“Hey, Ma,” Justin said around a mouthful of something as Monique made her way through the back door and into the kitchen. She hung up her keys on the hook that Granddad had mounted just for her—right next to his. Justin’s keys occupied that hook now. Mimi’s hook that Jasmine had claimed was unoccupied. Monique’s mother, the kids’ Nana, on the other hand, was never one for key hooks or anything orderly, always toting a bag that held the entire universe and still could never find whatever she had been looking for.
“Hey, baby,” she said, exhaustion greeting her as sudden as an eager pet. After kicking off her shoes, Monique slid her feet into a pair of house shoes as she worked herself out of her coat and draped it over her arm. “Where’s your sister?” Monique asked, dragging her free hand over Justin’s shoulders, as was her habit whenever she passed him.
He shrugged and replied, “She said she’ll be right back,” before stuffing the rest of his peanut butter sandwich into his mouth.
Monique fought the instinct to roll her eyes. Jasmine had been away from home for a whole semester and forgot the house rules. “Tell her to come see me when she gets in.”
“Aiight, Ma.” Justin grabbed a water bottle from the fridge and downed most of it before Monique made it to her bedroom door. “How was group?” he called after her, burping loudly. “Excuse me,” he said reflexively.
That boy… A smile broke through her exhaustion, and she chuckled. “Group was as good as it can be, baby. Thank you for asking.”
As she reached for the knob to open the door up to her room, Justin was upon her, smelling nutty and sweaty, and a little bit sweet, and pressing a cold, damp kiss against her cheek. “I know it’s hard—well, I imagine it’s hard—but it means a lot that you keep going. It’s good for you—good for all of us.”
Justin’s surprise affection always brought the best kind of overwhelm. Now, in all his height and limbs, he wrapped himself around his mother, becoming a protector, a shield, a comfort. Time was funny like that. Bending in on itself, flip-flopping.
He passed her and turned into his open bedroom doorway. Monique followed and stood at the threshold, watching him do whatever it was nineteen-year-old boys did at nine-thirty on a weeknight.
“What’s up?” he asked, looking up from his duffel bag as he pulled out scuffed and dented shin guards. His eyes were so big from that position, like a baby doll’s. She wanted to hold him to her but resisted.
“Nothin’, I just wanted to see how you were doing.”
An ABCs poster still hung on the wall, now covered with dinosaur and sports stickers. The walls desperately needed painting. The blinds dangled in an up-down kind of way that mimicked Justin’s smile. His dresser and shelves were littered with trophies and figurines. Not much had changed in this room since they had moved in back when the twins were in preschool.
She wondered, then, where Justin might want to be next.
“I’m good, Ma. Just getting myself together for tomorrow. Gonna hit the pitch after work.” Justin was about two things—well, maybe three if his need for fuel counted. But soccer and his security job at the conservatory were his great loves. “Go change and relax. I’ll put the kettle on and tell Jas to come find you. Okay?”
She’d been dismissed. Unsure if this was an acceptable role reversal, a bewildered Monique climbed the narrow stairway up to the still mostly unfinished attic that she called a bedroom.
She gripped the aged wood rail, worn yet shiny from lifetimes passing through. Monique used her arms just as much as her legs to summit the stairs. Breath labored, she leaned her head against the cool wood paneling. Her bedroom always felt more cavernous after group. The nonexistent walls closed in on her, loneliness echoing off the exposed beams overhead.
The December wind, Chicago’s infamous hawk, rattled the leaded windows, demanding entry. Once upon a time, this attic had been Monique’s sanctuary. Somewhere she’d hide among the remembrances of days gone by, among cedar chests that smelled like mothballs and old Christmas decorations. Tonight, it was a cave, and she’d been sent to lick her wounds.
She sucked in a breath and then pushed it out in that slow four-count-out way Dr. Tedrow had shown them. Box breathing.
It wasn’t working. She kicked off her house shoes, worked the socks from her feet, let her toes sink into the shaggy rug beneath her, and tried the breathing thing again, this time adding toe curls to the mix. Her phone pinged with a text message alert from her Baddest Baddies support group chat.
CHICKIE
Have fun on your trip, Mo! We have only one life to live… that we know of so have an adventure!
ELEANOR
Send pictures! We know you’ll have your camera out.
CHICKIE
That’s right! Don’t be stingy with the pictures.
VANESSA
And have a few glasses of champagne for those of us who can’t.
Monique knew Vanessa was joking, but cancer was a fun-sucking hall monitor. Always lurking and popping up to catch you slipping. Logic and understanding told her that Dr. Tedrow was doing his best to equip them to not shut down or blow up whenever cancer decided to be extra bitchy. To show them it was okay to laugh and smile through all of it. Sometimes, at least for Monique, she had to laugh to keep from crying.
MONIQUE
I haven’t even started packing. Give a girl a break!