Chapter 14: Monarch

The fresh air felt decadent after I stepped outside on Saturday afternoon. A visit to my mother had been long overdue, and a recalibration of my sanity was necessary.

I was still deep in the city. My train led me into an elite residential neighborhood. Anyone looking at my current situation would have never guessed that I had family in the Upper West Side. In fact, the rest of our family was still surprised that my mother managed to reside in such an expensive part of the city.

It was possible for her to live this way, after her marriage to her second husband. Before him, my mother put food on our table through long shifts as a nurse. Through the sore back, shoulders, and feet, I always admired how she would never let her love of the arts go. Whenever she knew my needs were met for the day, she was away in her corner– painting or sculpting. It was her sanity check, it was her flaw to the rest of the family. I never understood how her escape was so problematic to others, but after I grew into a preteen and confirmed the envy around her, I made a point to never interrupt her creativity with my wants.

When I was seventeen, I remembered spending the weekend away from my dorm room on an early fall day. I made it a point to return home to take care of the house so that she didn't have to worry. Without hesitation, I felt the importance of her attending her first art class. The look on her face before she left our duplex was unforgettable. With a smile, I asked what was wrong, and she confessed, "I don't want to be told what I've been doing all along is wrong. That my comfort should conform."

"Then don't let it, mama."

A year passed and one late Saturday evening, I was watching her run down the sidewalk from the distant bus stop– her art caboodle and medium portfolio in her clutches.

"Ada!" I remembered her shouting and smiling. "My instructor wants me to submit my paintings into a showcase!"

I cried before I could say anything. It was the first reaction I had; it was uncontrollable. I didn't know how to explain how proud I was of someone who had already accomplished so much. She didn't need my approval, but when I told her how her joy made me feel, she said, "I always want you to be proud of me, my baby. Of all the people left in this world, I want you to know that I have done this."

The look in her eyes when she stood beside her work was indescribable. It was me, my grandmother, one of my aunts and my cousin who came out to watch my mother shine. It was amazing. I loved every second of it, including the moment my mother caught the eye of a gentleman that I learned was familiar to her.

An old high school sweetheart had made his millions programming away before selling his decade old business ventures to eventually open a jewelry shop in the city. To decompress from the hysterics of business life, he made time to view the abstract in parts of town he didn't belong in anymore. They were inseparable from that night on, and I never questioned her decision to move on and live her life when I saw how much he loved her.

As soon as she was ready to marry him, he moved us out into the Upper West Side; however, I was already in college and didn't need to stay home.

Naturally, I was torn having to be away from her. I was always worried about her new life. To alleviate my worries, she and I would talk often on the phone, dwelling on what it was like to not be in our old duplex. She was still adjusting to the new "quality" of life that this old love wanted to give to us without hesitation. Even after presenting her with the finest things, she was never quick to accept luxury, and he learned to sedate his desires and let her be the girl he remembered.

Now that she had retired from being a nurse, she volunteers as a gallery curator around town and when she wasn't surrounding herself in art, she was making it at home. Her new, even more, beautiful home.

My stepfather had heard her small remark of wishing more sunlight would come around in the city. A year later, when the penthouse was available, he moved them to a new dwelling where she couldn't miss a single ray. Their new home was on the twentieth floor of a twenty-story building. The luxury apartment was gorgeous and spacious, but there was no surprise that it wasn't anything but minimal. My stepfather gave my mother whatever she wanted, and if she whispered of disturbing clutter, it was removed in an instant.

I trotted into the lobby with a bouquet cradled in my arm. It felt odd to sign in with the receptionist, but I knew that the new face wasn't going to let me stroll over to the elevator without sicking security on me. On my ride up, I pulled out my phone and laughed again at the formalities in my mother's text message from hours ago.

Ada,

The door to the apartment will be unlocked.

Love,

Mom

I wasn't going to complain about her style; I was happy she finally came around to texting at all.

The elevator delivered me to the floor where a giant painting of my mother's hung on the wall across from me. I loved seeing it, and it genuinely had nothing to do with the fact that it was a recreation of an old baby picture of me. I simply loved the hint of my mother's presence. Their apartment on the top floor was refreshingly beautiful. Clean cream-colored walls, led to a large tan door– the unlocked door. I twisted the handle and immediately inhaled the faint scent of tempera paint.

After locking the door behind, I slipped off my sneakers and scurried out of the entrance across the freshly polished wood floors. The height of the roof magnified at least twenty feet above and the tall windows let in the bright sun. The modern space was perfect for my mother, and of all the things that my stepfather had done for her, it was to allow her whatever space she wanted to do what she loved. His solution wisely involved many windows. Of course, she was near a corner where the ceiling tall windows met.

Who couldn't relax in a pad as wonderful as this? It was astoundingly beautiful, but I didn't find myself visiting it too often. I wanted to tell myself that my reasoning was foolish, but my internal challenges kept me from doing too many things that should have been normal.

