“Why is it that my mom can find three guys who will marry her, and I can’t even find one?” I asked.
“You’ll find someone; I just know you will. Just be patient and let it happen. That’s how it worked for me and Bill. I just stopped looking and he happened to show up.”
“I haven’t even started looking, and now you’re telling me I should stop?” I asked.
“Just keep doing what you’re doing and the right guy is bound to show up when you least expect it,” she said. I knew her words weren’t meant to stress me out, or make me more frustrated, but it wasn’t something I could just set aside.
“I thought he already had,” I said.
“Not every guy is going to be like Mark, Hel,” she replied coldly.
I’d really thought that I had met a wonderful person when I started dating Mark. He was gorgeous and knew how to please me in more ways than one. I had even thought he was going to ask to move in together soon, but when I surprised him at his apartment, I knew it wouldn’t work out. Or at least, that was how I felt after I saw him in bed with another woman.
“I think I’m just done trying altogether. I need a man break. I think I’m just going to get drunk, tell my mom congratulations, and forget life for a while,” I said.
“Promise me one thing, Hel,” she said.
“Okay, fine. What?” I sighed.
“Promise me you’ll keep an open mind. You never know what’s out there unless you give it a chance.”
“I make no promises, but I’ll try,” I said.
“I gotta go. The kids are waking up. Have fun, Hellen, for both of us!”
“I’m glad I have your permission. I’ll drink twice as much,” I said with a laugh, ending the call.
A chime rang over the intercom; my flight was beginning to board. I exhaled deeply, trying to push out all my frustrations and anxiety. I could feel myself edging closer to some semblance of normality, but that all came crashing down the moment I picked up my luggage and headed toward the gate.
2.
“Hellen!” reverberated my mother’s familiar screech from the crowd. She was a woman blessed with a lack of embarrassment. I did my best to keep up with her.
“Mom,” I said back, with an awkward look over the gathered crowd that was now paying almost exclusive attention to us.
“You look gorgeous as always. How was the flight?” she asked off-handedly.
“Do you really care about the flight? That seems like needless small talk,” I replied with a cocked eye.
“Well, can’t blame a girl for trying,” she said with a shrug.
I sat my things on a nearby bench and looked her square in the eye.
“Can we just talk about the elephant in the room and get this over with?” I asked in a pleading manner.
She swept over and took the seat by my bags, plopping down loudly on the wooden bench.
“Oh fine,” she started, “but let me say a couple of things quick before you start storming your mouth off at your mother.”
I let out a drawn-out sigh and took a seat beside her on the bench.
“Duke isn’t like your father. He’s straightforward and loud, and I like that. Your father was too timid and always too busy for us. Secondly, Duke knows what it means to be a father; he has a son, and his son turned out all right, just like you.”
“Are you telling me I’m going to have a stepbrother?” I asked.
“Why yes, and he’s just a little older than you,” she replied with a smile.
I rested my head in my hands and massaged my temples to ease the headache that was beginning to form.
“Don’t you think a stepbrother is something you could have told me about over the phone before ambushing me with it in person?”
She laughed, and it only served to make my head pound even harder.
“I don’t see why it would really matter.”
“Mom, I don’t know how to tell you, but this all sounds ridiculous. I’m going to be related to two people I haven’t even met, and didn’t know existed more than a month ago. Don’t you think you’re getting married just a little too quickly?”
She calmed herself and embraced me as she always had in the past to comfort me. I missed her warm hugs; I didn’t get enough of them when I was living almost an entire country away.
“I’m at a point where life doesn’t give you anything; all it does is start taking away. So, I scrape and claw to hold on to anything that feels right. This feels right, and I don’t have all the time in the world to be dating. I need someone who’ll take care of me when I’m sick, someone I can depend on.”
She held me for a few minutes, and I didn’t want it to end. This felt like the end of our simple little family. I was regretting my inability to visit her when she was lonely, and to make it home for all the holidays. She was always my rock when I needed to feel grounded, my wings when I needed to fly. She deserved something real that she could hold on to, and I felt like a jerk for having thought of denying her that satisfaction.