Page 92 of Just for the Cameras
OC:Who is Bower?
Bennett:My sister’s best friend.
OC:*Pausing conversation about slutty little glasses* Um, do we have a crush on your sister’s best friend?
Bennett:This is about Graydon.
Graydon:Oh, please, no, take the front seat. I’m more than willing to step back.
OC:Holy shit, you like your sister’s best friend and Graydon likes his zookeeper who likes Slutty Little Glasses and I’ve wantedto get back together with my ex for so long but was torn away from her when I was traded to the Rogue and my heart has been bleeding ever since. Look at us…pining Gladdy Daddies!
Graydon:We are NOT THE GLADDY DADDIES! Also, I’m not pining. My situation with Maple is different. We’re in a PR relationship. I just don’t want her making me look dumb by talking to Slutty Little Glasses.
OC:Okay, so we’re going with the name Slutty Little Glasses. I appreciate you acknowledging that.
Bennett:Not that I want to make you angry or anything, but the picture of you brooding is telling me something else. You might not want to be embarrassed by another man, but you’re also pining. I could see it in your eyes, and if anyone knows that look, it’s me. Because I’ve been pining for years.
Graydon:I’m not pining.
OC:You might not think you are, but the moment Slutty Little Glasses steps in, you’re going to realize just how much you’ve been pining this whole time. Mark my words.
With flowers in one hand and chocolates in the other, I head into the recreation room. The smells of cleaning supplies and a freshly mopped floor flood my senses as I look over the facility I helped pay for with a very generous donation.
Expansive windows run from floor to ceiling, making it seem like the room is bringing in the beautifully landscaped gardens and the massive weeping willow tree that I’ve spent hours studying. To the right are tables with matching chairs and puzzles spilled across the tops. To the left, couches and seating for conversation, all of the furniture oversizedand comfortable. And close to the window, my favorite part of the building, an entire art section with easels, canvases, paper, paints, charcoal, markers, scrapbooking supplies, clay, yarn, and crayons: anything you could possibly think of when it comes to creating.
And that’s where I see her.
A canvas in front of her, her knitted wrap around her shoulders as she studies the weeping willow, her hand stroking over the blank white board in front of her with a pencil.
With an ache in my heart that will never go away, I move through the room, eyes all on me. Not because they know who I am but because of my size.
From the corner of my eye, I catch her nursing aide and pause for a moment. When she gives me the thumbs-up, I continue my approach until I’m right behind the person I love the most.
Squatting low, not wanting to seem intimidating, I turn my baseball cap that’s on my head around so it’s facing backward like I used to have it growing up and softly say, “Hey, Mom.”
She startles for a moment but then turns toward me, her aged face dressed in confusion as she takes me in. I let her process as she looks me over, observing the man I’ve become, the man that she doesn’t know. To her, even though I visit regularly, Graydon St. John is sixteen years old.And in her mind, I forever will be.
When I was sixteen, she was taking riding lessons and decided to hop on one of the horses for fun without a helmet. The horse knocked her off and she slammed her head against a pole. She was rushed to the hospital with a traumatic brain injury and was placed in a coma for a week before she came back to us. At first, we thought she’d escaped without harm, until she was examined and a devastating diagnosis was made. Anterograde amnesia. She wouldn’t retain any new information from her accident on.
So seeing me as a thirty-year-old man, when the last time she saw mebefore the accident I was sixteen, doesn’t quite register. The only good thing was that she and my dad were divorced, so she never asks for him, ever.
But me…
I’m much bigger.
Thicker.
With a square jaw and menacing features that have hardened over time as I’ve tried to hang on to my mom and my dad’s tried to push her out of our lives.
She shuffles her shawl over her shoulders and leans farther back, looking nearly horrified, and something in the pit of my stomach grows nauseous as I consider that this might be the third week in a row where she turns me away.
“Mira,” Mom’s aide, Rhonda, says quietly. “Remember the letter we just read, and the pictures I showed you? This is Graydon.”
Mom’s almost lifeless eyes flash to me again, her mouth slightly parted as she searches me. I keep my gaze fixed on her, begging, pleading, hoping she can process what we’re trying to tell her. I know it’s not easy. I know she thinks I should still be sixteen, but a small part of me believes she can do this and break free.
If not, next week I might just have to be the nice guy who paints with her, even though it kills me emotionally, shreds me to pieces that she doesn’t know who I am. But at least I can spend time with her.
“I…I don’t know,” Mom says skeptically, her body language pulling away from me as an ache splinters through my heart.
