“Listen, Mom. I’ve told you that I’m going to be okay. I have Blair and Susan if I need anything. Hell, if I get really desperate I can always call on Jackson. He’s only around the corner from us; I can always get a hold of him if I have to. I’m set; you don’t need to worry.”
She frowns and then begins rummaging around in an oversized purse she’s always carrying. I have no idea what could constitute the need to carry around a purse large enough to transport a small child. She squats on the floor and starts to pull out all of its contents one by one. Her cell, a notebook, what I’m assuming is a makeup bag, deodorant, a pack of tissues. I stare at her, getting more and more frustrated as she searches. A young couple walks past and the woman almost trips on all the shit Mom has laid out on the sidewalk. The guy is looking at us like we’re crazy.
“Mom, what are you doing? Get up, you’re embarrassing me.”
“Oh, hush your mouth. I can’t find—oh wait, here it is.” She pulls her wallet from the bag and holds it out to me triumphantly. “Found it,” she says, handing it over.
All that hassle. Why chicks don’t just carry them in their pockets, I’ll never know. I wait impatiently as she shoves all the crap she’s just unpacked back into the purse.
“Right, that’s better,” she announces, taking the wallet from me and pulling out her Amex card. She hands it to me. “You know my pin, so use it for food, gas et cetera. Just don’t go overboard with it.”
I give her a surprised look. “Um, okay. I don’t need it though. I have money.”
“I know, honey, but I’d feel better if you used it. That’s not an invitation to go and buy that new Fender, though.” She half smiles. “Try to be responsible.”
“Okay, look, I need to get back in there.” I point my thumb behind me to the restaurant. “They’ll be wondering where I am.”
“Oh, okay. Ethan, honey, I just wanted to ask—how’s your memory? Are things starting to come back to you yet?”
She asks in a strange tone, worried or nervous, maybe. It’s only been a matter of hours since I saw her last. Why would she think anything had changed?
“No, not yet,” I lie. I’m not even sure why, but I don’t want to tell her the truth. She bites at the inside of her cheek and studies me for a moment. I think she knows I lied, but she doesn’t call me out on it. There’s an awkward silence as my mind is racing about why she would ask me that and then react so strangely. How would she even know I was lying?
“I’ll let you get back to dinner.” She moves closer and gives me a small, quick hug. It's about as unnatural as they come. We don’t have a cuddly mother-son-rainbows-and-unicorns relationship.
“Bye, Mom.” I make my way back into the restaurant as she shouts that she’ll call me tomorrow. I don’t acknowledge it; chances are I won’t answer if she does. Nothing has changed from earlier. She’s still choosing him, and I still hate her for it.
WE ARE ON our way to the campsite, Ethan’s driving, and I’m tucked up in the passenger seat, wondering why this feels so awkward. He’s barely spoken to me since we finished dinner and collected his car from the seedy bar where we abandoned it. He was acting strange when he walked back into the restaurant. He didn’t mention that he’d seen Moira, and I haven’t brought it up because I didn’t want him to question how I knew she’d seen him. I can’t formalize a good enough excuse to tell him, and the truth—that I’m feeding her info on his memory so she can keep secrets from him—sits so badly with me that I’m sure he’d hate me. Why wouldn’t he? I’m starting to. I need to talk to her when we get home. I can’t do this; I should have just said no in the first place.
“You warm enough?” he asks as he fiddles with the dials on his dash. “You’re shivering.”
“I’m fine, baby.”
“So we’ll pick up our shit from the site, go get gas and head out, okay?”
It’s more of a statement than a question so I simply smile and rest my head against the cool glass of the window, watching him as he studies the road ahead. Something is definitely bothering him.
According to my mom, someone from the site had called her while we were at the hospital. I guess they had noticed that we hadn’t packed up and left when we were supposed to.
We make it to the campsite after what feels like the longest twenty minutes of my life. I hate how the mood keeps swinging from comfortable to awkward. The unsettled feeling I have is ramping up as we pack up our belongings and he still doesn’t attempt to make conversation. I throw my bag into the trunk and my resolve finally snaps.
“Ethan, has something happened? Are you mad at me? You’ve barely spoken a full sentence to me at all in the last hour.”
“Why would you think I’m mad at you?”
“I’m not sure,” I shrug. “I just know something’s getting to you, and you are not doing a particularly stellar job of hiding it.” His eyes shoot up in surprise at my observation.