Mother’s sink by nate caudill

I had to sleep but the searing noise upstairs kept me up. I was shipping off to college the next week, but my mom found my good friend Mr. Stuffings somewhere deep under my bed to “help me out.” I even played a little and said “Let’s go check it out big guy,” and led him in the dark by his cool fur paw. My legs whimpered their way up the basement stairs, and my hand held onto Mr. Stuffings just a little tighter. I opened the door and thought my sleep-begging eyes were playing tricks on me, but they weren’t.

A growing puddle squeezed my toes together like shrinking ice. No part of me wanted to, but every part of me knew I had to step through that cold water to reach the screaming faucet. A shot like cold lightning punctured the bottoms of my feet and spread through every muscle and to my fingertips as they pushed the stark metal handle off. I would’ve made a beeline for any towel upstairs and to wake my parents up, but my mom was already putting on her shoes by the front door.

“Are you okay?” she asked. “I’ll grab you a towel.”

“I’m fine. What happened?”

“I already woke your father up. He should be down in a minute,” my mom said.

“Shouldn’t we call a plumber or something?”

“Oh,” my mother said looking for some jacket. “You know your father. He’s not gonna wanna call anyone.” And then she grabbed her car keys.

“Where are you going?”

“Well this certainly woke me up, and now I have a bit of an appetite. You should come with me.”

“Shouldn’t we stay here and help dad out?”

“We’ll only get in the way. And we’ll bring him something home. Come on.”

“I’m not that hungry.”

“Well you need to eat more anyway. Let’s go.”

“What are you making me eat now?”

She snapped. “Don’t be a smart aleck.” She reached out her hand. “Please?”

She looked at me. I didn’t want to make her feel bad, so I passed her and grabbed a jacket and found my shoes already by the door.

In the backseat, soccer balls gasping for breath rolled aimlessly under pale stars. My mom kept having to do this little pump on the brake for it to work, jerking every one and thing around. That car drove me back home from the hospital after my birth and back to it after my first leg break at soccer practice. Its old parts silently begged to be shut off and put to some rest, but my mom wouldn’t let it go.

“Are you nervous?” she asked me.

I knew what she was talking about. “About what?” I said.

“About moving in next week?” she asked.

I squeezed Mr. Stuffings’ paw. “Oh. No, not really. I have everything I need, right?”

“Everything on your list and then some.”

I shrugged. “Then I’m good.” Her hands seemed to tighten on the wheel.

“You have to promise to talk to me every day.” She had told me this. “It doesn’t have to be super long or anything, just a text or something so I know you’re okay. Okay?”

“Yeah. Okay. I promise.”

“Are you going to miss me?” she asked.

“I am,” I told her.

“You don’t sound like you will.” She took her eyes off the road to look at me.

Mr. Stuffings’s paw was damp from a little sweat.

“Are you gonna take your little friend in?” she asked.

“Oh, probably not,” I said.

She did one of her closed-mouth laughs, like instinct. “You used to take him everywhere. Wouldn’t let him go.”

Just to say something, I asked, “Where did you find him?”

“He was hiding behind all your dirty cleats under your bed.”

I pretended I didn’t already know the answer and just said, “Ah.”

Cars only passed on occasion, but always, there were streetlights. Mom picking me up from the movies, streetlights. Car rides from grandma’s, streetlights. New with each passing gap, but always more or less the same. Like a promise, they followed and awaited me. Their simple gaze tingled my eyes all the way down to my lips and conjured a smile. Except nowadays I couldn’t take an innocent drift to warm sleepy waters in the backseat while my mom smiled and pretended not to watch me. Now I have to keep my eyes on the road. But not tonight. Tonight I could stare.

“Where are we going again?” I asked.

“Oh, just your favorite,” she said. She smiled.

“Tony’s is open right now?”

“Wait, Tony’s is your favorite? I thought it was Don’s.” She almost looked scared.

“Well, if I had to pick just one, yeah, I’d say Tony’s. But Don’s is still good.”

“I can take the next exit and that should get us to Tony’s. We can see if they’re open if that’s what you want.”

“No, Don’s is fine. I like Don’s.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah, I’m sure.”

“Okay.”

She looked at me as if to say, “last chance” but we passed the exit and rode past more streetlights in unnotable silence.

No matter how many people you saw at Don’s, plates clinked mad as if they had to fill every mouth in the state. Grease never scared or tempted. It just hugged you. Dirty black and white tiles gave their own kind of light, besides the love red neon sign boasting “Don’s Diner.” The same as it ever was and as it ever would be, and that tasted just right.

The grass outside never seemed to grow. It just stretched and twisted out to some dark horizon like an endless flat maze comforted by distant stars. The only streetlight outside tried to light my reflection in our little window booth.

“So what are you gonna get?” my mom asked.

I forgot to look at the menu. “Um… I don’t know, I’m not that hungry-”

“You need to eat.”

“I do eat.”

“Not enough. You could get a burger. You always used to get those. Their fries are good-”

“I’m gonna get something, I just don’t know what.”

