Chapter_7_Queen_B_s

The two-and-a-half-hour drive to my mom’s seems to happen in grueling slow motion. Even though I wasn’t receptive to the Provincetown party that Biz seems to desperately want, trekking back to my hometown right now is not what I had in mind before the arrival of the baby.

Not that I don’t want to be with my mom and brother—we’re close enough—but surely the baby will bring my family together more often than our once-a-year Christmas visits. I just didn’t think it would happen now.

The sea air scent of the Atlantic is replaced with the fresh smell of hospital as we arrive at Beth Israel, feeling bedraggled by the back-to-back long-distance driving.

With Matilda on her leash, walking slowly behind us, still waking up from her car sleep, we arrive at the front desk.

“May I help you?” the generically friendly receptionist asks us. Her plastic golden name tag tells the world she’s “Phyllis.” She looks like a former suburban soccer mom who raised three perfect children and is now creeping toward her seventies with a volunteer job that she dislikes but what else is she going to do with her time these days.

“We’re looking for Alex Wallace?” I say.

While Phyllis types on her laptop, Biz curls up in a beige leather chair and looks like he wants to take a nap. He did most of the driving and it shows.

“Third floor,” Phyllis says, eyeing Biz, disapproving of how comfortable he’s becoming with his foot tucked under his leg.

“Thank you, Phyllis,” I say, trying to get chummy with her. Her tight smile falls as she looks down and spots Matilda.

“Oh. No dogs allowed. Unless you have papers,” Phyllis says.

“Papers?” I ask, my voice cracking on the second syllable.

“Papers declaring it’s a service dog,” she says.

“She isn’t a service dog but thank you.” Biz lets the lady have it from his lounge chair.

“We’ll keep her outside,” I say, trying to soften our approach.

The woman wants so badly to roll her eyes but she coldly ignores us and answers the phone. Biz stands, staring her down. I grab Matilda and shuffle us away from the front desk.

“Just relax. You can take M for a spin around the building,” I say. “Not a big deal.”

“I know but she’s just so rude. Don’t work in a friggin’ hospital if you’re going to treat people and animals like that.”

I don’t want to escalate Biz’s frustration. I know he resents having to skip out on Provincetown early.

“Text me a status update,” he says as he takes Matilda through the automatic doors outside where they’d both rather be anyway.

When the elevator transports me to the third floor, the sounds of various machines beeping and hissing and pumping makes me miss the beach too.

I enter my brother’s room, where my mom springs up from a chair and gives me a giant hug, as if she’s been waiting for me. She won’t let go.

Through our embrace, I see my sister-in-law, Megan, her eyes puffy and red from crying, her gigantic diamond ring always shockingly prominent. “Hi, Wyatt. Thanks for coming,” Megan says upon seeing me. Even through her tears, her resting face always suggests she’s disappointed in me. Like I’m not good enough to be her brother-in-law.

By the look my mom silently serves me, it’s clear she’s been here too long and needs to escape her daughter-in-law. “I am so happy to see you,” my mom beams.

I step in farther but don’t see my brother anywhere. I’m wary of all the cords and monitors around the room, worried they’ve taken him someplace even worse.

“Wyatt! Holy crap. You actually made it,” Alex says, exiting the bathroom with a smile, looking slightly beaten up.

For a second, I don’t recognize him. He has glossy eyes, a cut along the bridge of his nose, a few bruises on his arms and he’s wearing a black wrist brace.

Even though he’s two years younger than me, Alex is slightly taller. With his reddish hair and fair skin, he looks more like my mom than I do. It’s hard to believe I used to give piggyback rides to this person who’s now a grown adult man.

“We were in Provincetown so it wasn’t too far,” I say. Alex crushes me with his usual bear hug. Despite his appearance, I’m relieved he’s stronger than ever.

“You should’ve seen him last night,” my mom says, trying to justify her reason for asking me here. “He could’ve taken a turn for the worse and I wanted you here just in case.”

“Yeah, I kinda bounced back overnight,” Alex admits.

“Leave it to Alex,” Megan says, grabbing her husband’s arm as if to suggest she owns him. Her ring looks like it could cut all of us at any second.

“They’re giving him a CT scan today to check for any brain injuries,” my mom says.

“What happened?” I ask.

“You know how Alex loves that dumb mountain biking,” my mom offers.

“Seriously, Mom?” Alex protests.

“Please stop saying it’s dumb, Beverly. It’s his passion,” Megan says. The condescending tone of her voice always sounds like the high school mean girl who tells you which day she and her sycophants wear pink and why you are not allowed to wear pink.