As soon as I saw her I felt the fog lift from my mind. My mother was the world to me, and while the fog left me the guilt didn't.

"Hi, mama!" I exclaimed, taking a look at her colorful ensemble. Since remarrying, she almost always wore a dress that floated around her, and this time it was orange. The tips of her fingers were blackened by the granite.

She smiled, and even if she hadn't she still would have glowed. After kissing me on my cheek, she said, "My baby! I'm so happy you finally showed up. I wanted to surprise you at your new apartment, but I didn't want to upset you since you were stressed."

I was so stressed about moving, I told my mother– my best friend– not to come over. I just cried on the phone until I was able to form complete sentences again.

"I have your gifts from our vacation." She said quietly, pushing curls around my ears with her knuckle.

"Yay!" I cheered half-heartedly and looked around the room. "Is Nico here?"

"No, he's at the storefront right now. But he'll be upset that he missed you for lunch?"

She widened her eyes on the last word. I smirked and gave into staying to eat. Excited, she hurried into the kitchen and politely requested for Pierre to include me in the lunch for the day.

My mom returned to me with a smile. "To this day, I will never get used to having a live-in chef."

"I don't think I could either."

"But he's nice and sometimes his wife and little daughter come to the suite and it doesn't feel so quiet here anymore."

"Yeah, I remember you said that. Are you still adjusting to this place?"

"It's been almost a year, and it still feels like we moved in a week ago. It's a lot." she looked around.

"But you fit here." I said, hugging her again. "And a queen deserves all the luxury."

"Well, I do enjoy many aspects of not worrying anymore. Though that's mostly with the tangible world. We've been blessed."

I winked. "Who knows. Maybe I'll marry up too."

My mother held my hand. She examined me carefully and asked quietly, "How are you?"

"I'm dealing with it." The breakup. I'm trying to deal with it.

She hesitated, but she asked anyway, "Do you need anything? Money or–"

"Mommy, I'm fine financially," I said wagging my finger at her.

She pouted, "I know but you know I just want to make sure you're not wanting for anything that I can give."

"I promise I'm okay in that department. I can pay my rent plus the pet fees, I can buy groceries and more. I'm surviving."

She tilted her head and narrowed her eyes. "Surviving?"

I pulled my lower lip in and nodded. From the look on her face, she heard something that needed investigating. I wasn't sure what it was, but she wasn't going to keep it bottled in. In no time, I'd find out, as she had a particular way of picking my brain.

"Do you want to sit down over there?" She pointed her head, but it wasn't in the direction of the lounge seating or the dining area. By the long windows there was a lonely stool in the corner and another in front of an easel with indiscernible sketchings, and she looked at it before returning to me.

I moved toward the far corner reluctantly and sat. Luckily, I wasn't deathly afraid of heights, with the high view of the streets below. After grabbing a chunky graphite stick on the dining table, my mother followed me to sit on the other stool. I could see half her face behind the giant sketchpad she folded over for a new page.

Following a moment of silence, "Feelings?"

That question wasn't new from her. Anytime she told me to sit on a chair or by myself, she did it so she could take a good look at me. Most times I knew how to answer. But at this moment, there was a long pause in between communication. "I don't know."

My mom tilted away from her sketchbook. "Do you remember when you last gave me that answer?"

I shook my head.

"When was the last time you spoke to your daddy?"

Scratching the back of my head, I confessed, "Not in a long time."

"Why not?"

"Because..." Fuck. I felt those goddamned tears coming. "I don't know. I guess I've been feeling embarrassed lately."

Apart from the subtle twitch in her eye, she was still for a moment. "About?"

"My life, I suppose." I wiped under my eyes before I twiddled my thumbs and crossed my ankles. It was one thing to say it over the phone, but it was another to speak that truth in front of a person.

"Is this why you've been so distant for the last few months?"

I didn't answer. Yes, I was embarrassed about my life. I was uncomfortable with where I was and how I lost two important people over reasons that were apparently all my fault. I didn't know I was such a problematic person, But I learned the hard way that I was, and now I didn't know how to feel about myself or my interactions with others. It was hard not to imagine that in time new "friends" would want me to go away without an explanation too. "Mama, why do you make me sit down and draw me or paint me whenever I'm emotional?"

She left her seat and approached me. With larger eyes, she asked, "Do you want me to stop?"

I shook my head. "No, I guess it's kinda therapeutic. "

"Baby, I ask you to do it even when you're happy, excited, when you're scared if you can, and when you're without answers. I don't want you to be alone with your thoughts if you don't have to be, so I have always hoped it might help you when you are by yourself after your father died." She curled her fingers and gently rubbed her knuckles against my jaw. "And because I don't ever want you to forget that I'm looking at every version of you, caterpillar."