Home Care

I tap on the RING doorbell outside the home. She had given me the passcode, but it’s saved in my notes on my phone, which is clinging to my left thigh inside my jeans pocket. Which I can’t get to because my hands are full of the bags that I refused to let the Lyft driver help me with. The act of fraudulent chivalry was more than I could bear after experiencing a twenty-minute flirting session with him on the way from the airport.

I already had to remind him several times to keep his eye on the road on the way over. His stealing a look through his tiny rearview every chance he got nearly resulted in a minor collision every time his eyes drifted towards me and not the road.

I hear a crackle through the doorbell speaker and my mother clearing her throat before producing any tangible words.

“Why are you ringing the bell? I gave you the code for a reason,” she says bluntly.

“Because I didn’t memorize it and it’s currently being kept safe in my Levi’s”.

“Kinda defeated the purpose then.”

“Can you please open the door? These bags are getting heavy.”

The lock finally opens remotely, turning with such a slug-like pace I’m certain my mother could have wheeled her way to the door to manually unfasten it in a shorter amount of time-space.

As I stumble my way into the house I haven’t resided in for over a decade, I see that not much has changed since the last time I visited. Except for a few new items. Apparently, the house still hasn’t healed since the last renovation took place, but that was months ago. The TVs are now mounted to the wall. A humble attempt at modernization, I guess, but there still isn’t any furniture in the house. Save for a recliner and a few bar chairs. The paint is fresh, a light grey with a navy type blue trim. I start to look over the house like a prospective buyer, but the house tour is quickly interrupted as I hear the sound of my mother’s wheelchair motor creeping towards me. The tires from the chair rolled over the crackling tile like a mini-tank with no weapon attached. Reminds me of the beginning scene of The Terminator Two when Skynet took over, and the big wheeled-gun machine was crushing all those skulls of the freedom fighters of the resistance.

Not trying to make any connection between my mother and a cyborg, but that’s what came to mind, and pretty soon, I’m greeted by the voice from the intercom. A greying older woman, in her early 60s, staring up at me from her electronic contraption with a look as if I was the prodigal child returning, except in my female version, I was excommunicated for a difference of opinion.

Her opinion was that I should get a real job instead of ‘part-time actress/part-time every job in the world’. We never saw eye to eye on subjects that dealt with my career ambitions. Of course, she entertained it when I was a minor. Lugging me to acting classes in her spare time when she was still able to maneuver her legs to balance a gas, brake pedal, and clutch. It was something I still admire despite our constant differences. She and my father had been divorced for some time now, and he was in another state. Our relationship is what it is. Nothing glamorous, not close, not distant, just close enough for me to know he’s alive and not hate him. He stayed in contact with me enough growing up for me not to hate him, but not quite enough for me to call him my best friend.

They’ve been divorced since I was a kid, way before her L5-S1 started giving her shit. He felt sorry for her, but at that point in their lives, he was no longer obligated to take care of her. That’s been my half-sister’s duty since I left. Or again, forced to leave. Of course, it wasn’t that bad then. My mother could, for the most part, still maintain. My sister’s father moved on a long time ago as well. It’s amazing the timing of both of her divorces, in which the men got to escape just in time before things went to hell.

My sister’s father was alright at times, when he wasn’t at the bar, and participating in drunken disputes with our mother that sometimes turned physical. These were times I never remember fondly. Luckily, my sister was too young to remember most of it. And I dare not remind her. The bliss of ignorance is a virtue that one can’t undervalue in this life.

But I digress, as it’s all in the past, and the present before me lies the woman whom I’ve been at odds with for the better part of my adult life, and she’s staring me right in the face.

“Hello, daughter”, she says.

“My name is Tiffany. You should know, you gave it to me.”

“Technically, it was your father’s choice; I just went along with it.”

“Thanks for the reminder.”

“You’ve gained some weight since the last time I set eyes on you,” she boasts with such confidence and a sarcastic smile that it made me wish there weren’t laws and social stigmas against harming the elderly.

“Is this the part where we’re being honest with each other? Because I can shoot off a few criticisms of my own,” I chime back.

“I’m perfectly aware I’ve put on a few pounds. It’s what happens when you can’t get up and exercise.”

“So what was your excuse before then?” I ponder out loud.

“You know I’m still your mother.”

“I’m perfectly aware of the predicament”.

She smiles back again with that sarcastic smile I so despised as a child. Oh, how one dreads the captive state of adolescence when speaking honestly about how one's feelings towards an adult can only be defined as insubordination. The God’s honest truth is that the only good thing about adulthood is the sheer freedom to be truthful in ways your childhood self could only dream of. The paying your own bills part is completely overrated.

“So when exactly is Cecely coming back?” I ask.

“In a few days. Could be two, could be three. It’s a road trip, so I’m not sure.”

“Sounds like a tight itinerary.”

“I promise I won’t hold you longer than need be.”

