A Widow's Comfort

Author's Note: Well, Gentle Reader, this is a shameless appeal for help. Like any writer, I suppose I qualify as a "writer" although "author" would arrogate myself to the ranks of Stephen King or Robert Heinlein or Earnest Hemmingway and I certainly do NOT do that. I actually think of myself as a storyteller. And, as you can see, my mind often wanders into digressions.

Back to the point.

I need your help. It seems that every morning I wake, early at my age, and there's a new storyline just needing to come out. Unfortunately, since there are only so many hours in the day and I DO have other things I do, my Thursdays with a group of friends pretending I can play and sing the blues or my ongoing gig writing papers for lazy college students, some storylines get lost. I recently returned to Margie, for example, one of my favorites but she got knocked out of my mind by other projects. And some of my stories, see "Becoming Sharon" for example, while fascinating to me are WAY on the fringe and may not appeal to enough to continue.

So here's my ask. If you like a story or hate a story, if you want me to continue with the line or kill it, please take a few seconds and leave a comment. I read EVERY one of them, believe me.

A Widow's Comfort

Chapter One

I sat, composing my thoughts, wondering if I was doing the right thing, but knowing, on some deep level, that I was.

Don't get me wrong. There was no doubt that I loved my mother and missed my dad. If he hadn't managed to get himself killed I wouldn't be sitting here trying to figure out what to do. But he did, and I am.

So I thought, composing my thoughts and composing what I would write. I didn't think I could handle what I wanted to say in person, I tend to get tongue-tied and a little scatterbrained when I get nervous. So I wanted to get it right and that meant writing it down. I remembered a guy I worked with for a while on a project for my professor. "If you can't put your thoughts in writing," he told me, "they're still pretty muddy."

So I started typing. Well, I started thumbing. I'm one of those Gen Z kids you hear about. I've been texting and keyboarding since I was seven. I can read and write cursive but it's not something I do naturally. But on a keyboard or a cellphone, I can thumb almost as fast as I type and I'm a seriously good typist.

My actual birthday is January 3, 2000, and I missed by this much ((holds thumb and forefinger a carefully measured 1/64th of an inch apart)) being named Wyetookay for Y2K if I had been born on New Year's Day. My mother and father are THAT kind of people. Well, Mom is and Dad

was

. They both said I should be proud to have been born that close to the first day of the new millennium. They stuck to that no matter how many times I explained that I was actually born close to the first day of the

last

year of the

old

millennium, but I might as well have been talking to the wall. I got lucky, though, and hung on for three days before joining the world, and got named William instead.

Anyway, I'm comfortable with computers and devices, but not so much with face-to-face.

So I thought and composed, and started typing.

WManchester3235:

Mom. I should have called but I wanted to get this said and you know how I can be when I get nervous. I can only imagine how you are feeling now. Dad and I were close but, well, you were his wife and that's a whole different relationship. I wanted you to know that I moved out, not to just be on my own, but to let you and Dad have your privacy. I wonder, sometimes, if you realize that I realize the sacrifices you made for me.

But it's a big house, I know, and you probably could use some help. Say the word, and I'll be moving back. Honestly, I hope you do. To tell the truth, I miss you, Mom. The whole "being on your own" thing ain't all it's cracked up to be. But if you want me to stay here, well, okay.

But I'll still check in regularly.

Let me know.

I love you.

Will

I read it over three times, drew a deep breath, and hit "SEND."

I held still for several seconds, staring at the screen, I don't know, maybe hoping there would be an instant response as if she had been holding her phone, hoping for my text. It didn't happen. So I went into the kitchen of the little basement apartment I shared with two other college students. I could smell pussy in the air and figured somebody got lucky last night. I grabbed a beer and went into the front room, figuring that I'd kill a little time defending the planet against the encroaching mechs in my

Titanfall II

game on the xBox.

I was playing, but not well, when I felt my phone buzz in the lower pocket of my cargo pants shorts.

Okay, yes. I'm one of

those

people, absolutely unable to ignore my phone so I sat the controller on the little table beside my chair, leaving my teammates to die, and opened the phone.

ProudMama3235:

Oh, Honey, thank you. I'd love for you to come home, but I don't want you to feel obligated. Yes, I'm lonely. Oh, Honey, I'm still in shock. But I'll be okay, I promise. You be good now, okay? I love you. Mom.

