Gone - part 2

It's probably at least 20 minutes before either of us speaks again.  Then it's my mom who opens her mouth.  She's probably less in shock than I am.  I've had 28 years of coping with her lose and now she's thrown back at me.  She's had barely 28 minutes to realize what's happened.

"So how are you doing?" she asks.

"Fine, I suppose, all things considered."

"What do you mean?"

I scoff.  "Well, my mom just walked back into my life after 28 years to me and 28 minutes to her."

"Well, I meant with life in general, other than with me," she says gently.

My eyes must be as big as grapefruits.  "You really want to know about my life without you?"

She frowns.  "I wish I had been there myself to see it all," she says.  "But this is the best I can get at this point."

I let out a deep sigh and lean back, but then wince in pain because my head that I fell on just touched the back of the chair.

"Are you okay, sweetie?" my mom asks, leaning forward.

"Yeah, mom, I'm fine," I say.  It feels weird saying "mom".  The lady my dad remarried wanted me to call her mom, but it always felt weird, especially since I was an adult by the time they married.  This is a different kind of weird.  The kind of weird you feel if something literally impossible is happening.  I have to be dreaming or dead or something.  The most logical explanation for all of this is that I'm about to wake up any minute.  There's been silence again while I'm thinking about all of this.  My mom breaks it.

"You must have a pretty decent job if you can afford the house all on your own."

"Well, dad paid off most of the mortgage before he gave it to me, so it wasn't so bad.  I wanted to pay him for it, but he said continuing to pay off the mortgage would be good enough for him."

"When was that?"

"Eight years ago.  Right after I graduated from college.  Dad and Marcy had tried living here, but Dad..." I sigh.  "He still remembered you in every hallway, so they had to move out.  He gave it to me because he needed to part with it but he couldn't really part with it."

"And you were okay, living here alone?  You didn't have the same... issues?"

I frown.  "I hate to break this to you, mom, but I barely remembered you.  I only recognized you today because dad used to sit up late staring at pictures of you, plus the fact that you said your name.  I don't think I would have ever thought it was you otherwise.  I mean, who would think their dead mother was bad and didn't look any older?"

There was another silence as neither of us knew what to say.  Then I went on, "I work as a paralegal.  I was pre-law, but didn't go on to become a lawyer.  It's decent pay, though no where close to what a lawyer makes."

"What made you decide to go pre-law?" my mom asks.

I stare at her for a moment before I say, a bit too rudely, "What do you think?"

She looks down at her hands, sighs, and then looks back up at me.  There are tears starting to form in her eyes.  I feel bad now.  "I'm so sorry sweetie," she says, fidgeting with her hands.  "I never meant for any of this to happen, I mean, me being gone for so long.  I loved you so much.  I just..."

I reach across the table and take her hand.  "I know," I say, softening my tone, "I just, I don't know what to do in this situation."

"Who would?" my mom says.  "I assume they haven't invented time travel yet."

I can't help but laugh at that.  "No, mom," I say, "they haven't."  I'm saying "mom" very consciously now, trying it out, hoping that it will stop sounding weird, but knowing I could never call her "mom" in public.  In public.  Dear Lord.  What are we going to do now?  How is she going to live in this world?

"So there's no explanation at all, no possible theory, on what happened to me then," my mom says.

"No," I say.  Then I smirk a little as I let go of her hand and say, "Unless God's involved somehow."

"Oh sweetheart," my mom says, "God wouldn't do something like this."  She's completely serious.

I scoff.  "It was a joke, mom," I say.  "God isn't real."

My mom frowns.  "I still believe in him," she says.

"Of course you do," I say.  "You didn't have your mother stolen from you when you were four years old."

"Sweetie..."

"I know, mom.  I'm sorry."

There's another silence and then I chuckle a little.

"What's so funny?" my mom asks, looking concerned.

I smile.  How can I not?  What's the other option in a situation like this.  "I'm older than you," I say.  "I'm older than my own mother."  And I burst out laughing.  I laugh so much that mom starts laughing too, and pretty soon we're crying, and then hugging and then I'm thinking again about how much my head hurts but how this can't possibly, any of it, be real.

-----

Well, when I wake up the next morning, mom's still around, so it might be more real than I thought.  She showed up on a Saturday, thank goodness, so we have a whole two days to figure out what to do with her before I go back to work.  We decide to approach this practically and have her pretend to be my sister.  But she has no identification other than a social security number that puts her at age 57, so we have to think a bit on what to do about that.  Finally I decide to just screw it and deal with the need for identification when it comes up.  As long as she doesn't get pulled over by a cop, we'll be fine, and I'm sure as hell not letting her drive anywhere anyway.

I tell her to stay home and watch TV while I'm at work.  Maybe she can get caught up on all the stuff she's missed over the past 28 years.  Maybe she'll enjoy it.  Or maybe it will just make her cry.