“I’m not complaining. Yet.” I say with a smirk.

“I’m going back to my room for now. The CNA just took me to the bathroom, but I’ll need to show you how to use the Hoyer lift before the end of the night.”

“Sounds like a plan, Captain Sam,” I say with a salute.

“Is that from one of your plays?”

“Nope. Just made it up on the spot. I can put some music to it later if you like?”

“Please spare me. I didn’t even like Hamilton.”

“Who doesn’t like Hamilton?”

“Me apparently.”

“I’m going to have to talk to Lin Manel about that”.

“You actually know him?”

“No, but I saw him in a coffee shop once in Brooklyn. I purposely bumped into him. Almost knocked the coffee out of his hand, but it had a lid on it.”

“ How stalker like.”

“It was gratifying”.

“I’m going back to my room,” my mother says very plainly, as if she’s bored with the conversation that I’m assuming lasted longer than she would have liked. As she rolls away, I begin my self-guided tour again of the house I swore I’d never move back to, seemingly transfixed by the fact that I’m even in here in the first place. I don’t bother putting my things up yet, so I just set them aside near the door. Perhaps the mere idea of even unpacking my things creates too much of an idea that I’m residing here, even in the slightest sense. I mean, no one unpacks in a hotel room, right?

As I make my way to the refrigerator to inspect what I’ll have to replenish or add for my liking for the week, I start to get a little homesick. Well, the home I had been calling home. Which is the bedroom of an infectiously cute female barista who works in a supremely snobbish coffee shop in Austin, Texas, just south of downtown. A few blocks from South Congress, or SoCo as the locals call it. They specialize in their in-house roasted (though at another location) curated coffees, which they offer on pour-over. They have two machines for when things get busy, but for the most part, they do them by hand.

Which, if you don’t mind waiting, is an experience on its own. I personally didn’t partake in such an activity until I met Jan. I was a latte with oatmilk and agave girl before her. Even my black coffee had to have some kind of sweetener. I was on sugar for the longest before I decided to save myself from a pre-diabetic condition that runs in some corners of my family’s genetics. Thankfully, not in our immediate, but it’s in there somewhere.

Jan was hard to figure out at first. She caught my eye as soon as I crossed the threshold of the shop that day. I was on a four-month tour with The Lion King playing a hyena when the crew decided to stop in after rehearsals. I had been there before a number of times whenever I happened to be in Austin, but as we figured out, I seemed to only visit on the days she was off or on vacation. When I did catch a view of her, I spent the entire time in line hoping she was gay or at least open to swinging my way. Thankfully, she wasn’t interested in the male species, so all I had to do was convince her that I was nothing like her previous exes.

I send her a text while I’m thinking about it, telling her how much I miss her, then distract my mind by forcing myself into my old bedroom to put away my things. I’m still not unpacking yet. There isn’t much room anyway, as the room has been turned into an office with a futon. At least the town where my mom stays isn’t so boring anymore. Back when I was a kid, San Marcos was just known as a sleepy little college town. I mean, it’s still a college town, but the college isn’t so small anymore. Attracting more yuppies whose parents can shuffle out cash for tuition and nice-sized rent, save that they didn’t get the scholarships. I wonder who is still around, as most of those that I still cared to socialize with have left, and we only link up around the holidays. Oh well. It’s just going to be a week.

Which is just long enough to keep my part-time job, I have back at the same coffee shop Jan works. We only work days apart, usually, so as not to smother each other. It was also just enough to keep what savings I have and to help Jan with her share of the rent. Which, so far, her other roommates haven’t seemed to mind that I’m helping pay, even though I’m not on the lease.

Staying with Jan is the longest I’ve lived with anyone in quite a while. I guess that’s something to say about her qualities more than mine. As I’m well aware, I have my hangups. Plus, she puts up with my actor schedule. I haven’t been on a tour since I started shacking up with her, and that’s been a few months now. I’ve just been getting by with a commercial or two. A few nationals, with a couple for a local smoothie shop and an infomercial, I think I’ve only seen once. I’m pretty sure my mother hasn’t seen any of them. Even though I’ve sent her the links.

I finally get a text back from Jan. She replies with how much she misses me, followed up with a stark warning not to fall for anyone else while I was gone. We’re only like forty-five minutes with traffic away from each other, so she’s being dramatic. Which I love. I message her back, reassuring no one could ever take her place and that she’s the only girl for me. I also remind her it’s not like I’m across the pond and she can visit and not worry about what my mother thinks. She’s known I’m partial to the Va-Jay-Jay for some time now. She doesn’t like it, mainly because she thinks she won’t get grandkids. I told her I’m willing to get a donor when the time comes, or at least adopt, but she says it’s not the same thing. Again, I couldn’t care less.

For my time here will be short, and any and all opinions she may have will be discarded into the suggestion box, which also has a paper shredder connected at the bottom. Eat that, mother.