CHAPTER SEVEN

With a brand new light bulb in hand, I'm face-to-face once again with the all-too-familiar barren white door to Mother's house. It's been a couple of years since I've last been here, because we still haven't spoken since I moved out. As I take my key-ring out of my pocket, I wonder if she's changed the locks. Finding my old copy of the house key, I slip it into the deadbolt tumbler and give it a turn. Surprisingly, the key still works.

I open the door and marvel at how unchanged the scene is inside. All white tile flooring, white leather furniture, a ceramic white coffee table, and still no decorations of any sort upon any of the barren white walls—as immaculate and as sterile as it ever was. It looks as if nobody actually lives here, although I know better.

After closing the door behind me, I slip into the dining room. No surprises here, either—still looks the same as that day I bolted out of here, minus the food on the table and Mother at the opposite end, of course. I slowly slide the dimmer switch to the single-bulb floating fixture above the dinner table. After the light turns on, I look for the reason I came down here. After a moment, the bulb flickers, making me wince as my eyelid twitches—I shut it off. The new LED bulb I brought with me is a dimming-capable type, unlike the one that was annoyingly installed. Honestly, I don't know why this still bothers me at all.

After replacing the bulb, I hear a car pull into the driveway. The pounding in my chest rises to my throat knowing that it must be Mother. I was hoping not to have to see her at all—knowing her schedule by heart, she should still be at work for another hour. As I consider going out through the back garden, the front door opens and Mother stares at me from the doorway. With her face as expressionless and cold as ever, she seems—unsurprisingly—not surprised to see me.

"I saw your car out front," she says as she steps inside and closes the door.

"I just fixed your flickering bulb," I say, explaining myself as if she might perhaps care to know what I'm doing here after all these years, unannounced. Predictably, she gives no reaction to either point of the matter, flicking off her heels and setting them at the corner of the vestibule. Already finding her typical silence tiresome, I collect the old bulb from atop the dinner table and walk toward her for the door to excuse myself. "I'll be off now."

"Congratulations," she says as she steps aside from the vestibule, allowing me to pass. "I have heard you have taken on a promotion."

"Thanks." I reach for the doorknob, hoping not to have to talk about anything work-related—I only took the promotion after Jen told me that Max and Harvey decided not to renew their contract with the company. As I open the door, the coolness diffusing through the overcast day washes over me like the depression that inevitably followed after saying goodbye to Max not long after tour finished, nearly a year ago now. In the last and most painful memory I have left, through the post at my work's office, I received the bracelet I'd gifted to him—there was no accompanying note, not even a return address—I've never heard from him again.

"Your father sent me an email through my office some weeks ago," she says before I have the chance to step out the door. I hesitate to leave. Half of me wants to know what he had to say, but the other half of me just wants to bolt—like he did—at the very mention of him. I truly hoped I would never have to hear from him ever again.

"And?" My voice sounds noticeably shaky to my own ears. Parked on the driveway, the rear bumper of Mother's car is mangled and caved in. I turn to face her, raising my brow—judging by the damage, it must have been quite an impact. "Were you in an accident?"

"Rear-ended—I have an appointment with the shop tomorrow."

"You all right?" My eyes crinkle.

"Just a bit of whiplash. I have an appointment with my doctor tomorrow as well." Her typically expressionless wall of ice lowers as she gazes to the white tile floor beneath her hosiery-covered feet, seemingly pensive with perhaps the slightest tinge of sadness that disappears as quickly as I notice it. "Do you mind if I get the kettle going?"

"I'll get it." All things considered, I know that's British shorthand for something serious and I'd rather be the one to make the tea than be the one to wait in silence. I pop over to the kitchen and get the electric kettle going with a fresh batch of filtered water, while I grab a couple of cups from the cupboard along with milk from the fridge. Remembering the boxes of tea bags are usually kept beside the mugs, I open the cupboard again, but I can't find any.

"In the drawer, dear. Where the utensils are," Mother's voice calls from the dining room. I turn around, half expecting to see her standing in the doorway peering over me, but she isn't there—apparently she knew that I wouldn't know where the tea bags are without even looking. I open the utensil drawer and retrieve the little tea bags from a ceramic cellar—a new spot as well as a new piece of kitchenware for the tea. As I finish making what I believe to be Earl Grey—by the scent of it—I wonder what else might have actually changed here that I might have missed as I rejoin Mother in the dining room.

