A short story by Jeannette Brown

My mother calls every Tuesday morning. Today is Tuesday. Today, I’m just going to lie to her. Maybe I’ll admit to being fired from my job, but—here’s the big lie—I’ll tell her not to worry. That with my experience and my connections, I’ll get another job in no time. That Randy will give me an excellent letter of recommendation because he knows I was unjustly fired and because I caught him with his hand down his secretary’s shirt. And I’ll tell her that I have enough, more than enough savings to last no matter how long the job hunting takes. No, I’ll stop with “more than enough.”
Mother calls at five from her time zone, seven mine, which lets us have a conversation while I dress for work. Although today that won’t be a problem.
As I open the curtain over my kitchen sink, faint light peeks through. My curtain is less a curtain than an elaborate macramé weaving, a gift from my next-door neighbor to protect her children from watching Jerald and I drinking our morning coffee in the nude during sunnier times.
The winter gloom before dawn is comforting, as if reality is out there somewhere, but not in here. Gloom attire is thick socks and a fuzzy robe. Fingerless gloves if needed.
There’s no rain in the forecast, as if the weather matters anymore.
“Fine, things are fine,” I’ll say when Mother calls, hoping to convince her. It’s a long shot because she is extraordinarily attuned to me. It’s always been that way. Like my first day of school, when I came home, Mother said, “You don’t like your teacher, but you will later on.” Anyone’s mother might have said the same, but then she added, “It’s the principal you have to watch out for.” And of course, the principal, Miss Anderson, hated me on sight. Much later I discovered that I looked like her little sister who had stolen her boyfriend or a watch or something. The point is, my mother has ESP, which can be inconvenient, especially to a teenager bent on losing her virginity. The night it finally happened, she came into my room, stared me in the eye, and said, “I hope you’re happy now.” She left, never mentioning it again.
Maybe most mothers have a special sensitivity about their children, especially their daughters, especially their youngest daughters. And they’re very protective.
So today she’s probably wanting details about me getting fired from the ad agency. I had produced a four-color, 12-page fashion brochure with a 500,000-print run, then the client rejected it because the model looked “homely.” Homely. Mr. Five-Foot-Four with the sad toupee and crooked teeth does not know from homely. Fact is, he approved her photo before we did the shoot, but I didn’t get it in writing, and the client is always right because he is the one with the money.
The coffee is excellent this morning. I’ve switched to chicory. No need to add milk. A money saving device, my first as an unemployed person.
I can tell it’s going to take a lot of money to be unemployed now that I have time to read books and work jigsaw puzzles and to repaint this kitchen something other than blue. And I’ll probably need a cat for company.
I could lie about being fired and make Mother crazy with the possibility that she’s losing her powers. I tried that once, denying that I was engaged to Jerald. She took to her bed, had her tarot cards read and reread, and did a body cleanse until I confessed that she was right. Then I broke up with him to make my version the truth.
If I tell her that she’s right as usual, she’ll worry about me. I hate for her to worry about me. Oh, she’ll switch the conversation to the latest about Cousin Charley who’s divorcing his whoring wife and pretend to be fine with my news. But she’ll fret and call my sister to ask her whether I’m eating right or if I need money, which neither of them has. Mother will call in the middle of the week in the middle of the day to make sure I haven’t “taken to the bottle.” She’ll ask whether I’m seeing someone and if I’m “getting out enough,” code for I need to meet people, men. That’s why I’ll lie to her.
If it doesn’t rain, I’ll “get out” this afternoon. To the thrift shop for anything flannel, to the wine shop for—obviously—and to the market for snacks. I don’t intend to cook regular meals because this is an opportunity to get my days and nights mixed up. Turn off all the lights, close all the curtains, and binge watch . . . I’ll decide which program later.
She’ll worry about me because I don’t have a “man to take care” of me. Not that I need one, but Mother thinks I do. Not that she has a man to take care of her. She divorced my father decades ago. Actually, my parents have been divorced for over forty years. She loved him intensely, dearly, immensely, but he disregarded her and his daughters with his affairs, his inability to provide an adequate income, and his lies. So, she left him. But she left her heart behind, never quite able to forget him or the dreams she had brought to the marriage.

A noise draws my attention and, sure enough, rain spatters on the window. The light is gray now, and clouds hover. Anticipating the guilt I’m about to cause my mother and adjusting to my new employment status, I check the fridge supply of pinot grigio. There’s enough to outlast the rain.
Mother did pick up on the vibe when I broke up with Jerald, although she did not realize the depth of it. I assured her that it was my decision, that I had “outgrown him,” that I wasn’t ready to settle down. Although I defy you to find anyone more “settled” than I am. The truth is I was too embarrassed to admit to anyone, especially myself, that my ability to judge character was so out of whack. To this day I can barely believe that Jerald wiped out my savings. It was like some Lifetime movie where the woman is so blinded by love she can’t see what a despicable human she has pledged her life to. Maybe someone’ll buy the rights to make a movie about me, and I can recoup some of the money.
