Page 96 of Bobby Green

With a sigh he wriggled out of bed and wrapped a tattered afghan around his shoulders. He’d gone to bed in the scrubs the nurses had rounded up, and his sweatshirt and jeans were too torn up to save. In addition to the shoulder and the hand, he had some scrapes on his knees and shin that had smarted during cleanup as well.

He would need to go get clothes from his apartment sometime that day, but first, coffee.

After he’d started the pot and downed his first mug, he settled down at the kitchen table and called his mother.

He wasn’t planning to tell her much, but, well, moms.

“Sweetheart? You okay? You don’t usually call me at work.”

He cursed himself, because he should have thought of that. “No,” he said, voice quiet. “I’m fine. Just don’t want to wake my friend up. We, uh, cleared some dates so we could come visit.”

“Oh, that’s nice!” Shehmmed a little, and he assumed she was checking her calendar. “I have to work this weekend, but next Saturday and Sunday I can have off free and clear. How’s that?”

“Perfect.” He and Reg could go out dancing. They could let the hickeys and the beard burn of someone else’s sex fade off their skin. They could have sex witheach otherevery morning for a week, as loud as they wanted.

And they could go see his mom without all the stuff that was hanging over their heads now.

“Are you sure?” she asked kindly. Someone said something to her in the background, and he heard her say “It’s my son” through the muffled receiver. “You sound… odd. Sad. Are you okay? How’s your friend? The one with the sister.”

“Sad,” Bobby said, because that was the only word he had. “She’s in observation right now, at a mental health place where they try to get them back on their med schedule.”

“Oh, honey.” She muffled the receiver again. “It’s important, okay? Consider this my break.” Then, back into the phone, “What happened?”

“I’m messing up your work,” Bobby said, suddenly undone by her concern, by her effort to put him first. She’d done that their entire lives—even when the old man was beating on her, she’d done her best to make sure Bobby came first. “We’ll come up in the morning, first thing. Weekend after next. Me and Reg. You’ll like him, Mom. I swear.”

“Okay, hon.” She sounded puzzled. “Good—”

“Wait! Mom—has Keith Gilmore been by lately?”

He heard a heavy breath on her line. “Yeah, hon. Actually….” Her voice dropped. “Yesterday morning, I went to leave for work and two of my tires were flat, which was weird because I’d just had them checked at the gas station. And Keith Gilmore came driving down the road, asking if I wanted a ride. It was really strange, Vern—he had no reason to be there. I told him no thank you—we have the generator out in the garage, you know.”

“Yeah. The air compressor still works, right?” It had the last time Bobby had needed it.

“Oh yes. I filled up my tires and got to work just fine, but I swear—there was no reason at all for him to be down that road unless he thought I was going to need help.”

Bobby grunted. “Good job, Mom. Seriously. But, you know—keep avoiding him if you can, okay?”

“What’s going on with him? Do you have any idea?”

Bobby let out a breath. “Yeah. I do. And… and I don’t want to tell you over the phone while you’re at work. Can you just wait until I get there? And not tell him?”

“Yeah, honey.” She sighed. “I miss you. Call me in the evenings sometime. We can watch TV together or something. I swear, I hadn’t realized how in the middle of nowhere this place was until you were gone.”

“Mom, I’ve got an apartment down here. It would be small and cramped, but I spend most of my nights with friends. Would that be enough?” He closed his eyes and tried to decide if he wanted her to say yes or no.

“Let’s wait until the summer,” she said gently. “It’s easy to hate this place in the winter. If I’m still hating life here in the summer, then yes. Yes, if you don’t mind your mother as a roommate, I’d love to.”

“It might not be just me,” he said hesitantly. “I might… I might have a friend who wants to room with us.”If he decides to leave his sister in hell so he can have his own life. Oh Jesus, this is not going away.

“That would be fine, hon. You’re sort of a picky roommate, you know. No dishes in the sink, no creaky stairs—if your friend can deal with you, I’ll deal with her.”

“Him,” Bobby said without thinking. He cringed, but his mother corrected herself with “Him” without missing a beat, and he realized she took friend to mean just that—friend.

He was going to have to be plain and clear with her—and like he’d said, not now.

“Okay, then,” he mumbled, needing to be off the phone. His body and wounds ached, and he longed to crawl in next to Reg, but what he wanted to do was off-limits for a whole other day. “I’ll talk to you later, Mom. See you in a week or so.”

“Bye, Vern. I can’t wait.”