there were some issues, and a little trouble in Charlottesville. Maybe she should just stay away from cities that end in ‘ville!’ And the last thing was when she was in New York and her rental car got towed and she couldn’t find the paperwork and it turned into a big mess, and I had to straighten it out for her. But that was two years ago. She’s been fine since then.”

“Until now, when she was arrested in San Francisco,” Ema observed.

“Well, yes, until now.”

“Cecilia, how old are you?”

“I’m almost twenty-five.” My birthday was right around the corner.

“How long do you plan on doing this? Taking care of your mother?”

I shrugged.

“Let me tell you what my sponsor told me a long time ago: you can’t save everyone.”

“Ema, that’s terrible! She’s my mom, of course I have to take care of her! I’m not trying to save everyone, anyway.”

“Just her.”

“She needs me,” I explained. She did. What would she have done all these years without my intervention? “No one understands,” I mumbled. First Alex, then Ema. And I knew Ms. Eubank was disapproving. Even Jason and Neveah thought my mom was crazy, although they hadn’t said it in so many words. I could tell.

I got up restlessly, wanting to talk to Alex. Needing to talk to Alex. “I’m going to go for a run,” I told Ema, and pulled on my shoes. I huffed and puffed for a long time through the dirty streets of San Francisco, and felt pretty lost.

Alex

I heard from Cecilia on Friday. “Call me right back at Ema’s!” she said quickly, then hung up.

I had been busy at my desk. Busy having my head hurt, busy not thinking about her. Busy calling Dr. Mavromatis for a prescription for sleeping pills, which he wouldn’t give me unless I went in to see him. Two straight nights without really closing my eyes, and I felt like I was hanging on by a thread.

I called her back as fast as my clumsy fingers could dial the numbers.

“Hi, Alex! I’m so glad to hear your voice,” she said.

“How are you doing out there? Any progress with your mom? ”

“We just have a few minor issues to work through. I’m not sure why you’re so curious about her,” Cecilia told me frostily.

“What? You flew out to California because her friend called you to say she had been arrested. That’s not a minor issue. And I wouldn’t say I’m curious about her, I don’t really care what she does. But I am very concerned about you,” I explained.

“My mom and I are a package deal, Alex! Just like you would tell me to take a hike if I didn’t like Steve.”

“So that’s what’s going on.”

“Huh?” she asked me. “What are you talking about?”

“You’re telling me that if I don’t approve of your mom, and support you chasing her around to take care of her, then we’re done.”

“So you don’t approve of my mom! You think I shouldn’t try to help her!” she said triumphantly. “I knew it!”

“Cecilia, I’ve never even met the woman. But I can tell you that yes, I don’t think you should have to spend your life driving around the country to clean up her messes. You told me about saving her from a lawsuit by her landlord in Texas when she wrecked her apartment, you told me about dealing with the Coast Guard in Florida when they declared that her boat was derelict. I’m sure there are a lot more examples of you stepping in to keep her out of trouble.” My head was pounding and I wasn’t even sure what we were fighting about. “I understand that you love her and you feel the need to rescue her. Again and again. I don’t want to lose you because of it. Because I love you. ”

“Oh, Alex.” I could hear her sniffling through the phone. “I love you too. I’m sorry, I just feel so prickly about my mom right now! I feel like everyone is on my case about her! I’m not trying to break up with you. But I have to get this straightened out for her. I can’t let my mom go to jail.”

I sighed. We weren’t going to solve this over the phone. “Tell me about San Francisco,” I said. She launched into a long description of Ema’s neighborhood, the cool little grocery stores (of course), the dinner she had made. She cheered up considerably describing the dinner. I just listened to her voice, wishing I could touch her.

When she paused for breath, I told her that she had gotten a letter at the condo. “From Bluewater Convalescent Care Center in Connecticut,” I read off the envelope.

I could hear Cecilia suck in a breath. “Can you send it to me?” she asked, and I wrote down Ema Markowitz’s San Francisco address. “This is just really weird,” she told me. “That’s where my mom’s great-aunt lives, and we just were talking about her. Wait, have you been down to the coffee shop? Are Jason and Neveah still fighting?”

