Page 28 of Full Court Love
I hear her deep exhale on the other end of the line. Guilt creeps in as I realize how little I check in with her. Of course she assumes something’s wrong. In our family, something isalmost always wrong. Or better put, a specific someone has usually done something wrong. Either way, I’m happy I don’t have to bear any bad news to my sweet mother right now.
She’s finally recovered from whatever tragedy she was mentally preparing for, and her tone is back to normal. Well, her tone is tired. But with how hard she works at the hospital, that is her normal.
“Okay, so nothing’s wrong. But I know something’s up. How are you?”
“I’m good. Really good, actually.”
We discuss my most recent games, and she sounds happy the more we talk. I know she misses me. I also know she watches every single game, even when she’s working. She’ll have it on the TV at the nurses’ station and force everyone to cheer for me. I’ve been playing well and enjoying it, which is a massive change of pace for me.
My mom was a huge advocate for me getting away. She loves my dad and has stuck by him through thick and thin, but she also loves me, and she wants me to be happy. Even if that takes me hundreds of miles away from her.
After exhausting all the usual topics of conversation, there’s a lull. She decides not to make me say it. The woman reads me like a book.
“So, who’s the girl?”
Turning my face toward the ceiling, I squeeze my eyes shut. “Her name is Lucy.”
I hear the smile in my mom’s voice. “And…”
“And…she’s significantly out of my league. I know you’re my mom, so you think I’m amazing and all that, but she really is too good for me. We’ve been talking and kind of hanging out, but she’s not the type to only want that. But I don’t know how to do more than that. Like, how do you communicate that you want something serious?” I take a breath.
“Well, have you asked her out on a date?”
“I mean, I…well, no.”
My mom scoffs. “How about starting there? Then just continue to show up for her. It sounds like you’re already building a friendship with this girl. That’s the best way to do it.”
I don’t think I’m imagining the sudden change in her tone. There’s a little sadness as she keeps talking.
“Yeah, friendship is the best foundation for a relationship. At some point, everything else fades. But you want to be in it with your best friend.”
For most of my life, my parents didn’t spend a whole lot of time together. My mom worked, and my dad drank and took me to basketball tournaments. But I do have some mental screenshots of them together deep in my memory bank.
My dad spinning my mom around the kitchen as he blared “The Way You Look Tonight,” their first dance song. My mom stroking my dad’s face gently after he cut his eye open falling out of a tree, attempting to build me the world’s most rickety tree house. The two of them howling with laughter at baby pictures of me.
I was so worried about getting out from under my dad’s thumb, I forget that my mom is still living in that storm. It’s a storm she will never leave. She loves my dad too much. And despite all of his many shortcomings, I know he loves her.
Love is weird that way.
And terrifying.
There’s the potential for so much good. But as I hear the heartache beneath my mom’s words, I realize just how much hurt it can cause, too. It’s a big risk.
It’s one that my mom would tell me is worth it.
“How are you doing, Mom?”
My tone is sincere. This isn’t a throwaway question, like it usually is.
“Oh, I’m good. You know, the emergency room is alwayscrazy and demanding, but that makes the time fly by. And Dad has a new job. Have you talked to him?”
Of course he has a new job. He always has a new job because he can’t hold a job. Now is not the time to start a conflict, though. She sounds hopeful for him.
“No, I haven’t. What’s he doing?”
“Something in sales. I think it deals with technology, but all of the words sound so foreign to me, I can’t give you any more information than that. You should ask him about it.”
God bless this woman, still trying to mend fences for the stubborn men in her life.