On Saturday morning, Josh drove out to his mother’s place, and I rode along.
Cindy lives in a tan double-wide on two acres outside Rogersville, about three miles from Uncle Gene’s farm. The yard is full of ceramic geese, wind chimes, and a sign by the porch that says THIS IS MY HAPPY PLACE. Her white Buick Enclave, the one Josh co-signed for, was parked in the gravel drive.
Josh didn’t say much on the drive. His hands were tight on the steering wheel of his truck. At a stop sign on Highway 125, he looked over at me.
“If I start backing down,” he said, “you squeeze my hand.”
“You won’t back down.”
“I’ve been backing down from her my whole life, Kayla.”
“Not today.”
When we pulled into the gravel drive, Cindy came down her porch steps to meet us in the front yard. She was wearing one of the new Dillard’s sundresses, a turquoise one with big white hibiscus flowers, and her hair was freshly done. Friday had been beauty shop day.
“There’s my boy,” she said, holding her arms out.
Josh didn’t hug her.
He stood in the gravel with his hands in his jacket pockets, and he looked straight at his mother.
“Mom, there’s no cruise.”
She laughed. It was the same laugh from the dock, high and bright and careless.
“Very funny.”
“It’s not a joke,” he said. “Kayla spent it Monday. On Leon’s ears.”
Cindy looked at me. Then at her son. Then she opened her mouth.
What came out was a sound I’d never heard from her before. It wasn’t a word. It was a kind of strangled gasp, like somebody had knocked the wind out of her.
“You spent my cruise money,” she said finally, very slowly, “on that old man’s hearing aids?”
“It wasn’t your money, Mom. It was ours. We saved it. And yes, we spent it on Leon’s hearing aids. The ones you knocked into the pond.”
“I did not knock them into the pond! He fell!”
“You pushed him.” Josh’s voice was steady. “I saw your hands on his back when I came down the hill. Kayla was standing right there. So were forty other people.”
“It was a joke! Everybody was laughing!”
“Nobody was laughing, Mom. Except you.”
Cindy’s face went red under her makeup. She looked at me, and her eyes narrowed.
“This is your doing,” she said. “You put him up to this.”
“No, ma’am,” I said quietly. “I didn’t.”
“She didn’t,” Josh said. “It was my decision too. And I’m the one telling you.”
“I’ve told everybody about that cruise! The whole beauty shop! Darlene! Carol! The ladies from church! What am I supposed to tell them now?”
“Tell them the truth,” Josh said. “Tell them you pushed a sixty-eight-year-old man into a pond, his hearing aids cost forty-one hundred dollars, and your son paid to replace them.”
Cindy stared at him.
“I bought clothes,” she said, and her voice cracked. “I bought three sundresses and a cover-up and a hat. On my Dillard’s card. Six hundred dollars.”
“Then you can return them,” Josh said. “Or you can keep them and pay for them yourself, Mom. Like the rest of us do.”
Ethan Blake is a skilled Creative Content Specialist with a talent for crafting engaging and thought-provoking narratives. With a strong background in storytelling and digital content creation, Ethan brings a unique perspective to his role at TheArchivists, where he curates and produces captivating content for a global audience.
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