The Space In Between (26 page)

HE WAS GONE. Waking up the next
morning and knowing he wouldn’t be there stung me. Waking up the next week and
Cooper still not being there was almost unbearable. Christmas came. New Years
went. And I kept myself busy. Eric kept up his word that he would help with
paying for our apartment in New York while I pulled myself together in
Wisconsin.

I told him that he didn’t have to, but he informed me that
Michelle had insisted. She went out of her way to allow Eric, Ladasha, and I to
stay at the mansion while I collected myself. I secretly thought it was because
she still had a semi-crush on Ladasha. Who could blame her? My best friend was
beautiful. Smart. Funny.

After I scolded my mom for the way she treated Ladasha, she
realized how much of a disappointment she had been.

“Andrea Mae…I…” Her head lowered as I sat on my parents’
living room couch, Ladasha next to me. My mom turned to my friend, “Ladasha
Marie. I am so sorry for the way I have treated you.”

Ladasha smiled, revealing her dimples and shrugged her
shoulders. “It’s all right, Mrs. Evans. I’ve come to learn that people treat
you the way you allow yourself to be treated. I should have stood up for
myself.”

Mom placed her hand on Dasha’s knee and shook her head. “You
should have never had to. And Anders has told me how good you have been to her.
Watching after her. I want you to know, if you ever need anything…know that my
family welcomes you with open arms.”

That was true. Ladasha was my sister. If anything showed
that, it was how harsh Mom was towards her—the same way Mom was harsh towards
me. After Mom welcomed her as part of our family, she began to scold her about
how dangerous stripping was and said Ladasha should have thought more of
herself to stoop to that level. She turned to me, pointing her finger, and
sassed me on the same topic. She informed Ladasha that she would, indeed,
finish her college degree. She followed all the sassiness up with hugs.

It was kind of what my mom did—worried, judged, worried some
more, and then hugged. I told Dasha that she would get used to it. She smiled
and told me it was the most mothering she had ever received in all of her life.

Daddy walked into the room smiling at me with what looked
like a toy robot in his hands. It was made of metal and stood about five feet
tall with a weird looking tail. “Look at this.” His eyes glimmered through his
thick-glasses that sat across his gray sideburns. All of us raised an eyebrow
to Daddy’s newest creation.

“What is it?” Ladasha asked.

“It’s my automatic snow blower! I fixed it!” he squeaked
with excitement. Mom’s eyebrows lowered.

“That’s nice, dear. Maybe we should wait until after lunch
to test it out…” I giggled to myself when I heard the hesitant sound in my
mom’s voice.

Daddy pouted when she said that. “But the snow just fell to
the perfect levels.” He sounded like a whiny five year old who wanted his mom
to allow him to go play in the snow. Walking over to Mom, Daddy pushed out his
bottom lip and gave her the biggest puppy dog eyes I had ever seen in my life.
He began to give her puppy dog kisses all over her face until she reluctantly
agreed.

“For Christ’s sake, Walter! Fine. Let’s get this over with!”

Daddy jumped up with excitement and told us all to go get
our winter coats on. I was pretty excited. I hadn’t seen one of Daddy’s
creations in quite some time and I was ready to be impressed. As he sat it in
the driveway, Mom made Ladasha and me stay behind the porch, in case something
went wrong. Daddy made sure to hush my mom as he turned on the snow blower, but
he too, stepped behind the porch with his remote to control the robot.

“This is going to be amazing,” he promised as he pushed the
on button. Nothing happened at first. “Just give it time. It has to warm up.”
We waited. The weird robot started to shake. Daddy insisted it was normal. The
robot started to walk down the driveway, Daddy guiding it with his remote. It
was working! It was a three foot, mini TinMan, shoving our snow. We all cheered
for him as the robot finished clearing most of the snow. It approached the end
of the driveway. Daddy shut off the robot and tossed his hands up in
celebration.

“You did it!” Mom hollered as she kissed Daddy’s cheek. She
was so proud of him in that moment.

“Um…Daddy…” I stuttered. I nodded in the direction of the
robot, now heading out into the street.

“Oh no,” Mom murmured.

The robot started to smoke. Daddy flicked on his remote
again and started trying to control the robot to come back to us. His remote
started to spark flames. “Holy shit!” Ladasha and I hollered as Daddy tossed
the remote into the snow. Mom pinched both of our arms for our foul language as
we mumbled an apology.

