Love Is Overdue (39 page)

“
I don’t know about that.”
I wasn’t convinced.

I felt his fingers pushing my hair
back and tipping my face up. He locked his eyes to mine. “Well, I
do…trust me.”

“
I wish you could stay here
with me tonight. You could hide out in the bedroom, he won’t even
know you’re here…”

Ben laughed softly. “No thanks,
baby…you got this, though.”

I sighed. “Okay…I guess so…” I wasn’t
able to hide my disappointment.

“
And I’ll see you
tomorrow,” he said softly, tipping my chin up and kissing me
softly.

I licked my lips, staring back at him.
“I really can’t convince you, can I?”

He shook his head slowly, as he traced
my lips with his thumb, watching me. “No…you gotta do this
yourself, Gabby. Besides…I got some sleep to catch up
on.”

I rolled my eyes. “You and your
love-affair with sleeping…”

“
It’s one a my favourite
things,” he winked back at me.

“
Yeah…no shit, Martha
Stewart,” I teased him back. “That and all your fancy kitchen
gadgets…”

He laughed at that. “This ain’t fancy,
baby – cost me twenty bucks.” He shrugged it off.

I
glared back at him. “Oh, I feel so loved…” Then I bit my lip. The L
word was one I stumbled over all the time with Ben – and was always
successful at suppressing. And twenty bucks
was
definitely
nothing compared to the thousands of dollars Ben was shelling out
for me at the moment…I was such a moron.

But Ben just smiled back at me, pushed
my hair back, and gave me another little kiss on my forehead.
“Later, baby.”

And so about an hour later there I sat
in my brand new living room, among my old living room furniture and
a few cardboard boxes, the emptiness feeling so foreign to me. And
it was way too fucking quiet. The TV and cable was still hooked up
back at the old apartment. I had my lap top and my phone, but no
internet. I guess Laz and I would have no choice but to sit and
talk to each other.

Chapter
Eighteen

When I was a really little girl –
before my mom got ill – Lazaro was my protector. He always found a
way to distract me, play with me, make me laugh and tell me stories
as soon as the screaming matches between Raoul and my mother would
begin. Sometimes he would sneak me out onto the little balcony of
our apartment on the hill overlooking the city – even in the middle
of the night – and we would dangle our bare legs between the
wrought iron railing and he would read to me. At the age of 8 he
was already reading well ahead of any of the other children in his
class and his teacher would let him bring three books home every
night. I would beg him for stories about beautiful princesses like
Cinderella and Snow White and Sleeping Beauty, but Laz refused to
indulge me in any fairy tales. Instead he generally read me stories
about slaying dragons, because as he put it, that shit was real and
could one day save my life.

It was that same little boy – my
protector – that I recognized in the picture of my nephew Felipe,
as I scrolled through the photos on Laz’s phone the night he
arrived. Of course, I had seen many pictures of his kids before
that – on facebook and via email – but it never really hit me until
that moment how much I saw of my brother in his son.

“
Mama will like these,” I
said then, scanning back over my favourites, as we sat together on
the couch. “We should go get a few printed tomorrow on the way to
the hospital…”

Laz nodded slowly. “I sent her that
album last Christmas, does she still have it?”

“
Yeah. She keeps it in her
dresser, though. In the top drawer.”

He gave me a strange look. “She keeps
it in a drawer?”

I nodded. “It’s just easier for her,
Laz. To have it close to her, you know…she spends a lot of time in
her bed.”

He let his breath out deeply, rubbing
his palms over his thighs. I had never seen anyone look more
uncomfortable…more nervous…more ready to just jump up and
bolt…

I paused, trying to gather my
thoughts. “Why did you come?”

He glanced back over at me again.
“What kinda question is that, Gabby?” He dismissed it, and stood up
slowly, glancing around the room, taking in his surroundings. “How
the hell did you even find this place?” he wondered, changing the
subject and starting to wander down the hallway.

I stood up and followed behind him. “A
friend of mine.”

“
Can you even afford it?” I
saw him peeking in at the washer/dryer.

“
Well…it’s a stretch…but
I’ll make it work.”

He gave me a confused look. “So you’re
just paying for two apartments right now?” He didn’t look to be
buying it. “And you’re gonna move Mom in here with you when they
let her go?”

I nodded. “Yup. That’s the plan. There
were like ten steps up the front porch at the old place – there’s
no way we could get her wheelchair in and out, and this
place…well…as you can see…”

“
Gabby, why are you doing
this?” Laz just stared back at me, cutting me off in
mid-sentence.

I swallowed. “Excuse me?”

“
Here.” He reached into his
back pocket then and pulled out what looked like a piece of paper
but when he unfolded it I noticed it was actually a pamphlet of
some sort. “I wanted to show you this first, before we talk to Mom
about it tomorrow, I didn’t want to spring it on you…just take a
look.”

I
took the piece of paper from him and immediately understood. Pine
Tree Hollows Long-Term Care Home.
Providing Quality Care, Support and Assistance To All Our
Residents Since 1973.

“
I don’t fucking believe
this.”

“
Just look at it, Gabby.
What do you think Andrea and I have been doing for the past month
or so? We looked into everything, all right…they have an excellent
reputation – check out the website, everything’s there – plus she
can get in right away…and the difference between her disability
cheque and the fees are just a couple hundred dollars. We talked
about it and Andrea and I will cover the difference. We want to do
this, Gabby, and I think Mom will want this too, I just really need
you to be on board with this ‘cause you know if you fight it she’ll
just…”

“
Forget it.” I dropped the
brochure onto the table. “You’re not doing this, Laz.”