Jesus, I could feel the need coming off of the screen of the phone in waves.

Mom had always been my rock. I read somewhere that mothers and fathers tend to spend about the same amount of talking to their kids. This wasn't gender specific either. But the difference was, as the article put it, talks with fathers tended to be side by side while talks with mothers tended to be face to face.

That had certainly been the case in our family.

When Dad and I talked it was usually as he showed me how to clean a Holley carburetor or change the tire on a car. He taught me to bait a hook, how to follow the clay pigeon properly, and break it with the Browning A5 12 gauge shotgun he had signed for so I could buy it when I was 16, using the money I had saved from mowing lawns. It was Dad who put me in a quarter midget at 5 and served as pit crew while I was club champion four years running, who helped me master that sweet 15-foot jump shot that got me onto the varsity team, and who spent hours in the batting cage with me until I could finally hit a fastball nine times out of ten.

But it was always Mom I went to for the things that really mattered, you know, emotionally. Sometimes it was terribly embarrassing. It was Mom who held me as I cried like a fucking baby after my girlfriend broke my heart. But it was Mom as well who cuddled me when I stubbed a toe or skinned a knee. Okay, and I won't deny. It was Mom, the central woman in my life, who set my tastes. Maybe if I hadn't been brought up in a house with such a wonderfully round woman I might have been like the rest of the males my age and found skinny women attractive. But I wasn't and I don't.

I didn't hesitate. Hell, it's not like it was a hard decision.

I got up, pulled my

Titanfall II

game out of the xBox, carefully put it in the green plastic box, and then went into the bedroom I used, threw my half dozen T-shirts and pairs of jeans, my rolled-up socks, and my boxers into the army surplus duffel that was my only luggage, and headed out.

I stopped long enough to stick my head into Josh's room. As usual, he was balls-deep into some chick. This one, I noticed, was so damn black she looked like she had just stepped off the slave ship from Africa.

"Hey man," I said and waited.

He pushed the chick out of the way and said, "Ummmmmm, a little busy here."

I laughed and said, "You'll need to find another roommate. I'll get you a month's rent, but I have to go home."

"I figured," he said, chuckling, "Mama's boy. Tell Hattie hi for me. And don't worry about the rent, man. I have a bit of a reputation and I won't have any trouble getting someone else in."

"Thanks, man," I said, grinning, "enjoy."

"I always do," he said and pulled the girl back on top of him.

And so, obligations met, I headed home.

And yes, it was "home." I hadn't lied in what I wrote to Mom. I wanted to let them have their privacy when I left, every day since I left I had felt that, well, not quite "homesickness," but a little bit of "emptiness" is a good word. The apartment wasn't "home."

I parked my little blue chick magnet, the PT Cruiser so damn ugly girls seemed to like it, in the driveway, grabbed my duffel, and went in through the back door as I had pretty much every day of my life until I moved in with Josh.

As I walked in it hit me, the place seemed empty.

"Don't be stupid," I thought, "A house can't feel empty just because someone died."

But it did, dammit.

I stopped in the kitchen, trying to figure it out.

Well, there were dirty dishes in the sink, something Mom would never allow.

There was a slightly musty smell in the air that I couldn't identify.

Ahhhhhhhh, there it was.

It was silent. The silence of an empty place. When Dad was alive there was always some sort of background noise. There would be those oldies he loved playing on the radio, too loud since his hearing had started to go. There would be the sound of tools working, maybe the whine and growl of a power saw in the garage or the heavier deep buzz of the air compressor at work followed by the distinctive wail of air tools at work.

There was none of that.

I walked into the front room and stopped cold.

Mom was sprawled in the recliner, the only light in the room was what leaked around the curtains. On the little table that sat between her recliner and Dad's was a quart bottle with

Grey Goose

etched into the glass and an oversized ashtray that was overflowing.

In one of those amazingly inappropriate

non sequiturs

that happen sometimes, my first thought was,

"Mom doesn't smoke."

My second thought was,

"Oh, Jesus, she's dead."

As I was thinking that she let out a loud, bubbly fart.

God, what a mess.

Mom's one of those big women who seem to try to make up for her size by looking her best all the time. Her hair, worn short to make kind of a big halo around her head, think a medium-length Afro but with fine hair that strawberry blonde color favored by some "mature" women, was always in place and her face was always made up.

