Page 46 of The Heartbreak Hotel

Thirty-Four

If there’s one word I would never use to describe my mother, it’s reserved .

She can be kind, and loving, and magnetic, and fun—but she’s never once kept her big feelings to herself.

When Goldie and I arrive to visit her the next morning, though, it’s exactly how she looks: Like she’s buttoned everything in. Like she’s swallowing her anger.

“Morning, Mom,” Goldie says. She leads me into the room—two beds separated by a thin curtain. Mom’s is closest to the window, and the other is unoccupied, though a paperback novel splayed open on the pillow indicates someone’s been here recently.

“Good morning,” she replies. She’s sitting on the edge of her bed in gray sweatpants and a matching crewneck sweater, blue socks.

Her hands are folded in her lap, one thumb picking at the back of her knuckle.

She’s fidgety, unsettled. I wonder how much rage it took to get her here—how long she was furious with us before she accepted this.

It’s so painful to imagine her here alone all night that I force myself to stop.

“Did you sleep okay?” I ask. I know I didn’t; Mei and I stayed up most of the night watching baking show reruns on the hotel room TV.

She fell asleep sometime around two—I flitted in and out until finally giving up and going for coffee at six o’clock.

Goldie and Quinn had their own room, and she’d kept her distance.

Mom nods, teeth worrying at her lip. When we sit in the chairs across from her, her hand darts out to clasp mine. “I’m so sorry about Nathan,” she says. I can feel Goldie turn to look at me, but I hold Mom’s eyes. Familiar and sad and the exact same color as my sister’s.

I could be angry, I know. That in this moment, with everything she’s put us through, this is what she’s choosing to apologize for.

But I know that she means it. That her heart is broken for me; that this is the way she loves me; that this is easier for her to talk about than the reality of what’s happening in this room.

I squeeze her hand. “Thanks, Mom. It’s okay. ”

“He was a good boy,” she says. “But you’ll find someone else.”

I nod. Think of Henry, his tattoo under my ear as I lay on his chest. “How are you feeling?”

Mom breathes a laugh, raspy. When she waves a hand around the room, anger flares on her face. “Mark isn’t who I thought he was.”

I watch Goldie digest this. Her lips pressing together, her chest rising with breath.

She’s furious; I can see it. This isn’t about Mark, and I know—I know —she wants Mom to acknowledge that.

But I also know that Mom knows it. That it’s just too hard to say the rest of this out loud: that she’s sick; that she always has been; that it isn’t her fault and her healing isn’t linear and, all those things being true, it’s painful for us to be back here together.

I know Goldie knows all of this, too. And I love her so much when she says quietly, “Men are trash.”

Mom laughs. Her big one, belly-deep and scratchy. “Truer words never spoken, baby. All these boys who take and take and take and give you nothing in return.”

I think of myself, this fall, in my kitchen.

Of Goldie: You do this, Lou. You take care of other people to avoid taking care of yourself.

And of Henry, who’s taken every single opportunity I’ve ever given him to care for me right back.

There’s power in being the person someone needs—but there’s power in accepting what you need, too.

My mother reaches for both of our hands, this time. “I love you,” she says. I look at my sister, whose eyes sparkle with tears that she’s quick to blink away. “I don’t want you worrying about me, now.”

When Goldie and I step through the sliding glass doors, the sun’s emerged from behind Ohio’s characteristic blanket of gray clouds. It makes the sidewalk sparkle: bits of granite dust, or whatever it is.

“That was hard,” I say. Mom will be here for at least the next month, talking to a therapist every day. “Thanks for going easy on her.”

Goldie slides her hands into the pockets of her wool coat. She looks out over the parking lot like it holds the secrets to the universe. “You taught me how to do that, you know.”

“Do what?”

Goldie looks at me. “Say something that’s kind and true, instead of just true.” She turns away again. “Instead of just saying the thing I want to say.”

I nod, taking this in. Before I can even respond, she’s talking again—straight out at the rows of parked cars. “I know I’m too hard on you sometimes. That I can be honest over being kind, instead of both.” She turns to me. “It’s only because I love you, and I want you to be okay.”

“I know,” I say. “But I need you to trust me more. To take care of myself.” I swallow, and make myself say the next bit out loud. “You trusting me feels like love. Because you’re so smart, and so successful, and when you trust me—it makes me trust me, too. I need that from you.”

She blinks, nodding once and then looking down at her boots. “Okay,” she says. “Okay, that makes sense.”

I sniff, hard, in the cold. “And it’s not fair of you to accuse me of taking care of everyone else at the expense of myself, but then leave me to deal with Mom on my own. It’s not fair to crucify me for the thing you clearly expect me to do.”

Goldie’s lips part. “That’s not what—I don’t mean to—”

I force myself to let her keep spluttering. It’s a rare thing, to see my sister at a loss for words.

“I don’t expect you to take care of Mom,” she says finally. She doesn’t look sorry, like I wanted her to. She looks pissed. “I just know you will , because you always do , which is my whole point.”

