Elise Lanier - Treading Lightly

“I heard everything,” he said gently. “I didn’t mean to, but when you knocked on my door, I thought the phone was for me so I listened in.”

“It’s okay.”

“Thanks for sticking up for me.”

She nodded.

“I’m sorry about what I said before.”

“It’s okay.”

“No, Mom. It’s not. You’re nothing like Grandma.”

A snort of air came from Janine’s nose. “That’s a relief.”

They stood in silence, neither knowing what to say next.

“Why do you let her talk to you that way, Mom?”

She shrugged. “Why fight it? It just extends the conversation. I’ve learned long ago to let her have her say and not argue. Arguing only prolongs the agony.”

He nodded.

She looked at her son. Really looked at him. “I don’t want you to ever think that way about me, Craig. I want you to be able to talk to me.”

“I can, Mom.”

She smiled sadly at the most important person in her world—the only important person in her world. “Will you let me know if I ever get too overbearing and you can’t express yourself to me? Because the day that happens will be the day I’ve destroyed the best thing in my life.”

He looked at the floor, stubbing his toe at some invisible mark. “Yeah, I’ll let you know.”

The sunlight streamed across her face, and the sound of an ambulance screaming outside her window woke her up from her troubled sleep. Looking around, she saw that she wasn’t in prison for tax evasion, but was still in her own home. Thank God it was only a dream. A nightmare, really.

She pulled herself out of bed, threw on a robe and stumbled to the kitchen for her morning jolt of caffeine. Passing the table, she looked for the pad and found her morning note from Craig.

Not yet, Mom. I can still take ya!?

Don’t let Grandma get you down.

You’re smart, talented, and beautiful in my eyes!?

Smiling, she was glad he couldn’t see her at that moment. She looked down at the old, worn terry-cloth robe with pulls and stains, and fingered her dirty hair. He wouldn’t find her so beautiful right now. But perhaps she was wrong. When he had bed-head and crusts of sleep in his just-wakened eyes, she found him quite adorable. Beautiful. The only time she found him more beautiful was when he was sleeping. Because when he was asleep, he was without any defenses. He was her son, her child, the being she had given life to—pure and open. He was still her baby when he slept.

She looked down at the pad again and smiled. How could her mother think this boy was anything but terrific? Look at the sweet message he’d left her, knowing she was stressed and tired and feeling crappy about herself.

She shuffled over to Mr. Coffee, measured out some coffee and thought of her son as she stood there waiting for the pot to fill. The heavenly aroma filled the small, drab kitchen, and she found renewed strength in the blissful fragrance. When the trickling sound ended, she poured herself a cup and padded back to her room, mug in hand, to get her e-mail messages. Once she’d responded to anything urgent (like hopefully the response from her agent Sid), she’d get to her walking.

She logged on and brought up her e-mail program, sipping the hot coffee while waiting for the messages to come through. Looking for anything important, she was a bit miffed that she hadn’t heard from Sid. “Damn it! When I was making money hand over fist for the man, he answered my e-mails within minutes!” Lately, if she heard back from him within a week, she felt honored. “Has my latest work been that stinky?” she wondered aloud as she deleted the mortgage offers, the porn-site insertions, and the other nonpersonal spam that flooded her in-box. Feeling depression start to sink in, she put on her mannish-looking walking shoes and sports bra—no use having anything droop further, time and gravity were doing enough to help in that department—and climbed aboard her treadmill.

She popped in the videotape of Family Feud that Craig had recorded for her daily and started walking. Family Feud was on twice each weekday, which made one hour of tape. If she timed it right, she could walk about forty-five minutes worth in an hour. If she was lucky. The time discrepancy was due to her usual pit stops—which she took every ten to fifteen minutes or so. Having a bladder the size of a thimble, she could only get about a quarter mile done—tops—before she needed a bathroom break.

“House! HOUSE, you moron! How can you not say house?” she yelled at the doofusy-looking man on her TV screen. “Where do you live? In a cave?” she shouted, gasping for breath. “In an island hut? In a cell? You moron!” She shook her head. “People are idiots!” she sputtered. “Where do they find these people to go on this show? Under a rock?” she muttered, and made a face that was a cross between severe pain and the immediate aftermath of finding out your son has head lice while you’re lying with him on his pillow to talk about his day. “You don’t deserve to win the twenty thousand dollars. You’re too stupid!” she told the man on her screen.

When she had first started walking, Craig tried to show his support by sometimes sitting on her bed while she walked, watching Family Feud with her as she plodded along. The television volume needed to be way up to be heard over the noise the treadmill made, so he’d join her, casually saying it was so loud in the apartment, there was nothing else he could do without hearing it anyhow. He’d laugh at her disbelief at the answers people came up with on the show, and funny as it first was (watching his mother tromp like a hamster in a wheel while screaming obscenities at a taped game show), it lost its appeal pretty quickly.

One day, when he was in his room doing his homework, she was screaming, “Now, now! NOW!” and he’d thought she was screaming, “Ow, ow! OW!” He came running in to help his poor mother, only to find her not lying in a crumpled heap at the base of the treadmill as he’d expected, but red faced and screaming at the TV, her hands balled up in fists, as her sneakered feet pounded away. It was just as well she hadn’t hurt herself, because he’d wondered how he was going to carry his mother—who was wearing her usual workout attire of nothing but old panties, a sports bra, and ugly walking shoes—to the hospital.

After he complained that he couldn’t hear himself think over her pounding feet, the squeak of the treadmill, her screaming at contestants, and the blaring television, she tried to get her walking done first thing in the morning while he was at school. This way he would have no excuse to not do his homework; nor could he ever say he didn’t have the peace and quiet to do it well. Plus, she figured in case she did hurt herself or keel over and die, it would also save Craig the embarrassment and logistical problem of getting her to either the hospital or the morgue. In the “getting hurt” case scenario, she’d have all day to figure out a way to get herself to a hospital independently, and in the “keeling over and dying” case scenario, well, she’d be dead, and there’s not much anyone could do about it.

The afternoon after making that momentous decision to walk mornings while he was at school, she’d instructed him to dress her adequately before calling the police should he ever come home to find her lying dead in just her sports bra, old, big underwear and walking shoes. When she’d tested him, by asking him to choose an appropriate outfit for the situation, he’d failed miserably. Who’d get caught dead in an olive-green velvet blazer and old, faded gray sweatpants one had worn during a pregnancy more than a decade before but kept and still wore because they were comfy? Yes, he was right, they’d be easy to slip on her prone, stiff, dead body. But to be caught dead in that outfit! So ever since, she kept a neatly folded pair of black slacks and a fresh, crisp blouse on a chair nearby, so he would dress her appropriately should the need arise. The black slacks were slimming, and the blouse was supposed to be wrinkle free. It was truly the perfect outfit to be caught dead in. She also threw out the olive-green velvet jacket.