{"id":18145,"date":"2023-09-18T06:55:26","date_gmt":"2023-09-18T10:55:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/?p=18145"},"modified":"2023-09-18T06:57:22","modified_gmt":"2023-09-18T10:57:22","slug":"merging","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/fiction\/merging\/","title":{"rendered":"Merging"},"content":{"rendered":"

Paul said goodbye to our mother loudly as she sat in her recliner a few feet away. He gestured towards the TV before shutting the door. \u201cWe put on the Price is Right<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n

Outside her room it was more of the same\u2014beige linoleum tiles, stark florescent lighting, the odor of bleach and mothballs. Paul had pointed out my mother\u2019s belongings to her when we first arrived\u2014her needlepoint pillowcases, her porcelain figurines. I couldn\u2019t say if she\u2019d been fooled, but I wasn\u2019t. When we got outside, it was a relief to breathe fresh air.<\/p>\n

I walked to Paul\u2019s car eagerly, but he stopped before unlocking the doors. \u201cWhat about a coffee?\u201d Paul was going to take me to the airport before driving several hours south, back to his wife and children. \u201cThis was depressing. Let\u2019s leave with a happier memory.\u201d<\/p>\n

He mentioned the run-down coffee shop Lulu\u2019s that had been a few miles from our childhood home, now a similar distance from our mother\u2019s facility.<\/p>\n

Since our mother\u2019s diagnosis a year ago, Paul said these types of things more often\u2014these references to creating nicer, lasting memories. I imagined his wife had bought him books on coping that he read before bed. Maybe he wished he\u2019d brought one with him on this two-day trip to Sacramento where we settled our frail, disappearing mother into a full-time care facility. In truth, I didn\u2019t know if he had the books. I hadn\u2019t been to his house. He\u2019d lived there seven years and had offered to pay for me to come out, but I always punted.<\/p>\n

When we sat down in Lulu\u2019s, Paul looked through the menu and asked if I was hungry. I wondered if he was making sure I was fed before going home. I imagined he\u2019d Google mapped my apartment and formed opinions. I couldn\u2019t fault him\u2014when he\u2019d called about our mother, I didn\u2019t have the money for the flight. He\u2019d paid.<\/p>\n

I ordered coffee.<\/p>\n

\u201cI might get a slice of pie,\u201d Paul said. He looked like our mother, both with kind, bright features, freckled foreheads. I looked like them too, I guess, but not in the way anyone would point out.<\/p>\n

\u201cDid you park at the airport?\u201d he asked.<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSo you don\u2019t mind driving home from there?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t mind,\u201d I said. \u201cIt will be late. I get along fine when there\u2019s no one on the road.\u201d<\/p>\n

We were both silent and drank our coffee looking out the window. It was an overcast day, which made the earlier conversation we\u2019d had about the weather too short and nothing we could return to.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou don\u2019t mind the people at the warehouse though? I\u2019ve heard those fulfillment centers are busy.\u201d<\/p>\n

I shrugged. \u201cGraveyard is less busy.\u201d<\/p>\n

He shifted slightly. \u201cI bet your medication helps with that, being around people.\u201d<\/p>\n

This wasn\u2019t the first time on this trip that Paul had brought up my medication. For years we didn\u2019t talk about it, because it meant talking about the before times and that always made our mother upset. I wasn\u2019t sure why Paul kept mentioning it now, except that it was probably another thing discussed in a book his wife bought.<\/p>\n

He started to ask what time I went in to work. I shook my head. \u201cLet\u2019s not talk about my job.\u201d I didn\u2019t know why he\u2019d asked about it. No one dreams of working in a warehouse, in fulfillment, building cardboard boxes, sifting through bins for trinkets made overseas.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel like we should talk about Mom,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

She hadn\u2019t recognized me, although when Paul reminded her that I was her other son, that lived farther away, she\u2019d squinted and nodded. But that information didn\u2019t stick.<\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t respond to Paul, I just looked out the window as a rush of cars passed and then there was a break in traffic. There was a red light out of sight, but I knew where it was. While we\u2019d never come inside Lulu\u2019s before, our mother had driven us on this road many times.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat are you thinking?\u201d Paul asked.<\/p>\n

I looked over at him and felt some sympathy. He had a pleading expression and I knew this was hard on him, harder than on me. My whole life was shit; more of the same wasn\u2019t any harder. But his life wasn\u2019t so bad, and now Mom knew who he was and he was expected to visit, to make it better. I was forgotten, which was easier, to be honest, for both of us. Think of all the things about me she got to forget\u2014my erratic days before meds, the fights, me breaking things, stealing things, ruining years.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was thinking of Mom driving us on this road.\u201d<\/p>\n

Paul looked out the window and I could see him smile slightly. \u201cEvery Sunday,\u201d he said. He turned back to me. \u201cGod, we hated going to church, didn\u2019t we?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah,\u201d I said. \u201cAlthough, I think mom hated driving to church more than we hated being there.\u201d<\/p>\n

He looked at me, curiously.<\/p>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t you remember her getting on the freeway? How she\u2019d grip the steering wheel, yelling for everyone to be quiet, to pray? Pray, boys! Oh God, help me merge on to this freeway. Oh God, help me!\u201d<\/p>\n

Paul started chuckling. \u201cI would have completely forgotten if you hadn\u2019t just said that.\u201d<\/p>\n

I smiled at him, knowing that he was hoping we were bonding. There were bonds, I thought, watching another batch of cars speeding past the window. I\u2019m sure my hatred of driving was related to my mother\u2019s own terror of merging into traffic.<\/p>\n

My mind went back to her in that facility. She\u2019d looked worried when we\u2019d left, her pupils moving around hurriedly, her hands gripping the armrests of her chair. She was stationary, but that didn\u2019t mean she wasn\u2019t merging into something yet again that Paul and I were helpless to control. We were just two young boys in the backseat again without a prayer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Paul had pointed out my mother\u2019s belongings to her when we first arrived\u2014her needlepoint pillowcases, her porcelain figurines. I couldn\u2019t say if she\u2019d been fooled, but I wasn\u2019t. When we got outside, it was a relief to breathe fresh air.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":18934,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18145","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fiction","writer-katrin-gibb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18145","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18145"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18145\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18937,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18145\/revisions\/18937"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18934"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18145"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}