“But I have to take care of her,” I say, my voice rising. “Because I know you’re not going to, so who does that leave, Goldie?”

Goldie spreads her hands. “I’m here, aren’t I? When it’s a real problem, I’m here.”

“It’s always a real problem!”

Goldie takes a step closer to me, leaning into my space. “Mom taking an ill-advised vacation that she can’t afford is not a real problem, Lou, it’s a mistake. And she’s going to keep making them if you’re always there to fix things for her.”

My eyes sting. “So it’s my fault she’s in this mess.”

“Absolutely not,” Goldie snarls. “Don’t even say that.

Mom is a grown woman, responsible for all of her own shit, and you’re her child , Lou.

It makes me livid, watching her expect you to solve things for her.

” She leans away, but her eyes hold mine, angry and unblinking.

“You’ve got to let that go. It’s not your burden. ”

I swipe at my eyes, sniffing inelegantly into the cold. It’s always felt like my burden. Like it belongs to me as much as my hair, my fingernails.

“I would rather die,” Goldie says, “than have Quinn ever feel the way Mom’s made you feel. Like I expect him to sacrifice any part of his own happiness to clean up after me.”

“You would never do that to Quinn,” I whisper.

“No,” Goldie says. Her voice is like flint, sparking. “And Mom should never have done it to you.”

I think of all the years I lived with Goldie. All the mornings she drove me to school before class, all the pieces of her childhood that she missed because of me. “Or you,” I say. “All that time you raised me, instead of her.”

Goldie blinks, the fury breaking from her face. Her eyes flicker away from mine, down to the sidewalk. I say, “Thank you.”

“You don’t need to thank me.”

I take a step closer. “Mom needs to, but she probably won’t, and you should get to hear it.”

Goldie looks up at me. Swallows. “Then thank you, also. From Mom.”

I nod. And then I take a shuddering breath and say, “I failed my NCE.”

Goldie’s head snaps back, her eyes flaring wide. “What? When?”

“Right after I finished my clinical hours,” I tell her, “just like I planned.” A couple walks through the double doors, arm in arm, and we step out of the way.

I’ve essentially forgotten where we are, or that anyone could have overheard that entire exchange.

But it’s too late now. “Nate was in Stockholm with Say It Now. He cheated on me the night before the test, and I saw a picture of it, and it totally got in my head.”

Goldie stares at me, unblinking.

“I failed it.” My voice thins out, but I force myself to shrug—like this is even a little bit casual, like this isn’t the scariest thing I’ve ever said out loud to my sister.

“And I had to wait to retake it. But I’m going to, on the sixteenth.

So that’s why I’ve been doing all this stuff, with the house.

Because I couldn’t do anything else yet. ”

Goldie glances out at the cars, in through the glass doors, back at me. Like she’s looking for something, though I can’t imagine what. “Why didn’t you just tell me?”

I laugh, an insuppressible gasp. “Tell Goldie Walsh that I failed ? Goldie Walsh who went to college on a full-ride merit scholarship? Who got a perfect score on her LSAT? Goldie Walsh who—”

“Stop it.” She holds up her hand. “I’m your sister , Lou, you can tell me anything.”

“Can I?”

The question hangs between us, damning. Goldie’s nose wrinkles, and I realize that she’s about to cry.

“Yeah,” she says, shakily. “Of course you fucking can.”

“But you would’ve been so mad at me,” I say. “For letting Nate—”

“Fuck Nate,” Goldie says. I laugh again, my own eyes blurring with tears. “Truly fuck him for fucking with you like that, especially in a way that impacted your career. I’ve always hated him.”

“I know,” I say, wiping my eyes. She swipes at hers, too—surreptitious, but impossible to miss.

“Lou, I’m sorry.” She raises her chin, like she’s leaning into the apology. “I’m sorry I made you feel like there’s anything you can’t share with me.”

“Thank you,” I say. I can count on one hand the number of times Goldie’s apologized to me in our lifetime.

“I’m really proud of you,” she says. My throat tightens like a vise, and I swat my hand at her.

“No, I mean it. I don’t say it enough.” She waves toward the double doors.

“And that, in there? I mean, you’ve always been so much better at this really hard shit than I am.

Mom’s lucky to have someone like you—who gets it.

I know her diagnosis comes from trauma and I know she’s been through it, but it’s so hard for me to separate that from how much she’s hurt us, and how angry I am, but you—” Goldie breaks off, draws a breath.

She’s never said any of this to me before—not ever.

“You’re impressive,” she finishes, quieter. “I mean it.”

She’s completely blurred out in front of me. My voice is thick and strangled when I say, “We’re a good team.”

She nods. I close the distance between us, finally hugging her against me. She melts into it, letting out a puff of breath over my shoulder. “We are.”

“And if there’s nothing I can’t share with you…” I say, leaning back to find her eyes. I swipe at my tears, and Goldie raises her eyebrows. “I do need to get back to Colorado, like, now . But I have a good reason.”