“Mom,” I say quickly, gesturing to Harrison. “This is Harrison Cole. He’s, uh, our new neighbor.”
I can feel his frown at my back, and I keep on smiling, hoping he’ll play along. Then again, I don’t think the man knows what the concept of play is. He probably supervised other children on the playground when he was young.
“Harrison Ford?” she asks.
“Harrison Cole,” I tell her. Then I do a weird thing where I lean back and grab Harrison’s forearm and pull him forward so he’s standing next to me, and I don’t let go of his arm. His very strong, muscly arm. Holy crap. Just touching him feels like it’s scrambled my brain. I clear my throat and try to ignore it. “He might rent the house next door, so I thought I’d show him where we live.”
To his credit, Harrison hasn’t yanked himself out of my grasp, nor has he corrected me on this white lie.
My mother eyes my grasp on him, and then a strange look of realization comes over her face. I know what that look is. She thinks I’m interested in this man, like, sexually, because so far, he seems exactly like all the assholes I used to be attracted to: handsome, emotionally constipated, and very controlling.
“Okay,” she finally says. “Welcome to the neighborhood, then. Do you want to come in?”
“No,” I say quickly, my voice bordering on a yelp. “No, no. It’s fine.” Harrison opens his mouth to say something, but I blabber on through. “He has to go back; this was just a quick visit. I’m sure you’ll see him again if he rents the place.”
My mom shrugs, suddenly disinterested. “Okay,” she says, then closes the door on the both of us.
“What was that?” Harrison says to me after a beat.
“You mean my mother? She’s like that. Don’t take it personally.”
“No, I mean, why did you lie? Why didn’t you tell her who I was?”
“It’s a long story,” I tell him. And none of his business, but I don’t feel like antagonizing him anymore. He did his part by keeping his mouth shut, and that’s good enough for me. Now if only I didn’t have to see him again. Something tells me that might be a tall order. “But thanks for playing along.”
“I didn’t seem to have a choice,” he admits gruffly.
I fold my arms and shrug. “Well, I’m afraid that despite what my mother just said, this is where we part ways. If you feel like harassing me further, feel free to leave a letter in our mailbox.”
He watches me for a moment, exhaling harshly through his nose. Then he gives a stern nod. “I’ll be in touch. If they do end up renting this place, we’ll need to put a security gate at the start of the driveway, and I’m sure we’ll need your permission for that. I’ll make sure to put the forms in your mailbox.”
He then turns around and walks down the path, past the Garbage Pail and the cedars until I can’t see him anymore.
I let out a long, heavy sigh and straighten my shoulders before I open the door and step into the house.
Three
“So, new neighbor, huh?” my mother asks from the kitchen while I take off my boots in the hallway.
I slide on my sheepskin slippers (step one of decompressing from work) and pad on into the kitchen, where she’s sorting out packets of herbs that she dried herself and sprinkling them into a diffuser that fits over her giant teapot.
The kitchen is a total mess—mint and lavender scattered everywhere, unwashed dishes, leftover coffee grinds, oat milk spills—but it barely registers. Once upon a time, I would have lost my temper, which in turn would have made my mother lose her temper, so now I just let it get worse and worse and then after she goes to bed tonight, I’ll clean everything so that she can destroy it again tomorrow.
I know that sounds really callous of me, but ever since my father left us, back when I was fourteen, my mother has become my dependent. Dependent personality disorder is exactly that; when you combine it with borderline personality disorder, it means that I’m really the only person she has to keep her in line. She’s not a fan of doctors, she hates that she has to take medication (I’m here to make sure she does), I’m an only child, and my father has a new family out in Toronto (we’re friendly and talk a couple of times a month, but he doesn’t offer any help), so it all falls on me.
I’m used to it. Doesn’t mean I like it, doesn’t mean that while I provide care for my mother when she needs it, I’m not emotionally disconnected at the same time. I have to be, for my own sanity. It’s taken me years of therapy to finally come to terms with my own issues and the coping skills I developed during my childhood and distance myself from them. Avoiding conflict, always being a mediator, being attracted to emotionally unavailable men, becoming a doormat and doing whatever people want in order to keep the peace. Through my therapists (plural, because finding the right one for you takes a lot of trial and error . . . it’s like dating, but way more expensive), I learned that my coping strategies ensured my survival as a child and teenager, but as an adult, I’ve been learning to let them go.