The Belle and the Beard by Kate Canterbary (good book club books .txt) 📕

29

Jasper

I stared down at my phone for a long moment before tapping the icon beside my mother's number. Since leaving the NCVC offices—a former electronics store in a semi-abandoned strip mall—this evening, I'd fought off the nagging urge to call my mom. I never felt this way. I couldn't remember a single moment in the past twenty years when I'd needed my mother but I knew, for reasons that made no sense, I needed her right now.

I stared out at the tarmac and the workers in reflective gear that flashed back at me as the call rang. I hated taking red-eye flights. I hated half sleeping and half waking in a different time zone, and then pretending I was a functional human. I hated it but I hated my overwhelmingly beige hotel room more. I didn't want to stay in Sacramento another night.

"Hello? Jasper?"

"Mom," I said, tears immediately burning my eyes for no good reason. "I hope it's not too late to call."

"No, it's only a bit after ten and anyway, it's never too late," she said. "Are you flying in or out tonight?"

My mother knew airport noises the way I knew congressional districts. Another two minutes of her listening to the noises behind me and she'd be able to name the airport right down to the terminal and concourse. "Out. Heading back to Boston. I'm in Sacramento. There was an interview."

That felt like an appropriate description of the events. There was an interview. I was not interviewed. I was systematically backed into corners with questions that reached a little too far into confidential territories and repeatedly chided into sharing specific details about my work on previous campaigns. But hey, I blabbed about my former boss's bathroom habits on cable news. As far as they were concerned, nothing was sacred with me.

"Oh! I wish you'd told me! I could've flown down and taken you out to dinner."

Only my mother would think a flight from Seattle to Sacramento was a reasonable commute for dinner. "No, it's okay. I was tied up most of the day."

"Another time, then," she said, and it was obvious she didn't know what to do with me now.

She'd never really known but she'd tried and I gave her credit for that. She'd tried so hard even when everything was stacked against her. Even when her options were impossible. She'd tried and she did the best she could with the loss and devastation life handed her.

"I'm trying my best," I said, a wave of tears threatening to streak down my cheeks. God, I didn't want to cry in the middle of this airport. I just wanted to hold it together a bit longer. Just a bit. "I'm trying to do the right thing but nothing is working."

"It's going to work, honey. I'm sure of it. You've always tried so very hard, even when you were too young for anyone to expect that of you." She paused but I didn't respond because all the tears would fall and I'd sob and I didn't want that. I didn't want to be the person who cried on the phone in the middle of the airport. I didn't want to be the person who fell apart all the fucking time. "Why don't you come up to Seattle tonight? I'll make a call and change your itinerary, and we can have a day together."

I shook my head when I heard her typing. "Do you remember Halloween? That last one we spent on base?"

The typing stopped but there was a moment before she spoke. "I'll never forget it."

I let out a watery laugh. "See, that's my problem. I can't remember it. All I know is we had a good day."

She hummed in agreement. "It was a great day. All the families on base worked together to organize activities for the kids. Your father was in strong spirits too. You're right. It was one of the good days."

"Did we have a family costume? Something like that? I keep thinking we did but I don't recall what it was."

She laughed, saying, "We tried. I'll tell you, we tried but you wanted no part of it. Every year, I came up with a new costume and everything would be set but when it came time to dress up, you pitched a fit."

"That sounds nothing like me."

"Toddler Jasper was just as determined and stubborn as grown-up Jasper," she said. "That's how your father and I ended up dressed as Fred and Wilma Flintstone and you wore that sweet little black cat costume from Auntie Midge. The one you wore three years in a row."

An announcement sounded for my flight. "I don't remember any of that."

"You were a baby. You wouldn't. But you loved that costume. It didn't matter what season it was, you wanted to be that cat. You asked me to draw whiskers on your face all the time. A pink nose too." She laughed softly. "You loved the costume like crazy, even if it did ruin my plans year after year."

I shook my head. I didn't know what to do with any of this. "Mom, I have to go."

"I can get you on a flight," she said. "You can always come here, Jasper. I know I don't say that enough and my shifts never align with your work but there is always space in my life for you. Always."

I reached down for the handle of my carry-on bag. "I know, Mom."

"I want you to visit me, Jasper. Maybe not tonight but sometime soon. I'm certain I can find photos from that Halloween for you."

"I'm not sure what my—" I stopped myself before using my almighty schedule as a shield for the millionth time. I didn't have a schedule anymore. I didn't have anything but a gaping hole in my chest where my heart should've been because he didn't ask me to stay, and the ever-present sense I was missing out