“
Gabby, open your fucking
eyes – please – for once in your life!” Laz was pleading with me.
“You can’t do this yourself, not anymore, not like this…I talked to
Teresa and she agrees with me, she can’t do this anymore either,
why can’t you see that?”

“
That’s fine. I don’t need
Teresa anymore.”

“
Okay, so what are you
gonna do? You gonna quit your job and play nurse all day long? How
the fuck is Mom gonna take care of herself here all day by herself?
Have you thought about that? Have you thought about anything,
Gabby?”

“
Of course I have!” I shot back. “We went through everything
at the hospital already – Mom qualifies for home care now, someone
will be here every day with her while I’m at work, I’m not fuckin’
stupid, Laz, I know what Mom needs, okay – I’m the only one that
even gives a shit about her anyway! I mean, you can say what you
like about how you did the
honorable
thing by
running away and not burdening your mother with any guilt so she
can instead just wallow alone in her bedroom by herself and stare
at all your beautiful goddamn photo albums all day…so
grateful
and
thankful
and
fucking
blessed
that her son was able to escape her.
Give me a fucking break, Laz! Don’t you think it would be nice for
her to see her grandchildren? Don’t you think it would be nice
for
anyone
whose life has been crippled and broken and torn
out from under them to at least have their children with them?” I
was shaking but I swallowed back the tears. I had cried
enough.

Laz was just staring back at me. He
didn’t say anything for a long time. And I just waited. For what, I
don’t know, but I wasn’t sure I even cared anymore. I really wanted
my bed, but considering how the screaming match was playing out in
my new hallway, I was glad Ben had insisted on going home. It would
have killed me for him to have listened to this…

“
You know…Gabby…this wasn’t
the first time.” His voice was calm when he did finally
speak.

I ran my fingers through my hair.
“What do you mean?”

“
I mean…long before all
this…long before Mom was ever really sick, Gabby…” His voice broke
suddenly and I stared back at him…waiting. “It’s not about the MS.
The pills…the depression…fuck, Gabby…all of that was there before,
don’t you get it?”

I shook my head slowly, not wanting to
listen to him anymore. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,
Laz.”

“
I know you don’t. Because
I didn’t want you to know.”

I was getting a head ache. “Laz, what
the fuck are you talking about?”

He drew his breath in slowly, watching
me. “Do you remember when we moved here…like six months or
something after we moved here, Gabby, you finally made that friend
across the street, I forget her name, but you used to ride your
bike with her all the time…”

“
Stephanie.” My voice was a
whisper.

Laz nodded slowly. “Yeah…Stephanie…and
a few weeks later she invited you to sleep over, remember, and you
kept begging Mom to let you go and she kept saying no and you
started crying and you got so upset until eventually Mom just caved
and said yes you could go.” He met my eyes again. “You remember
that?”

I nodded again. “Yes. I had to stay a
second night.”

“
You remember.”

“
Yeah, because…” My head
was spinning, trying to make some sense of the memory. “Because you
had an accident, Laz, you had to go to the hospital, I remember
that, it was food poisoning…”

But Laz just shook his head slowly.
“It wasn’t food poisoning, Gabby.” He paused but only for a moment.
“I drank a glass of Drano.”

My eyes went wide and I just stared
back at my brother, in total confusion.

“
The first time I caught
her, Gabby, I had to pry her fingers so hard off the bottle she
left scratches on my hands.” His voice was barely audible but I
heard every word. “I told her if I ever caught her trying to drink
it again she would have to watch me die first.”

Ω

I was
sitting in my mother’s bedroom, which was now empty of furniture
but still strewn with her belongings – papers, knick-knacks, piles
and piles of old pill bottles and a shit load of clothes she never
wore anymore. I was trying to decide what I could throw away, but
looking around me, in that moment, I realized there was nothing
there that she needed or would even miss and go looking for. Just
because my mother never threw anything away didn’t mean she cared
about what was there. The irony of that thought alone was almost
more than I could bear.

I didn’t go to the hospital with Laz
the day after he arrived. After he confessed his long buried secret
things turned surprisingly calm. For him it was after 4 am and I
showed him to my bedroom, deciding it was better that I take my
mother’s room after all. And afterward, as tired as I had been
earlier, sleep was the last thing on my mind. I headed back into
the kitchen and continued organizing the cupboards, arranging and
rearranging everything I could find.

Tony had
gone on a last minute grocery run before he’d left that night and
bought me milk, eggs, bread, a sack of oranges and a tub of Ben and
Jerry’s – just the basic necessities. I pulled the ice cream from
the freezer and grabbed a spoon and sat down at the kitchen table,
settling in with the instructions for my new coffee maker – which
was actually just a carafe with a fancy looking filter attached to
the lid. Then, satisfied that I knew what the hell I was doing, I
grabbed the Blue Mountain coffee beans and the coffee grinder and
blitzed them to a pulp – realizing only afterward the ridiculous
amount of noise it made. I couldn’t find the tea kettle so I
grabbed a sauce pan and boiled the water that way, then poured it
over the ground up beans and waited the recommended five minutes it
took for it to steep. I swirled my spoon around in the coffee and
watched this delicious caramel-coloured foam rise and settle on
top, then pushed the filter down ever so gently until the darkest,
richest, most aromatic, perfectly brewed coffee sat floating above
the filter. I scooped a spoonful of ice cream into my mug and
poured the hot coffee down over top of it and took a small sip. As
I had anticipated, it was the best fucking cup of coffee I’d ever
had in my life…

Ω

I pulled out a cigarette and lit up,
deciding to use one of the old pill bottles as an ashtray, when I
heard my phone buzzing.

How’s your brother?>

I
smiled to myself and hit reply.
no surprise there. I guess he’s fine. Probably at the
hospital.>
Send.