Alex’s eyes helplessly pinball around, as if to say, can’t we all just get along?

“It IS dumb,” my mom continues, obviously stressed. “You just go in circles around a dirt path and you never get anywhere until you split your head open.”

“Except I didn’t split my head open,” Alex says.

“Just tell me what happened,” I say, trying to stay focused and defuse stress levels.

“It started raining. I was with my buddies. I took a wrong turn and smacked my head on a tree. Boom. Here we are,” Alex says.

My mom bites her lower lip. She can’t take it when her little prince is hurt. Me on the other hand, I’m supposed to swoop in and make everyone feel better.

“Alex is making it seem simpler than it was,” Megan chimes in.

I’m sure there are three sides to this story.

“Were you wearing a helmet?” I ask.

“I forgot it,” Alex admits.

“They were in Foxboro and didn’t want to drive all the way back home.” Megan is trying anything to make Alex not look bad.

“You didn’t need to come. I’m honestly fine,” Alex insists, not looking totally fine as he struggles to climb back into bed.

“They’re saying he might have a concussion,” my mom says to me. “I’m glad you’re here.”

“I don’t have a concussion,” Alex says. “Aren’t you supposed to be on your babymoon thing?”

“We are but we wanted to make sure you were okay,” I say.

Mom turns to me. “You look good, honey. Skinny. Too skinny. Are you eating? Any news with the baby? Oh, I’m so excited you’re home! You can finally go through all your old boxes in the basement and get rid of some stuff. Where’s Biz?”

“I’m fine. The baby’s fine. Biz is outside with Matilda.”

“You three can go visit with each other if you want. Alex probably needs a little rest right now anyway,” Megan says.

In the hallway, my mom stabs the elevator down button and rolls her eyes, silently shaking her head at me. I can tell she’s had enough of Megan.

“She’s got a lotta balls, that one,” my mom whispers about Megan. “She’s making all the decisions without me. As if I’m not even there. I’m his mother, for chrissakes.”

“Mom, you don’t have to whisper. She can’t hear us,” I say, noticing a nurse walking by and looking at us suspiciously.

My mom looks at me and smiles. “Am I glad you’re here.”

Holding the elevator door open for my mom, I finally get a good look at what she’s wearing: a yellow pleated pencil skirt with a matching belt, a crisp white button-down shirt with the collar popped and her ubiquitous high heels.

She waits until we walk out of the building to tie a floral silk scarf around her neck, draping it just so as it strikes me for the billionth time in my life just how stylish Ms. Beverly Wallace is for any occasion.

My mom was always a little higher profile and better dressed than other moms. It used to bother me as a kid, seeing Mom dressed to the nines, picking me up from hockey games with her freshly coiffed hair and makeup while the other moms wore basic yoga clothes they bought at Target.

The not-yet-out high school me never wanted to draw attention to myself, and the fact that the whole community gossiped about how increasingly fancy my mom dressed kept me mortified and resentful of her through my teen years. Young Wyatt Henry Wallace tried to hide the monogrammed clothing Mom insisted on buying me, often resorting to wearing my socks with the tiny “WHW” inside out.

When I was eight years old and my dad left us with basically nothing, my mom and her four best friends, Bonnie, Brenda, Barbra and Betty, started their own real estate business. “Queen B’s Realty” became the community’s top real estate agency and had dozens of billboards, bus shelters and local commercials to prove it. They were a tenacious group of women whose smiling faces on every corner turned them into Newton’s honorary mayors. As an adult, I’ve learned to respect and embrace the amazing person my mom has become.

Looking around for Biz outside the hospital, I see a text from him telling me to walk across the street to the park. My mom can’t get far enough away from Megan for a few minutes, even in her high heels, which she could run a marathon in.

“Bizzy! Matilda! How’s my favorite son-in-law?” Mom throws out her arms and hugs Biz like he’s her favorite kid.

“Beverly! How are you?! How’s Alex?” Biz asks, as Mom kisses him hello.

“They’re testing him for a possible concussion. I’m just worried. You hear all those stories of people hitting their head and they—” My mom can’t even continue the thought.

“He’ll be fine, Mom,” I say, trying to console her.

I wave off my mom’s genuine concern. It’s a weird role I’ve always had to assume. The older brother savior. I just did it naturally until I grew up and realized I’d been playing substitute to my absent dad.