What was sprawled on the recliner was so far from that as to be almost unrecognizable.

It looked like her hair hadn't been touched with a comb or a brush or a hairpick, whatever she used to achieve that look she favored, since the funeral a week ago. Her face was still streaked with the black raccoon lines of tear-damaged mascara. She was drooling, making a wet spot on the thin housedress that was obviously all she had on.

And she stank.

I guessed she hadn't showered in the week since the funeral. Hell, I wondered if she had done anything but sit in that chair and smoke and drink.

I was crying as I knelt by her chair and took her hand.

"Oh, Mom," I said, very softly, "I'm so sorry." I kissed her hand. "I should have been here for you."

I felt her fingers twitch and looked up.

She wiped feebly at her mouth and nose that was running now, just managing to smear the mess.

"Oh, Honey," she said, "I'm all right. You should be back at school."

And some sort of a dam broke in my mind.

"Mom," I said, holding that hand but meeting her eyes now, "you are the precise, mathematical opposite of 'all right.' And I'm sorry I wasn't here to help you."

I kissed her hand again.

"And I'm not leaving," I added.

"Honey," she said, but I shushed her with a finger to her lips.

"Now, first things first," I said, pulling on her hand.

At first, she was dead weight but when she realized I wasn't going to quit she rocked forward. At her size, she had to rock back and then forward again to get the momentum up, and then she stood.

She was what she had always been. Short and fat. Dad had explained to me that, "Women are supposed to be soft and round." I guess he meant it because Mom was certainly both of those things.

When she stood and looked up at me, she held my eyes for a few seconds and then just sort of collapsed against me.

She was crying now.

No, she was bawling now. She was wailing. She was sobbing.

I held her and, I'm kind of ashamed to admit. I was aware of the soft jiggly woman in my arms even as I comforted and consoled my mother.

She bawled like that for a very long time. Sometimes there were words but what it boiled down to was, "What am I going to do?"

And so I held her, patted her, stroked the rat's nest that was her hair.

And I talked to her, my voice low and gentle, the way you approach a dog you're not sure of, one who's showing you his teeth.

"It's okay, Mom," I was saying, "I've got you now. I'm not leaving. I'll take care of you." Stuff like that, calming her. Gentling her.

Who knows how long we stood like that? Long enough, anyway, that she finally calmed down.

When she was finally down to just little sobs, almost hiccups, I gave her a pat on the back and then, as I had done thousands of times, gave her a pat on the ass.

"Watch it buster," she said, but the giggle in her voice told me that we had passed the crisis.

"Now," I said, pushing her away, holding her at arm's length, "Darlin', you stink. You're going to take a shower to wash the worst off, then you're going to soak in a bubble bath for about an hour until your skin is all pruny and you're at least half sober, and then we're going to talk."

She giggled.

"I am, am I?" she asked.

"Mom," I said, "I can't carry you but I can damn sure drag you, now come on."

And I started doing exactly that.

She stumbled but, well, I'm MUCH stronger than she is and after a few steps I wasn't really dragging her. I was leading her.

I led her upstairs to the master bathroom, the bathroom Dad and I had carefully remodeled a few years ago, so the shower was big enough that he and Mom could share it, but also so she didn't feel constricted.

"Well, now what?" she asked.

I reached into the shower and turned it on full hot to warm up.

Then, I chuckled, bent down, caught the hem of her housedress, and started peeling it up.

"DAVEY!!!!!!!!" she sort of shrieked.

"Oh, stop it," I said, chuckling, "Nothing I haven't seen before."

And she giggled.

"Oh, God, that's what I used to say to you," she said.

Okay, I looked.

And I liked.

Mom is one of those true butterball women. She's kind of narrow-shouldered and has enormous breasts that lie on the first roll of her belly. The second roll was a thick band and the third roll gave her the truly fat woman's natural modesty as it hung like an apron to cover her sex.

"Oh, stop looking," she said, "Don't you think I'm embarrassed enough."

I chuckled.

"Go on," I said and kissed her on the top of the head, "you stink."

She stepped into the shower and I started water running into the tub.

