The Fortune Cafe (9 page)

Emma’s shift ended, allowing her to thankfully clock out and flee Cái’s curious looks and overbearing remarks. He wanted to see her happily settled. He wanted to believe that somehow his restaurant would be the reason behind her happiness. The fact that he followed her around the kitchen saying, “A man doesn’t marry a girl’s mother. He marries the girl!” proved he didn’t, and wouldn’t, understand.

She probably shouldn’t have told her boss about how she couldn’t allow Harrison to chase her, even if her fortune was supposed to be true, because her mother required too much energy, and she just didn’t have time for it.

Cái lectured like he was preparing her for a master’s degree in romance, so slipping behind the wheel of her car and driving away toward her mother’s house was a huge relief. An interesting change. Emma never imagined she’d be glad to be going to her mom’s house for anything.

Driving time was good for her. She liked to process life, and driving allowed her time to do just that. Except... she couldn’t think about
Dragon’s Lair
. No witty dialogue came to her; no interesting four-paneled plot presented itself. She only thought of Harrison and wondered what he might be doing at that exact moment.

Her phone rang. She took a deep breath and with traffic being bumper to bumper and her hands-free headset still being lost, she didn’t bother glancing at the screen before answering. She knew it was her mother. The miracle was that her mom waited so long to start calling. The calls would come every minute on the minute if Emma didn’t pick up immediately.

“I’m on my way,” Emma said into the phone, not bothering to hide her exasperation.

“Really? That’s a wonderful surprise for me, but I thought you were going to your mom’s house,” a man’s voice said.

Puzzled, she moved the phone away so she could see who’d called. Harrison’s name glowing up at her from the screen startled her so much she nearly dropped the phone. “Harrison?” she said, confirming what her eyes saw, but her mind couldn’t make itself believe.

“Why do you sound like me calling is the most unlikely thing to ever happen?” he asked. “I stole your number fair and square, which means I’m within my rights to use it.” His teasing tone made her stomach flip.

How could just hearing his voice make her feel all melty? She wasn’t even sure she could get air to move past her vocal cords. She tried though. A barely perceptible squeak came out.

“You there?” His voice was warm and rich.

“I’m here,” she said.

“So I’ve been thinking that maybe when you’re done at your mom’s, we could get some dessert or go for another walk or something. I don’t mind if it’s late. Or maybe I could go to your mom’s house and help with stuff there. I’m great at doing dishes.”

She smiled in spite of herself and pulled onto her mom’s street. “Doing dishes or breaking dishes?” she asked.

“Hey, the broken dishes were the fault of the other person. Remember?”

Emma hadn’t actually meant Andrea when she made the broken dishes comment and felt her face grow warm that he thought she had. “Sorry, I was actually referencing my brother. When we were younger, he sometimes broke dishes or threw them away to get out of having to clean them.”

She heard the smile in Harrison’s voice as he said, “That worked? Man, I wish I’d been more clever as a kid. It never occurred to me to find alternate methods.”

Emma smiled. “Yeah, that’s my brother all right, always looking for a way out of responsibility.”

“But not you,” Harrison said, the admiration in his words almost tangible.

“How do you know
not me
? You haven’t seen me in a long time.” She turned into her mom’s driveway.

“Because you’re going to take care of a sick mom.”

“That’s different from dishes.”

“No, not different at all. Responsibility is responsibility. Sure, there are different levels. Some responsibilities weigh more, but at the end of the day, the guy who gets it done is the guy you can label responsible.”

She turned the key to kill the engine. “Did you just call me a guy?” she asked to deflect her discomfort in his compliment.

He laughed. “Not a chance. Do you want me to come over and keep you company? Play checkers with your mom? I don’t mind driving.”

“No really, I’m okay. I got this.” As she exited the car and glanced up at her childhood home, she knew she meant it. Harrison was right about the weight of responsibility. Caring for her mother had the equivalent weight of a mountain. But in the last year she’d come to understand its weight. She knew how to shift it around on her shoulders to make carrying it bearable.

She walked up the front steps, knowing she should tell Harrison good-bye before entering the house. Her mom’s loud voice carried well enough that he’d be able to hear anything she might say. Emma opened her mouth to tell Harrison that she’d call him when she finished up at her mother’s. He wanted to go out, no matter how late, and in spite of her earlier resolution to stay away from him, she really wanted to see him again. But as she began the sentence, she frowned and really looked at her mom’s house.

All the windows were open, the curtains moving against the faint breeze. Open windows felt wrong. Her mom grew excessively more paranoid every day. She never left windows open. But more than that strangeness was that not one light glowed from behind them.

“Mom?” Emma whispered.

She’d forgotten Harrison in that brief moment of assessment, but his voice coming through the phone reminded her of his presence. “Is everything okay?”

“I don’t know,” Emma answered. “It looks like no one’s home.”

“Maybe she felt better and went to the store or something.”

Emma shook her head, though he couldn’t see the movement. “No. She doesn’t have a car any longer.” A car accident. Her mom had insisted it wasn’t her fault, but Emma never found out the particulars. Sometimes, with her mom, it was better not to know.

“Okay, Harrison, I’m going to ask you to do something weird.”

“Okay... what?” He must have understood that something wasn’t right because he dropped the playful tone.