“Not as far as I can tell.” I passed along their messages to her and told her that I had seen Ms. Eubank and we had gone to dinner.

Cecilia got all sniffly again. “That was so sweet of you to take her out! I miss everybody. Tell them hello for me. Oh no, what time is it?” When I told her, she said, “Shoot, I have to go soon. I’m going back to where my mom is staying in the Sunset, not the sunset , but the Sunset, like that area, with the reiki guy. And Alex, I really don’t like that guy! I don’t have anything against reiki per se, not like Ema, but he just strikes me as weird. His studio was in the garage of their house in the Sunset, you know, not the sunset , and I guess it was illegal too. The city shut it down. San Francisco, not Detroit. And I’m not even going to get into the minors thing.”

“Honey, you lost me when you were talking about going to see the sunset. Who has rickets?”

“Not rickets, reiki! And his name is Allen.” Finally she was able to explain it all to me, and by the time I understood, she said she really had to go.

“One more thing,” I said. “Does your mom have a lawyer yet?”

“A public defender. He’s kind of mean. I talked to him a little.”

“Ok, I made you guys an appointment with a criminal attorney out there. She’s supposed to be good.”

“Alex, we can’t afford a real lawyer!”

“I can,” I told her. “Just go see this woman with your mom. She looked into her case, and thinks she will be able to straighten it out with a fine.”

“That’s what my mom said, too. A few hundred dollars! She told me like it’s nothing.”

“Cecilia, the attorney I talked to looked at her arrest record. She almost had enough Ecstasy to make it possession for sale, rather than simple possession. That would have been much worse. She’d be getting off easy with a fine. And I’ll pay it, happily.”

“No!”

“Yes,” I told her. “Get a pen and to write down her name and address. You guys have an appointment on Monday at nine AM.”

I told her again that I loved her, and we hung up. I stared at the phone in my hand for a while, then went to report to Jason and Neveah.

Jason was alone, singing to himself. A few customers listened avidly, and clapped when he stopped. He smiled at them, then waved when he saw me. “Doesn’t sound as good solo,” he said. “I miss the duet.”

I did too. I told him she was doing well and he asked me when she would be back. I didn’t know, but I hoped the lawyer would speed things up. I didn’t give a fuck if her selfish mom went to prison, but I wanted her off Cecilia’s back.

I got a coffee for my brother—extra-hot large decaf with room for milk, Jason directed me—and brought it back to his office. He was on the phone, but motioned me to a seat.

“I talked to her,” I told him when he hung up.

“How is she?”

I signed. “She sounded weird. Anxious. Her mom is living with some guy who may be a jailbird. I’m going to look him up. I got her mom a new lawyer too, so she should be covered.”

“Sounds like you’re taking care of her,” Steve commented.

“Yeah, from 2,000 miles away.”

“She’s not Justine, Alex. She will come back,” he told me.

“You don’t have to tell me that, Steve. I know she’s not like our mom.” But my heart had stuttered when he said that. What if she didn’t? Maybe this was the life she wanted, trailing after her mom to sweep up the messes. My mind flashed to the drawing I had made of her dream house on the back of the placemat up north. What did she really want?

“What do you think about that Dr. Mavromatis?” Steve suddenly asked me.

“I think he’s good. He’s kind of a smartass, which I enjoy in a psychiatrist.”

“He’s a Michigan man.”

My brother was inordinately proud of his alma mater. “Yeah. Go Blue. Why?”

“I made an appointment with him.”

My eyebrow raised. “For yourself?”

“I have to learn to let go a little with you. We went over all your financial information. I can see you’re more than capable of handling it. You do a great job here.” I snorted. “No, you do. But mostly, I watch you with Cecilia. I can see that you’re an adult, and I know that I need to stop the trying to control you, control your life. Maybe he can help me with that.”

“I appreciate that you’re trying,” I said, and Steve nodded.

He stood up. “Let’s get out of here.”

