Short Story 4

Catching Up

She’s carried all of the cleaning supplies from her car to the kitchen. She sits at the table and eats lunch, a can of tuna and a banana, before she starts to work.

…She sez she don’t wanna go to school today. And I sez, well ya gotta, I ain’t calling you in sick and you sure as hell ain’t gonna miss the bus again. She’s a good girl, but she sure is lazy sometimes. All she wantsta do is sit on the sofa and drink pop and watch those crappy shows about pregnant girls. You ask me, those shows are a real bad idea, girls don’t need to be watchin’ stuff like that. So anyway, that’s why I’m late, see, ‘cause Tina didn’t move her butt fast enough and I ended up having to drive her to school. Late again. One more and she gets detention. That girl. I keep tellin’ her, education is important. Look at me, I did it all backwards, now I’m tryin’ to get my basic courses in at the community college and they don’t give me enough scholarship money to buy the books, even. I tell ya, they don’t make it easy.

… Oh, yeah, we broke off the engagement. No, no, don’t be sorry, it just wasn’t meant to work out. He’s a nice guy an’ all, but he wasn’t cut out for a father. I got four kids and I gotta watch out for ‘em, y’know? And they was just too much for him. My oldest, she’s engaged, though. Real nice guy, he works out at the GM plant. The wedding’s gonna be in August. We’re tryin’ to make all the arrangements. Budget’s tight, but I think we can do pretty well. She knows it’s not all about the reception anyway, the ceremony’s the important part. That’s the fact of the matter. …Oh yeah, thanks, I’ll let her know. I’m real proud. She picked real well.

‘Scuse me for a minute while I find my pills… all these dang medications, you’d think I’m my mother’s age. I’m only 43, but all the bendin’ over I have to do, it really messes with my back. And these are for my blood pressure, and this one’s for my knee pain. And these here, I can’t tell ‘em all apart, but they do somethin’ important. Gotta go to the doctor again soon, make sure everything’s workin’ the way it should. My mom, she went for a normal routine visit, and next thing ya know, they tell her she’s got breast cancer. So ya never know. Gotta keep an eye on everything. …Oh, she’s doing better. Still in the hospital, though. I don’t know how much more they can do. I’m just tryin’ to visit as much as I can, keep her from being bored, ya know. She loves to draw, I got her some of them colored pencils from the art section at Meijer’s and she just loves ‘em. Drew a real pretty pitchur of herself on her wedding day, way-back-when. Copied it from a photograph. It made me wanna cry, it was so pretty.

I do wonder sometimes if I’m doin’ the right thing, goin’ back to school. Especially right when all my kids are getting to that age themselves. But this job, ya know… I mean, it’s fine, it gets the bills paid, as they say, but it’s so unpredictable. And with everyone gettin’ less money these days, folks are less likely to hire someone else to do the cleanin’. I’ve always wanted to be a therapist, I like talkin’ to people and listening and trying to help. Woulda done it way before now, but I had Lizzy and got married and before I knew it, the time was gone. I don’t regret it, I wouldn’t for a second wish things were differn’t ‘cause then I wouldn’t have my kids. But… it woulda been nice if I’d had more time. For me. Gosh, that sounds selfish; that’s not what I mean. You know what I mean. So now I think I’ve saved up enough to try it again, but it just takes so dang long, only takin’ a few classes a semester, and at night. And they want so much for grad school, they want all the way up through precalc, and I never was good at math. Still just tryin’ to get beginning algebra done with. But I think it’ll be a real investment, if I can do it. I looked into this program at Wayne State, and starting salaries coming out are 50, even 60,000 a year. So that’s not too bad. And it can only go up. I figure, people always need people to talk to. They always got problems. And man, I’ve had practice listenin,’ just being a mother.

… You’re lucky you’re so smart, you and your brother. Man oh man, how did your parents do it? My kids just don’t have that work ethic, ya know? I guess some people just have it. I mean, I guess I don’t, and my ex-husband sure don’t, so I don’t know why I would expect my kids to. But Jimmy, my son, he might just have it. He’s the smart one, always buildin’ things and readin’ about how to take apart computers an’ all. He’s gonna do real well, if we can just get ‘im to pick up his English grade a little. Sez the books are too girly, he can’t stand to read ‘em. Can you believe that? I sez to him, I sez, if it was good enough for Teddy Roosevelt, it’s good enough for you. He loves history, see. And I told him Roosevelt used to read three books ever day. That’s a fact, ya know. And I bet some of ‘em were the “girly” books, and he turned out just fine. So he’d best get readin’ or no Wii for a week. Boys are funny like that. Sometimes ya can’t reason with ‘em, ya just gotta tell ‘em like it is.

…No, no, thanks anyway, I got a Mountain Dew right here. That’ll give me a nice kick. And I hope ya don’t mind if I turn on the radio, it just gets a little lonely up there, in this big old house. Nice to have a little noise. … Oh good, glad it doesn’t bother ya. Like I say, it’s a fine job, but there are times when I miss being around people. ‘Cause most of the time I come in, clean, and leave and no one would even know, not a soul around, they’re all at work or school. That’ll be another nice thing about getting this degree, I hope. When I’m a therapist I can be around lots of people all day. No time for radios.

… Oh, yeah, of course, you gotta go. Well, it was real nice seein’ ya again. Tell your mom I sez hi, and your brother and your dad too. Real sorry to hear about your dog. But that’s the way of things, isn’t it. Anyway, guess I should get up and start on this floor. Aah, aaaah. No, hon, I’m fine, just these stubborn old knees again. Well, have a good one, and I’ll seeya again sometime.

…Oh yeah, thanks for that, I hope it all works out too. Bye now.