Once Alex married Megan, he didn’t rely on me as much. As the third-generation heiress to a successful baby back rib chain, Megan has given Alex a whole new life. Alex became an executive within the company and now has everything he ever wanted.

“There you are,” a determined voice says from afar as we all turn to see Megan approach, holding a box of Kleenex, wiping her runny nose.

“What’s the matter? Is he okay?” Mom asks. “And how on earth did you find us?” she follows up, as if she really didn’t want Megan to find us.

“The receptionist told me you guys were out here. Alex is okay. He’s with the physical therapist,” Megan says.

“Thank god. I thought something was wrong the way you’re rushing out here.” My mom’s worried face softens.

“I was texting you but you weren’t answering so I came out here,” Megan says. “Evelyn and Melody’s show is tonight. I don’t want to leave but the nanny has to spend the night at her mother’s house, which is like a forty-five-minute drive, because she’s having a colonoscopy tomorrow and...”

As she continues, I notice my mom has full-on dissociated, her eyes almost disappearing into the back of her head. Mom can only take on so much stress and she certainly doesn’t have the bandwidth to manage her son’s nanny’s colonoscopy.

“What’s the show?” Biz chimes in. Clearly he’s actually listening to her.

“They’re performing A Chorus Line. It’s so cute,” says Megan. “I’m sad we’ll miss it.”

“A Chorus Line?” Biz perks up. Suddenly, we’re firmly inside his wheelhouse. “Wait—isn’t that a little adult? Your nieces are like ten.” Biz aims this at me, not wanting to upset the easily upsettable Megan.

“They’re nine but the school changed some of the lyrics so it’s age appropriate,” Megan says.

“Private school. They can do that kind of stuff,” my mom says to us.

“Trust me, they cleared it with all the parents. It was a whole thing before the school year even started. Anyway, I don’t want to leave Alex alone tonight,” Megan says as she looks at my mom, who just stares back, conflicted.

“I can stay with Alex tonight,” my mom offers.

Megan tilts her head in thought. She’s intent on making the smarter move.

“I thought maybe you could take the kids to their play? I can’t pull them,” Megan says.

“I don’t know if I want to leave my son for too long either though,” Mom says.

“But they worked so hard on this show and their hearts will break,” Megan insists.

“We can take them,” Biz jumps in, which suddenly feels like the much-needed glue my family could use right now and always.

Biz and I glance at each other. I can’t tell if he genuinely wants to start his parenting duties early or if he’s trying to impress me. Either way, it’s making me hopeful.

“Are you sure?” Megan asks, sizing both of us up. “I mean, it’d be such a big help, but only if you want to.” Normally, she’d never let us babysit the kids—she’s too controlling. But she has no choice in this unusual situation.

Come to think of it, we’ve never been with the kids on our own. Not living in the same city makes it harder to bond. But it doesn’t help that Megan created codependent kids that used to cling to each of her legs and wouldn’t let anyone except their nanny get near them. She even made their nanny sign her life away in blood with a lengthy legal contract and life-threatening nondisclosure agreement.

Megan is paranoid enough to think there’s an organized army somewhere lurking around their cul-de-sac who wants to kidnap the fourth-generation heirs to a baby back rib chain.

“We’d love to do it,” I say, happy to indulge my paternal instincts while simultaneously fulfilling my uncle duties.

“When and where is your next destination?” my mom asks with a subtext that screams take me with you.

“We should probably get back to P-town tomorrow,” Biz says.

I raise an eyebrow. “We should?”

“We shouldn’t?” Biz replies.

“I thought we agreed to just keep going west. Seems silly to go backward,” I say, my whole body tensing up, knowing neither of us wants to have this conversation in front of my mom and Megan. “And we should wait to see how my brother is doing tomorrow.”

I glance at my mom and Megan for support. They’re both mesmerized by us airing our grievances like this in front of them. It’s obvious Megan is fighting the urge to retract her ask.

“You’re welcome to stay with me as long as you boys would like,” my mom says, delighted for the distraction. “But promise me you’ll go through all your old boxes when you get home? We can ship what you need back to Brooklyn.”

“Yes, yes. I promise,” I say.

Megan knows we’re fully capable of babysitting, and yet in some cobwebbed, dusty nook of her mind, I’m sure she’s letting herself imagine the worst. She pulls a tissue to silence the bad thoughts. “Thank you, guys.” And blows her nose. “Just remember, they can be a handful. But they should be fine. They love their uncles.”

“It could be like a trial run for being dads!” my mom adds.