“Are you serious? You would be leaving early twice in one week. Have you ever done that?”

“Probably not,” he said, and grinned.

“Are the employees going to start thinking the company is going under? ”

“They may.”

I grinned back at him. “Feel like doing some yardwork?”

We headed to Ms. Eubank’s house, stopping along the way at a hardware store to pick up some tools. “I’m just thrilled to meet more of Cecilia’s family!” she told us, when she ushered us in to the plaid couch room. “Why, you are a big one, aren’t you!”

An embarrassed flush spread down Steve’s neck and I laughed. “He’s a good worker, too. We’re going to clean up your back yard a little.”

She clasped her hands to her chest. “Really? Well, I’ll start mixing the cookie dough!”

Steve and I worked like dogs. Her back yard was so overgrown, I kept expecting to find a body somewhere. Maybe Jimmy Hoffa.

“These are grapevines!” I exclaimed, pulling off one of the curling tendrils and chewing on it. “Remember, Steve? This was our gum up north.”

He laughed and wiped sweat off his forehead. “Back when I thought it was a good idea to eat those.”

“It’s fine,” I scoffed, and looked around. “We’re going to need another set of bags before we cut back anymore.”

“Boys!” Ms. Eubank called from the back porch.

“I think she means us,” Steve told me. “She’s mistaking your immaturity for youth.”

“She’s confused due to my boyish good looks,” I corrected him, and he smacked me, which led to the first wrestling match we’d had in at least fifteen years, rolling around Ms. Eubank’s newly cleared yard. He had me pinned in about a minute.

“Say it!” he ordered.

“No!”

“Say it!” He pulled my arms harder.

“Steveisthemasteroftheuniverseandallhesurveys!”

“And?”

“Ihumblybowdowntohim!”

We were crying with laughter. Ms. Eubank watched us, flummoxed. “I didn’t have brothers,” she explained, as we brushed ourselves off before we went into her neat little house. “I never understood all the physical fighting. My sisters and I just called each other horrible names.” She watched us at the sink, making sure we washed our hands thoroughly, then let us gorge on the treats she had made. “Neither of you will eat any dinner,” she said disapprovingly, then passed me the plate of cookies again.

“Hey, Ms. Eubank. Cecilia said you were the Kitchen Genie,” I remarked.

“I was,” she said. “I hope she also mentioned that I didn’t come up with that stupid name.”

“You were what?” Steve asked. So she explained all about her cooking show, and about Detroit television. Soupy Sales, Milky the Clown. Bill Bonds was just coming on the Detroit airwaves when she went off them. By the time we left her house, it was dark, and Steve invited me to have dinner with him and stay at his place. “Not to keep an eye on you,” he told me. “I’m just having fun.”

So was I, and I was pretty grateful. I had only checked my phone several thousand times, rather than several million.

We drove back to his house, and I further convinced him to go rowing with me on Saturday morning, which he fully hated, and to take a quick trip up north. I argued that it wasn’t that far, and that he could monitor my driving. The nail in the coffin was when I told him we had better check on Annie and what was happening at Dad’s house. He was never one to pass up a chance to supervise. I set him up with Annie on Saturday when we arrived so they could inspect the house together, and I took the car to do a little recon of my own. Then later we had dinner at her house with Annie and her husband Neil, her daughter Macdara, his son Ellis, their son together, Bjarni, who had just started walking around like a tiny Frankenstein, and their soon to be new baby, who was at present was inside Annie’s flat stomach. It was loud and chaotic, and a lot of fun. It made me think a lot of Cecilia and how she wanted a big family. I thought that she would be a good mom. She had so much love in her.

It was a productive trip for me, and Steve relaxed a lot. I did too, after I talked to Ceci a few times. She still sounded distant, and kind of upset, but she also was starting to sound ticked at her mom. Good. I was trying not to see that woman as totally evil, but the more Cecilia talked about her, the more I disliked her. Especially after I finally tracked down her mom’s boyfriend’s last name on Monday and did a quick search of him. I didn’t want Cecilia anywhere around him.