“I’m working.” I state the obvious.
“Honey, take a break. Your mother just died,” Zaleya whispers beside me, looking over my shoulder. “Why don’t you leave for the rest of the day? I got you, boo.”
“I need to work,” I snap. My voice is loud and harsh. My hands tremble.
“Eva.”
“Please, Zaleya.” I turn to her, eyes dry. “I can’t go home and listen to the “Loneliest Time of the Year” by Mabel or Tori Amos’s “Winter” on repeat. I’ll drive myself mad with my thoughts.” I’d already done such a thing the night of Tam’s concert. When I arrived home after leaving the church, I climbed into my empty tub and drank half a bottle of wine.
Would I be like my mother one day?
Sad. Drunk. Desperate.
“I get it. We all have our ways to cope but take a second for yourself,” Zaleya softly encourages, removing my hands from the tissue paper and turning me to face her. “Allow yourself to cry. Or scream. Or something. Holding this all inside isn’t going to help.”
Her care and concern represents the love of a mother I never had.
I nod and excuse myself. Rushing for the bank of elevators, I enter my employee key for the upper floors, above the store are the management offices. Only, I press a button for the roof.
And high above State Street, I release a scream before bending at the waist and clutching my knees.
The cold doesn’t even hit me. Neither do tears.
I’m all cried out for my mother.
+ + +
As the care facility is accustomed to patients passing on, they take over managing the particulars. My mother will be moved by a mortician. Thankfully, she already had a funeral plan. She wanted to be cremated. A memorial service will be held at a local funeral home. The sixty-minute visitation part of her plan is a surprise to me. Who would visit her? My mother had roughly three friends that I knew of and a handful of nurses who looked after her. Then there was me. I had been listed as her only kin which is why I was contacted six weeks ago when she was placed in the facility.
On my abbreviated Christmas Eve lunch break, I scramble to make a few phone calls.
I call my father.
He expresses sympathy but not empathy. He’d long ago considered my mother dead to him. He won’t be attending any memorial service for her.
“Why would I fly to Chicago during a holiday weekend for a one-hour visitation?”
To support me, I wanted to scream. But conversation about my mother was often a useless topic.
Then, I call Zebb.
Zebb and I hadn’t spoken directly since the concert. He’d sent me the small tree and I’d texted him a thank you. He’d reached out, sending Christmas memes and encouragement to hang in there through this week of mayhem. He knew I was busy. He was busy as well.
He’d invited me to his mother’s home for Christmas Day. Being asked to join his family during the holidays felt strange. Although I’d already met them all, it felt like a meet-the-family-as-the-new-girlfriend invitation. I didn’t think I qualified for such a label. Zebb also invited me to dinner tonight, Christmas Eve.
To both invitations, I’d told him I’d have to get back to him.
For the twenty-fourth, I predicted work could run long and late.
As for the twenty-fifth, I wasn’t certain I could face a family full of reasons to celebrate. This time of year has never been magical to me. I shouldn’t have expected this year to be any different.
I had the perfect excuse to skip the holiday once more.
“I can’t make it to dinner or Christmas tomorrow,” I explain after greeting Zebb.
“Do not tell me you have to work.” There’s an edge to Zebb’s tone. I’ve used the excuse often enough this week.
“My mother died.”