Page 15 of Too Old for This

Light filters through the faded curtains, waking me up for lunch. I dozed off in my chair, and now I’m hungry. The coffee mugs from this morning are still on the table, along with the package of cookies.

Kelsie ate damn near half of them.

My phone blinks with a message, and I roll my eyes. This is on me. I should’ve contacted my ex-daughter-in-law earlier, like I promised myself.

Stephanie: Have time to talk? Call me when it’s convenient .

I make myself a bologna sandwich on white bread with mayo and mustard. Unhealthy, yes. But comfort foods are rarely about health. I used to make two of them every morning—one for me to take to work, one for Archie to take to school.

Yes, if I had more time and money, I would have grilled chicken and chopped up veggies and put it all between two slices of whole pita. But our life was bologna and white bread.

I hope Stephanie has her own comfort food.

She needs it more than I do, now that her ex-husband is getting remarried and having a baby with someone else.

Unlike me, Stephanie is a woman who was born to be married.

She stayed home with the kids until they went to school and then went back to work part-time, something she has continued to this day.

Olive is seventeen, Noah is almost sixteen, and Stephanie has a lot of time on her hands. She picks up on the first ring.

“Hi.”

I wait, but she doesn’t call me Mom like she used to. Not today, maybe never again.

Fine, fine. It’s all fine.

“How are you?” I ask.

“Archie told you, didn’t he?”

“He did.”

Long pause. I can almost hear her fighting with herself, debating how much to say about my son.

No doubt, she is sitting in her professional-grade kitchen, the one she and Archie built in their California home.

The dishes are done, the floor is mopped, no clutter on the table.

At the age of forty-five, she is without a partner for the first time in over twenty years.

All the cleaning in the world won’t change that.

“Go ahead,” I say.

Stephanie exhales. The relief comes out hard. “I can’t believe she’s pregnant. And that they’re getting married.”

“Yes. They are.”

“I never thought this would happen. I thought…I don’t know what I thought. Maybe that he would come to his senses? Realize he was…”

Stephanie goes on and on. She just wants someone to listen. Her rage isn’t directed at Archie. It’s reserved for Morgan.

The slut. The whore. The bitch.

In that order.

“You’ve met her, have you?” Stephanie says.

“Once. Archie brought her up here.”

“What do you think of her?”

Morgan was exactly how I had imagined: young, pretty, clueless. She had no idea how much pain her relationship with Archie caused, and he certainly hadn’t told her. The visit was awkward, with Archie trying his best to show me how perfect they were together and me trying to believe it.

“I think she’s very nice,” I say.

Her anger turns to sobs. I stay on the phone and listen, waiting for her to tire herself out. She runs through just about every emotion, finally coming full circle to the woman I know she is. Efficient, organized, on top of everything. If she wasn’t, I wouldn’t have let her marry Archie.

“I was thinking of bringing the kids up to see you,” she says. “But I suppose they’ll be up there for the wedding.”

“Yes. I’m not sure when it will be, though.”

“Maybe we should wait, then. They’re so busy, and I don’t want to take them out of school twice.”

The way she says that feels weird. And ugly. Almost like she is punishing me for what my adult son has chosen to do. But I keep my mouth shut. Soon enough, she’ll learn what it feels like to be blamed for everything her children do. That’s not a lesson I need to teach her. Some other woman will.

“I’m putting together a package for Noah’s birthday,” I say.

“You’re sending presents?”

“Yes. Same as I did for Olive’s birthday.”

“You really don’t have to go to so much trouble. A card would be fine.”

“I understand they may not care if I send a package,” I say, “and they may not want what I send. But years from now, when they’re adults, Olive and Noah will remember their grandmother cared enough to send them a box of presents on their birthday.”

Silence.

“Yes,” Stephanie eventually says. “Of course.”

I am exhausted when the call ends. Sometimes it feels like Stephanie forgets that she is not really my daughter. I am not loyal to her. I am loyal to my son.

Archie and I went through more than anyone else knows: from the bullying up in Spokane to moving down here and changing our names.

Mine became Lottie Jones, and he went from Richard Lansdale to Archibald Jones.

I chose that name because of the nicknames—Richie and Archie were so much alike.

He caught on quick. Within a week, I didn’t have to remind him at all.

Less than a year after moving to Baycliff, we went out one night to his favorite family-style restaurant. In between the maze on the place mat and the fish sticks, he mentioned an upcoming party for one of his classmates.

“You didn’t tell me about this party,” I said. “Which friend?”

He dug around in his pocket, pulling out a quarter, a plastic thing that appeared to be part of a toy, a piece of gum, and a folded, crumpled envelope. He slid that last one across the table.

I made a note of the date and time. A gift for Lucas would have to be budgeted.

“He’s the one with the blond hair?” I asked. “It looks like straw?”

“Yeah, like Simon had.”

Simon. I hadn’t thought about him for a while.

He had been Archie’s best friend in Spokane, and the first one to turn against him. I don’t think it was Simon’s fault. Like Archie, he was only seven years old. But Simon’s parents never really liked me.

No, that’s not true. Simon’s father liked me just fine. His mother didn’t appreciate that, or the fact that I was single. I felt a little sorry for her. Imagine going through life constantly afraid of losing your husband. It made her look uglier than she was.

The real problem came when her son turned against mine.

“Lucas is much nicer than Simon,” I said. “Isn’t he?”

“Yeah.”

“Good.”

Archie picked up a fish stick and dipped it in tartar sauce. “I think something was wrong with Simon. Like, some kind of disorder.”

He said that word— disorder —haltingly, as if he had just learned it.

“You think Simon had a mental disorder?”

“Yeah. He liked you a lot, but then he started calling you those bad names.”

“A lot of people did.”

“Yeah. They were like that guy on TV.”

“On TV?”

Archie rolled his little eyes. “That show you watched every Tuesday night.”

It was a newsmagazine that focused on crime, and it was on long after Archie was supposed to be in bed.

One of the recent episodes was about a man who started hearing voices and seeing things that weren’t there.

He became convinced his wife and kids were plotting against him. That didn’t end well for anyone.

“Maybe you’re right,” I said. “I bet that’s what happened to Simon.”

“I figured.”

Archie did not think the bullying was his fault. Or mine, for that matter.

Maybe it was the new school, the new friends, and being in a place where the kids weren’t calling his mother bad names, but Archie decided the way he was treated in Spokane wasn’t my fault: I hadn’t done anything. Everybody else had just lost their mind.

That night, Archie showed me what loyalty looks like.