The robot was still on the move. “Go get it, Walter! Before
the neighbors see!” My mom warned him. He went heading to the robot but stopped
right as he saw it blow up across the street.

Ms. Kathy came out yelling as she watched her newly replaced
dog-shaped mailbox go up in flames with the robot explosion. I saw the doggie’s
tail land on her roof. She started hollering and shaking her fist at us, saying
words that would have made Mom pinch me to the point of drawing blood. Mom’s
eyes widened as she looked at us girls and Daddy. “Run! Come on! Inside, go!”

As we entered the house, the four of us busted out into
laughter, replaying the horrified look on Ms. Kathy’s face. It felt good to be
back with my parents and able to laugh. It felt better than I could have
imagined.

AFTER I LEFT Wisconsin, I headed back
to New York. It was time to get back together with Kyle and get my career going
again. It seemed like a whole life had been lived since I’d last sat across
from him at his desk. He was scrolling through his emails while checking
messages on his cell phone, and for the first time in awhile, it felt like
things were slowly getting back to normal.

“What do we have?” I asked him, wondering what offers were
being shot my way to clean up this mess I had made for Ky.

He started sifting through the papers stacked on his desk.
“The norm for magazines. Us Weekly, People, Star. Television offers started
flying in after those magazines came out. They want you to host shows—Wedding
Disasters, Couple’s Therapy, Dr. Drew’s Rehab.” His voice started off excited
and he glanced up at me. He must have seen how uninterested I was in all of it,
but I knew it had to be done.

“You know what, fuck them.” Kyle picked up all of the papers
and ripped them in half.

“What the hell are you doing?”

He loosened his tie, shut down his computer, and turned off
his phone. “Screw them, Coop. They don’t deserve to hear your story. You know
what you need to do?”

I looked to him, knowing I was talking to my best friend and
not my manager. “What you need to do is go to South Carolina and be with your
mom. Fuck all this other bullshit. You’re a freakin’ amazing photographer, not
a cheap reality star. You go be with your mom, you decide exactly what it is
you
want, and you come back here. And I will make it work.”

“Are you sure?” I asked. It would be a dream come true to go
down to South Carolina and take care of my mom for a while.

“Get the fuck out of my office before I change my damn
mind.” Kyle threw the papers at me. I stood up, pulled him into a hug, and
thanked him.

I VISITED MY mom every day and every
night when I got back to South Carolina. Some days she thought I was her
brother. Other days, a complete stranger. On the worst days, she saw me as my
father. And on the best days, she called me Cooper.

Today I was Cooper, and she actually knew where she was. The
nurses told me it had happened before, but by the next day, she would fade back
to the late 1990’s. But I held on to it. We talked about life. How Iris and I
had gone our own separate ways. I thought it would be best to plant a few new
memories into her mind to try to help her remember. To unscramble the fog. I
told her about Iris and the divorce. I told her about the paparazzi. I told her
about Andrea.

She cried when she realized what had happened to her, and I
sat there with her until she fell asleep. I went home, rested, and came back
the next day.

“Cooper, she’s asking for you,” Ms. Wells informed me. Her
soft smile gave me hope that Mom was having a good day.

When I entered the room, I heard soft sniffles. Mom was
facing the window, staring out. I walked over to her and placed my hands on her
shoulders.

“Mom, what’s wrong?” I asked. As she turned around, I wiped
the tears falling from her eyes. In her hands, she was holding a photo album,
one of the many I had left with her in hopes that it would spark some memory.

Her small hands caressed my cheek and she gave me a short
grin. “I’ve missed so much.”

“It’s all right.”

She looked away, almost ashamed she’d let herself get so
lost. How could she be ashamed? It wasn’t her fault. I kept telling her it was
all right. But I wasn’t sure she believed me.

Walking over to her bed, she pulled out an old, broken down
book. It must have been in the box of photo albums I dropped off. I saw the
ribbon hanging from it and knew exactly what it was. It was the book I made for
Andrea years ago when I was eleven. I sat down on her bed, flipping through it.
Looking at how happy Andrea and I looked together. Mom sat next to me, resting
her head on my shoulder and said, “Don’t make the mistake I made, Cooper. Don’t
waste your life.”