Save One Bullet

I arrived at the Sunnyside Home around dinner time and checked in at the front desk. Sandy greeted me with, “Oh, boy, this was a bad day for your mom. She’ll be glad to see you, Tanya.”

“Okay, what happened?” I asked casually because this was the normal routine for my visits. Mom was always having a bad day.

“She fell when she got out of bed this morning and we tried to reach you on your cell, but it wasn’t going through, so we called your home number. Your husband said you were here. I’m sorry, Tanya. I didn’t know what to tell him,” she said apologetically, not sure if I had some deep dark secret to hide.

“That’s all right. I’ll let him know I’m back. Did Mom have to go to the ER this time?” I asked.

“No, she just bruised her knee and her arm. Nothing was broken. The doctor on call gave her pain meds and a sedative. She’ll be fine,” Sandy shared.

Great, now Tom is going to be wondering what’s going on. I’ll have to think on my feet when I call him, I thought, on my way down the hall to Mom’s room.

I gently tapped on the door and tip-toed into the room. Mom was lying on her bad side, which meant she had fallen on the only good side she had. Wonderful. I peeled back her nightie sleeve to reveal an ugly purplish bruise right on the bone near her elbow. Then I lifted the covers and saw the dark mark on her knee surrounded by pink, swollen tissue. That was going to leave a scar.

Checking for her water pitcher, I poured her a glass and left it where she could reach it on her nightstand when she woke up and stuck a flex straw in it. I would have to make sure they put aside her dinner for when she woke up later. Poor Mom. She’d been through so much in her life. My Dad was all but useless until his death ten years ago. She had taken care of us kids and him while supporting the family for most of her life. She was so happy when we all got married and were “taken care of”.

All she wanted was for us girls to marry men who would shoulder the burden of supporting the family and treat us right. She adored Tom because he blew himself up like a big balloon whenever he was around her. He made her think we were going to be rich someday and that he was a genius in the insurance game.

“Oh, that Tom of yours, Tanya. You are a lucky girl. He’s so smart. Look at all you’ve got,” She used to tell me all the time.

Even if I thought she would understand me there’s no way I could ever tell her what a phony Tom turned out to be. She’d be devastated- not that she’d believe me. After all, he was the best thing that ever happened to me. I liked to remind Tom that my mom called him a ‘thing’.

Our marriages were the biggest boast my mom had about us three girls. She would tell anyone who’d listen about the men we married and how long we were married and that she raised girls who believed in the sanctity of marriage, blah, blah, blah. Like the number of years one stayed married was a contest in Hell, where the one who stayed unhappily married the longest won. This was my life, and I wasn’t going to trade it for the longest marriage prize. Let my over-medicated sisters fight over that dubious honor.

I smoothed Mom’s hair down and kissed her forehead before leaving for my own dinner. There was a Sushi Bar down the road from the hotel that I was not dying to try. I liked my food cooked, thank you, so I went to Ruby Tuesdays instead. There was a longer than normal wait, so I took a seat at the bar to catch up on my texts and wait for an open table.

While sipping on my white wine and reading texts that had gone unanswered all day, a trim, clean-cut, thirty-something man sat next to me and asked if he could catch my next round. “Hey, there, I see you’re waiting for an open table too. Is someone joining you?” He asked, appraising me up and down.

“Oh, no,” I laughed, “I’m alone this evening.”

“That’s a shame. A pretty woman like you should never dine alone. May I join you? I hate to eat in restaurants by myself. Honestly, you’d be doing me a favor,” he added wistfully.

It made me a bit uncomfortable to be getting hit on like that. Uncomfortable in a tingly sensation sort of way though. So, I replied, “Sure, why not?” as if I dined with strangers all the time.