As with my poor emotional investment, so goes my financial investments. There was a feeling I had, an uneasiness when Jerald explained his brilliant, can’t fail plan, but his excitement was contagious, and I wanted to be a part of something new, something ours. I even offered to design his advertising campaign. Free.
A small anxiety attack overwhelms me momentarily as my financial situation stares at me from the wall. Maybe I’m just sleep deprived. When the water boils, I measure out the oatmeal.
My stepmother called late last night to announce that she’s committed my father to a memory care institution or as she calls it, “the home.” “He’s lost his mind,” meaning that his dementia has finally escalated to the level of obliviousness. He doesn’t recognize her. In fact, he has reverted to his six-year-old self, although he’s a cigarette-smoking six-year-old. “I just thought you’d want to know.” It was after midnight, and I could tell that she had postponed the phone call until Jack Daniels had her back.
Sleep didn’t waste any time before I dreamt of people rolling backwards downhill in an out-of-control pedicab, decorated in orange and white twinkle lights with a “Go Vols” sign swinging off the side. The alarm startled me awake. Force of habit. The dream fog let me play out the rest as it really happened. Jerald, lying that he’d used part of my money for liability insurance, his betrayal exposed when the pedicab cyclist and his six riders sued. Even before the accident, there was a premonition of doom. Pedicabs work best on level ground. Knoxville is a rollercoaster city of hills and dales. Most of the pedicab cyclists had quit after a few hours on the job. The pedicabs were only in demand for home football games, which was nine Saturdays in the fall. Pedicabs need to be stored in a rented space when not in use. In all, the plan was a bust. Too late, I was reminded of phone conversations with my then somewhat lucid father, listening to his ridiculous plans to start a business or run for mayor. I never offered to design his advertising because he was, as my mother would have described it, “talking through his hat.”
Stirring the oatmeal into the boiling water, I’m mesmerized by the swirl and the roil of the flakes. Butter, brown sugar, a dollop of milk. No way I’m going to eat this. I turn off the flame.
I no longer need an alarm, but in that twilight between wake and sleep, I can drift back to the little house where the four of us played out a few years of American Family when all was almost bliss, if only we could tweak the picture into focus.
After the divorce we had all adjusted as best we could. My sister and I had school and boy craziness for stability, but Mother had a harder time. She found a job, and friends from church, but her guilt over our “fatherlessness” haunted her. It proved she could not provide for our every need. She was especially humiliated every time my sister and I went searching the neighborhood for prospects to drag to the annual Father-Daughter banquet.
I debate whether to tell Mother about my father’s situation. He’s not really conscious, more like he’s dead. Maybe it’s better if she doesn’t know, doesn’t realize he’s left her again. She can keep her memories as if nothing has changed.
On the first ring, I imagine Mother in her yellow kitchen, calling on the yellow phone with the long, curly cord that lets her move from stove to fridge to cabinet, head cocked to hold the receiver in place while she cleans up after breakfast and pours one last cup of morning coffee.
I answer on the fourth ring. “Your father,” she says. “Is he in jail?”
Even though I know her powers, I am stunned. This isn’t ESP. This is witchery.
Jail indeed. He’s in the darkest of dungeons.
“Mother, I have some bad news.” I pause for breath. “I lost my job.”
And across 563 miles and two time zones, I heard her relieved sigh.
Jeannette Brown lives and writes in Knoxville TN. Her novel, The Illusion of Leaving, was recently published by Texas Review Press. Her short fiction has been published in Bellevue Literary Review, Southwestern American Literature, Descant, Steel Toe Review, and other publications. She is the co-editor of Literary Lunch, a food anthology. She has enjoyed residencies at the Sewanee Writers’ Conference, Rivendell Writers’ Colony and Hedgebrook/India.
Her piece, Holly & Me, appeared in Certain Age in 2021.
Images:
Window panes by Ozgu Ozden
Rainy window by Ahmed
This is a wonderful piece. I almost never write comments anywhere -- but I could not resist. Love it. Thank you. Ooh ~ and the comment below (SueBah) says it even better.
So good, like talking with a close friend late at night. Atmospheric and intimate.
I loved it too. I saw that hairy hand down the secretary's shirt blaming someone else for his clumsy indiscretion. I don't blame you for keeping your cards close to your vest without anyone, including your mother, whose judgement no doubt would have made it all worse. This was a wonderful piece!!!
Susannah Bianchi
What a fabulous why yo start my day!! I loved it !!!!