Little Squirrels Can Climb Tall Trees by Michael Murphy (namjoon book recommendations txt) 📕

planned. Okay?” And as quickly as it started, the call was finished.

A bit suspicious (okay, a lot suspicious), I asked, “What was that?”

“Just a meeting I’ve got to go to tomorrow.”

“It’s a little unusual for someone to be calling at ten at night to talk about work, don’t you think?”

“Not really.”

“No? Do you call a lot of people at ten at night to talk about work meetings?”

Kyle couldn’t meet my eye. All the signals were there—something was up.

“Kyle! What is going on?”

“It’s not a work meeting. It’s my mother. She’s here in New York and wants to talk to me.”

“Your mother is in New York.” Statement. Not question. “Interesting. Spur of the moment trip?”

“No. Her bus got in earlier tonight.”

“Bus?”

“She took the Greyhound.”

“And you didn’t tell me about this because…?”

“I didn’t want to bother you with my crazy mother. She’s not like your mother. She wouldn’t welcome you with open arms sight unseen. She’d break out her Bible and start trying to cast out demons or some such thing. There is no way in this world that I am ever subjecting you to my mother!”

“Okay,” I said, understanding. “But what if I want to be there to support you?”

“You can’t,” he said emphatically. “It just wouldn’t work.”

“So, how long is she in town?”

“She came as part of a church women’s group. They’re here for four nights to see all the sights.”

“Including you.”

“Of course! Have you seen me? I’m quite a sight! One of the towering monuments of NYC.”

By this point I was off the couch and was standing behind him at the table. I simply leaned over, kissed him, looked him in the eye, took his hand, and said, “I’m sorry, babe. I think I understand. Even though I can’t be there with you, know that I’m hugging you and holding my arms around you and sending you all kinds of love and support to deal with her.”

Unexpectedly, Kyle grabbed me and broke into tears.

To say I was surprised would be an understatement. “It’s okay, babe. It’s okay,” I said, trying desperately to offer some comfort.

“No, it’s not. She’s never gonna change. She’s never gonna know who I am. She’s never gonna….”

“No, she probably will not. And it is her loss because you are an awesome man!”

“I know that!” he said with a smile as he brushed the tears away from his eyes.

“When do you meet up with her tomorrow?”

“Seven at the hospital. She said she wants to see where I work. She doesn’t really. She just wants to get me back to Oklahoma.”

“So you can marry a good girl and settle down to make little ones.”

“Yup. That about sums it up.”

“How are you going to handle her?”

Kyle sighed and seemed to be bearing the weight of the world on his shoulders. “I don’t have the slightest clue.”

“Is she going to be with you all day tomorrow?”

“No. We’re meeting early because her women’s group has a full day of sightseeing planned. They’re going to do all the big stuff—go to Ground Zero, go to the Statue of Liberty….”

“Ride the subway?”

“Are you out of your freaking mind? She wouldn’t go near the subway if you paid her a million dollars!”

“What’s wrong with the subway? No, on second thought, don’t tell me.” It was getting late, and we both had to be up early the next morning, so we called it a night.

The next morning I hugged Kyle extra-long and reminded him that I was 100 percent behind him. Before I let him go, I made him promise me two things: that he would remember that he is an awesome man, and that I expected him to tell me every single word of what happened that day. He agreed on both points.

Later, when we had time to debrief, Kyle described his day and his encounter with his mother for me. I questioned him on so many things and made him give me so much detail, I felt that I knew the story as well as I would have if I’d been in the room with them.

Kyle was at the hospital early so he could get settled in and remind his colleagues that his mother was visiting that morning and he would need to play tour guide for an hour or so. All of the nurses on duty thought it was absolutely adorable that Kyle’s mother was coming to visit—they secretly couldn’t wait to check out the woman who had given the world Dr. Tall, Dark, and Handsome.

When he told me the story, he sort of glossed over the fact that his mother arrived to the minute on time at seven o’clock. When I pressed him on that point, he told me that she was noted for being on time. So he was not surprised when his mother walked through the doors of the ER at precisely seven o’clock.

Kyle and his mother apparently spotted one another at the exact same time and greeted each another with a big hug. “Baby!”—which Kyle explained was a term she used frequently and that he detested.

“Let me get a good look at you! You’re still as handsome as ever. No, more so. And you’ve filled out a little bit. Good! You always were too skinny. And this is where you work. Look at all these people. I think there’s more people here than live in our entire county.”

“This is it, Mama. Do you want to take a look around?”

“Whatever you want to show me.”

Kyle took his mother by the arm and gave her a first-class guided tour of the ER and the hospital, ending up at a Starbucks next to the hospital afterward for a cup of tea—or coffee, in his mother’s case.

“So how are you doing, son?” she asked while she waited for her coffee to cool a little.

“I’m good, Mama. I love what I’m doing and couldn’t ask for better people to work with. I’m loving the city.”

“We miss you, son.”

“I know. I miss you too. I’m sorry you couldn’t come to my graduation.”

“Me too,