Read Online Eleven Twenty-Three by Jason Hornsby - Free Book Online Page B

was a long flight, is all. The
beds are okay, I suppose. Tara might disagree with me. She says the
bed in our apartment feels like plywood with a sheet draped over
it.”
    “Is everything okay with you and that girl?”
she asks, and I swallow away a momentary pang of irritation. Even
after three years, Tara will apparently always remain that
girl . I suppose it doesn’t matter.
    “You mean Tara ? Yeah, we're fine.”
    “I’m sorry you had to come home early,” she
says, sipping her wine. “I know that must have been hard to sort
out with the university.”
    “It’s okay. I just wish I was returning home
under better circumstances.” I watch as the orange tabby cat,
Percy, saunters by my mother’s legs, leaving a trail of hair on her
nightgown. “By the way, Mom, uh, how are you coping with this?”
    “About your father?” she asks, as if there’d
be anything else for her to cope with other than the fact that
she’s forgotten what the sun looks like. She smiles at Percy, who
is on his haunches staring up at her. “Well, I’m—I suppose I’m
fine. I mean, how does one react to the death of a cold
mean-spirited asshole?”
    “I’m not sure, Mom. Ask every other widow in
history.”
    “That’s bleaker than I’m used to from you,
Layne. What happened?”
    “Oh, it’s nothing,” I sigh. “It’s just an
argument Tara and I had earlier. She’s pushing for the marriage
thing again, and now she’s throwing down the
marry-me-or-I-won’t-go-back-to-China gauntlet. It reminds me of all
those ultimatums she gave when I asked her to move out of the
apartment back in February. It’s really selfish and annoying, and
furthermore, I’m going back to Suzhou whether Tara comes or
not.”
    “It certainly is unfair of her,
Layne,” my mother says vehemently, as I suspected she might. “Don’t
let someone pressure you into marriage like that. You do what you
think is best. If you have to then leave her, but don’t give in to
a demand like the one that girl is giving you.”
    I can always count on my mother to take my
side in every fight that girl and I have. Her unwavering support of
my growing detachment from human existence has been one latent
function of Dad’s departure when I was nineteen.
    “I’m sure things will be fine between us,” I
say. “I’m not especially worried about it. I’ve got other things on
my mind right now.”
    “Do you want to talk about your father?” my
mother asks so quietly that I almost have to ask her to repeat
herself. “We could, if you need to.”
    “We don’t need to talk about it. And if I
did, I’ve got to be honest, Mom: I don’t think it’d be you I went
to.”
    “Look, Layne, no matter what happened between
your father and I, he’s—he’s still your father. I understand that.
Even if he was married to someone your age when he
died—”
    “And it’s comments like that one, right there , why I couldn’t go to you,” I point out, standing up
and heading toward the kitchen to pour myself a glass of wine.
“It’s just too close to you, Mom, and truthfully, it hardly matters
to me. I’m much more concerned over how you would take him
dying than I myself would. Dad’s family, his sisters and brother
and the grandparents—none of them have called us. No one is
expecting anything of either of us, Mom. We could probably
not even show up tomorrow morning and no one would think anything
of it. I believe that even his own flesh and blood would have to
admit that he was kind of a, um, bad person.”
    My mom guzzles down her wine and says, “Trust
me, son. They would definitely think something of it if we
didn’t go. I think it best we show up, keep our mouths shut, and
respond with nothing but the most positive descriptions of our
lives if anyone asks. But forget about your father for a minute.
After all, he forgot about you and me for years —”
    “Nice one,” I say, drinking a full glass of
Mom’s cheap Pinot and then pouring myself