“I need you to not take it personally when I tell you we can’t meet later. And it’s probably best not to call back tonight. I don’t think I’ll be available.” She did the hasty hang up that she always did with her mom.

She did it because she had to. Whatever was going on inside that house, she did
not
want Harrison to be on the other end of the line listening. She slowly walked up the stairs and went to try the knob, but the door was already ajar— waiting for her.

Just like her mom to make the really hard things easy. It was going to be a long night.

She entered the house.

She flipped on lights as she went, trying to illuminate her own thoughts as well as her surroundings so she didn’t trip or anything. A cursory look through all the rooms provided nothing. She searched each room again, checking under beds, behind draperies, inside closets, but her mom wasn’t there.

“All right, Mom!” she shouted to the walls. “You got me! I can’t find you! Come out!”

No response.

Her phone buzzed in her pocket, nearly startling her into a heart attack. She glanced at the screen, deciding she wouldn’t answer if it was Harrison calling back. Not recognizing the number, she answered. “Hello?”

“Is this Emma Armstrong?” The man’s voice sounded hard.

“Yes.” Her mind shouted questions back to the man.
Who are you? What’s going on?
“This is Emma,” she said.

“This is Officer Cowan from the Seashell Beach Police Department. Is your mother’s name Corinne Armstrong?”

“Yes.” Emma slumped down on a chair in the kitchen, her legs unable to hold her weight any longer. “Do you know where she is?” she asked, feeling the tired in her bones rumble in her own voice.

“We have her in custody. We’ve already called her psychiatrist who confirmed she isn’t a danger to herself as long as she is taking her medicine and in the care of a responsible party. We’ll release her to you if you’ll come pick her up and agree to keep watch over her, otherwise we’ll need to hold her in the psych ward for three days for observation.”

“Do I dare ask why she’s in custody?” Emma asked.

“She tried to jump off the pier on Seashell Beach. Witnesses stopped her and called us.”

Emma nodded in response, but said nothing.

“Miss Armstrong?”

“I’m here. I’ll be there to get her soon.”

She hung up the phone but continued to sit, unable to make her feet and legs shift to bear the weight of this new burden settling over her shoulders. She’d lied when she told Harrison she “had” this. She hadn’t known she’d been lying, but not knowing didn’t change the lie. She didn’t have anything at all.

Her mom had found her way to Seashell Beach. The pier was a stone’s throw from the restaurant Emma just left. The location was not an accident. It was one of her mom’s lessons— her way of saying, “See? I control you. You don’t control me.”

After several minutes of shallow breathing, Emma forced herself to her feet. She closed the windows in the house, turned off the lights she’d turned on, and shut the front door behind her after locking it. “Yes, Mom, I see.”

Emma paced the small pathway in her apartment between the boxes of books that went all the way to the ceiling. She blew her hair out of her eyes in exasperation as she shifted the phone to her other ear. “You weren’t there, Rosalee. You have no idea what it was like.” She no longer tried to hide her own irritation. If her sister insisted on being obtuse, then she at least had the right to be annoyed by it.

“I don’t ever ask for anything!” Emma shouted at her sister. “Not once since Daddy died have I asked for you to help me with this, but she’s your mother too! I only need one weekend.” The evil horrible part of her chanted how she should’ve left her mother in the psych ward for three days.

Rosalee whined and hedged and claimed to be busy even though Emma knew darn good and well that Rosalee didn’t have anything actually going on. Rosalee didn’t work a job because her husband was some fancy CEO of a soup company. She had two kids, but also had a nanny who took the brunt of the issues with child rearing. And she had a housekeeper who also cooked the family dinners. She had no hobbies, didn’t read, didn’t have any artistic endeavors, didn’t make anything or fix anything or solve anything. Emma honestly didn’t know what her sister did with her time, which was why Emma felt no guilt in not backing down from asking this favor.

“She’s suicidal, Rosalee! She tried jumping off a pier at sunset. She can’t be left alone right now because she won’t take her medications unless someone is there to force it down her throat, and because the police made me sign a statement saying she would be watched over. If anything happens to her, I’ll go to jail for neglect or something. And I
can’t
be there this weekend. I have been there when she vomited all over herself in an effort to purge the medicine I made her take. I’ve been the one to clean that up. I’ve been there when she was sad and wanted to cry and cry and cry. I’m the one who had to go to the police station to pick her up. It is totally
your
turn!”

The fight over the phone took another twenty-eight minutes before Rosalee finally gave in and agreed to fly down for the weekend. She hadn’t been down from Seattle even once since their dad’s funeral. It was about time she visited her mom anyway.

With that taken care of, Emma glanced into her bedroom to check where her mom slept. The shallow breathing of sleep assured her that her mom hadn’t overheard the fight. Emma didn’t know if that made her happy or not. It might be a good thing for her mom to understand that Rosalee wasn’t the sweet angel their mother believed her to be.

But her mom slept soundly. Which was just as well. Emma had a lot of books to sign and stuff in her preaddressed envelopes. Finally something to smile about. She was about to sign her very first book.

She went to work.

Harrison paced his parents’ house, not quite knowing what to do. He felt like he’d been pacing for days. She’d hung up on him, and her voice had that haunted sound he remembered from back in high school. He knew it had something to do with her mom. He’d read the personal essays, the poems, and the short stories that hinted at something deeper and darker.