I thought about it and shrugged my shoulders. What the hell, I needed a shower too and she damn sure couldn't wash her own back. I went into my room and pulled my T-shirt over my head, kicked off my shoes, peeled off my socks, and then my jeans. I left my shorts on.

She yelled when I opened the shower door and stepped in with her.

"DAVEYYYYYYY!!!!" she yelled.

"Oh, stop," I said, "and give me the soap."

I washed her back and she washed mine.

It was interesting and sensual without being sexual.

I stepped out of the shower, and said "Stay there and rinse."

I dried quickly, pulled off the shorts, tossed them into the hamper, and pulled on my jeans and a fresh T-shirt.

"Okay," I said, opening the shower door, reaching in, and turning off the water.

"Into the tub with you," I said.

I held her hand and steadied her when she stepped over the edge of the tub. The line from the Blake Shelton song ran through my mind - "Then slip to your nose in a bubble bath" - as I watched her slip to her nose in the bubble bath.

"Okay," I said, kissing the top of her head again, "soak."

Then I went downstairs to clean up.

More than anything, the mess showed how badly Dad's death had affected Mom.

I started in the front room. I capped the vodka bottle and put it in the freezer. Then I emptied that overflowing ashtray and gave the rug a quick pass with the vacuum.

I did the dishes then, mostly Tupperware containers that friends and neighbors had brought. I washed and got them into the drainer and then ran the dish rag over the table and counters.

By then I figured mom should be well parboiled and pruny, so I went back up to the bathroom.

She was starting to stir so I took her hand and helped her step out.

I dried her back quickly and thoroughly and then went back into the bedroom while she finished. I found one of her housedresses in a drawer, this one a bright flower print. By the time I got back to the bathroom, she was leaning over, one foot on the edge of the tub, drying carefully.

In the process, I had an amazing view of something I had never expected to see from the outside.

"Okay," I said and she yelled a little as she turned, covering up with the oversized bath towel.

I chuckled and held out the housedress.

"Arms up," I said, "I won't look."

She met my eyes for a second and said, "Liar," but she was giggling.

So she raised her arms and I looked making us both laugh softly.

I dropped the muumuu style housedress over her head leaving her perfectly modest.

"Okay," I said, "Now we eat and talk."

She smiled and said, "I'm about casseroled out, Honey."

"Yeah," I said, "I figured. I think Chinese delivery."

"Oh, yummy," she said.

So I called the

Dragon Pagoda

, our favorite Chinese place, and ordered egg foo yung, chicken fried rice, sweet and sour pork, and a couple of egg rolls.

I had to grab the credit card out of Mom's purse to pay, but she didn't seem to mind.

"Sit," I said, my hands on her shoulders and pushing her onto the couch.

I went into the kitchen and mixed a screwdriver for her. It looked like she had been taking her vodka straight out of the bottle and I figured this would be better. I grabbed a beer for myself, having a bit of a nostalgia fit when I popped open one of the

Coors

I found there, realizing it was Dad's favorite and probably the last he bought.

I took the drinks into the front room and sat on the couch beside Mom.

"Honey," she started but I shushed her with a finger to the lips.

"Eat and drink first, then talk," I said.

She smiled at me, an odd smile, took a drink, and said, "You're all growed up, aren't you?"

I chuckled, put an arm around her, pulled her to me, and said, "Well, yes, but I'll always be your boy."

She chuckled, took a drink, and snuggled against me.

We sat like that, comfortable, as I fiddled with the remote and found Fox News. We sat, quietly, watching the news, sipping our drinks. I was happy to note that Mom actually was sipping, not slamming drinks back.

Food came and we ate. She giggled when I speared a piece of her sweet and sour and I slapped her hand when she tried for a chunk of my foo yung.

When we finished I gathered up the little white cardboard boxes and dropped the leftovers into one of Mom's Tupperware bowls of which she seemed to have about a million.

I mixed another screwdriver for her and opened another beer for me.

"Mom," I said, "I'm home. I'm not dropping out, but I'm home, okay."

"Thank you, Honey," she said, "but won't you..."

I talked over her.

"I'm where I want to be. I won't miss anything," I said.

She held my eyes for a very long count, her eyes doing that twitching thing as she would focus first on my right eye and then my left.

"Welcome home, Honey," she said.

And she kissed me.

It was an odd kiss. It was a kiss on the lips, more than a mother-son peck but less than an invitation.