"One sugar," I say as I set her cup down with it's saucer and teaspoon onto the table in front of her. I take my seat opposite her at the other end of the table, giving my tea one last stir before I set it down before me. We sit in the obligatory silence while we sip our tea for a bit. She sets her tea down and parts her lips as if to speak but closes them again with obvious hesitation, raising her cup to take another sip instead.

"His new wife divorced him and took the house and car," she says from behind her tea cup.

"Karma."

"He wants me to take him back," she says, her face is expressionless behind her cup. I scan her for any sign that she isn't giving this any serious consideration, but she doesn't give me anything towards that end.

"You can't be serious?"

"He wants to come back."

"I've heard you the first time—but I wonder if you've heard yourself." I clink my cup onto its saucer, staring into her icy gaze as it drops down onto the table. "He left us—without a word—we went halfway across the world to get away from him—he doesn't deserve another chance!"

"I never told you before, but I am proud of you."

"Where did that come from? You can't just change the subject—you aren't seriously considering any of this?"

"When you get to the end of your life, you realize there is only one thing you really need."

"What are you talking about? You're forty-nine."

"My appointment tomorrow is not with a G.P.," she says as she stares into my eyes before taking another sip of her tea. Something seems to click in the back of my head as my vision becomes hazy with the threat of oncoming tears even though I am not fully conscious of exactly what she's implying just yet. "It is for an oncologist."

"A cancer specialist? That means your going to get treatment, right?"

"I don't know."

"What do you mean, 'I don't know?'"

"Even if I agree to the treatment—the way that the cancer is spreading—has spread—it does not look good."

"What does that even mean, 'it does not look good?'"

"Partial remission, maybe—but I will likely only have a few years—at best." She takes another sip of her tea, but there is a nearly imperceptible tremble in her hand as she sets it back down. "There is nothing for you to worry about—"

"'There is nothing for you to worry about,' to hell with that." The tears burn freely down my cheeks.

"You will be fine. Everything will be taken care of when I am gone."

"Stop! Just stop."

"I have no debt and I have left you quite a bit of money—"

"I won't hear anymore of this!" I thrust my cup and saucer forward and it scrapes across the table toward her. With tea splashing, it screeches to a halt as my arm fully extends and my elbow locks.

"Listen!" She slaps the table, her words ringing in my ears. "That is why—if he wants to come back even knowing what I am going to have to go through—then I think it is for the better. I need someone—"

"You have me—"

"No. That is not what I mean—I need him—I have never stopped loving him."

"He left us! He left you—"

"I know!" She pops to her feet, the metal legs of her chair scraping across the white tile floor beneath her. She turns away as I exhale a deep, dark breath hoping to breathe out my hatred for the man and what he's done. "I know."

"Then how do you know he won't just leave again?"

"I don't—you never can—but I do know that this is what I want. This is what I need."

"Fine. If this is what you truly need, then I won't stop you." I stand as calmly as I can muster and wipe away the last of my tears from my face before I exit the dining room, pausing at the doorway. "Just bear in mind, I'll have nothing to do with him—never again."

"I won't ask you to." She glances at the spot of spilled tea on the table between us. Instinctively, I go and grab a towel from the kitchen and return to wipe it up. As I finish, Mother holds her hand out, prompting me to return her dish towel. She wears a look that I've never seen before—despite everything, she is serene with a definite sparkle in her eyes. She stares at me as if something is painted across my forehead. I give her a puzzled eyebrow. "You're in love."

"You're mistaken—I've not anyone in my life to be thought of in such a way." The heat rises to my ears as if the very mention of the word 'love' has set them ablaze. I can't even allow myself to think that way, especially since he doesn't feel the same way in the slightest—he's only made that perfectly clear.

"You may be well and perfectly able to lie to yourself—but not to your mother." She sits down and as I search myself for some sort of rebuttal—for a denial—she hands me back the towel.

"You came here to fix and clean up the mess between us, because you wanted to get away from the one you didn't know how to fix."

"This one can't be fixed," I say, returning her towel on my way out to the front door.

"I have tried so many different bulbs, trying to fix that flicker," she says just as I get a hold of the knob of the front door to exit. I pause and turn around to see her staring up at the light—she is surrounded, bathed in white. "After a while, it was just easier for me to just give up—but you didn't—you figured it out, dear—like always."