“Okay. Okay.”

She flipped through her menu and tried not to watch where I was looking at mine.

“What do you think we should get your dad?” she asked.

“Something big,” I said. “He’s gonna need it after he sees that sink.”

“That’s for sure.”

The chicken and waffles caught my eye. My tongue seemed to like the idea. I had never tried chicken and waffles.

“He’s gonna,” my mom started, “look at it, curse at it, then have a whole conversation with it.” She made herself laugh. I laughed for her.

“Yeah,” I said.

“He’ll say,” and she deepened her voice for this one, “‘Come on baby, work for me, what’s goin’ on, everything okay, it’s okay baby.’ He’ll call the sink baby more times than me.”

She let just me laugh at that one. She had a real bite to her, at least she used to. Maybe it was still down there, hungry, or washed away by old waters of motherhood. Wherever it was before, it was here now.

“How can I help you folks tonight?” A woman more like a skeleton interrupted my first real laugh. Fire hair, dotted freckles to spare, and an apron hanging for dear life. She belonged to the night shift and she knew.

“Oh, hi,” my mom said, looking. “And what’s your name?”

“Becca,” said the night woman.

“Becca, nice to meet you,” my mom said. She leaned into her. “Could you do me a favor and tell Don that Max is here.”

“Don isn’t in tonight ma’am,” the woman said.

“What? He told me he’d be here tonight,” my mom said.

“What?” I said.

“He was earlier, but he’s not now,” the woman said.

“What?” I said again.

“It’s nothing,” my mom said. “Could you go in the back and look? Thanks.”

The woman and her open mouth just stood there.

“I know what I want,” I had to say. My mom looked at me, then down, at her menu. “I’ll have the chicken and waffles please.” I said it confidently enough to try and remove the woman’s stare off my mom. She just said, “Okay.”

“I’ll just have the chicken tenders. And a Don’s Double to go.” My mom handed her the menu without looking at anyone. I tried to smile at the woman but by the time I could muster it only her reflection in the dirty tiles could see. I tried to look at my mom but she just hid her hands. They were dirty.

“I’m sorry,” she wiped her hands. “He was supposed to be here.”

“Mom, why do you need Don here?”

“I know you like Don, that’s all. He’d probably whip up some special meal for you, and I think he wanted to say goodbye to you too-”

“Mom,” I said. She crumpled the napkin. It tried to bloom on the table.

“Did you plan this?” I asked.

The woman’s spotted hand dropped a bag in between us and left before our mouths even knew where to say “thank you.” Like a heartbeat my mom put my box before me and found hers, putting whatever she could in her mouth. She chewed and stared at the table’s edge.

“The fries are different,” she said. I went to open my box.

She got up. Without paying. I didn’t know where she was going.

My palms started to sweat but there was no Mr. Stuffings to hold. I looked from side to side for my wallet and felt myself sitting on it moving around. The food wasn’t even 20 dollars but all I had was a 50, so I like to think Becca the night woman smiled that night. I got up without my chicken and waffles.

In the endless lot, her car was the only one blinking. I jogged and the streetlight did its best to warm me in my sweatpants and oversized college shirt, but this summer night still proved cooler. I opened the door and hopped in and my mom saw my shirt and she tried to back out. She couldn’t. The car wouldn’t stop.

“Why won’t this fucking break work.” The car fell back.

“Mom, you need to stop.”

“Fucking work.” We spun.

“Mom, stop-”

“I’m trying-” In circles.

“Mom!”

“I’m trying!” Stopped. For once.

She put her treasured car in park and she turned away from me as if I wasn’t sitting right next to her. “I’m sorry,” was all she could say.

“Mom, what the hell is going on?”

“You have to promise me you’ll talk to me every day.” Her tears couldn’t hide, no matter how close she put her face to the corner of the fogging window.

“Mom, what are you talking about-”

“Promise me,” she said. “Promise your mother.”

Then I looked at my mother.

I looked at my mother and I promised.

Her head lifted from the window and looked for some source of breath. “I don’t know how you’re this ready,” she said. “I mean I’ve been having to prep for 18 years, and I’m still not ready.”

“It’s not like I’m super ready or anything, it’s like...”

“It’s like what, sweetie?”

And I told her the truth for the first time that night. “You know I am scared.”

Her tears fought with her own eyes, like she didn’t deserve to shed them. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I don’t know,” I told her.

“Sweetie,” she said, looking at me.

I looked. Her eyes won the battle. Always.

“Because I didn’t want to scare you,” I said.

She just took my hand and said, “Scare me.”

I looked at her hand protecting mine. It was still soft.

“Scare me because it’s all I have and it’s all I want to have.”

And in that moment, we savored and smiled in that belief.

“Okay,” I said. “Can I scare you?”

“Of course.”

“I think I need 50 dollars.”

“Why?” My mother almost looked scared. “What happened?”

“I paid for my chicken and waffles.”

She smiled, and I smiled with her.

When we finally pulled into our driveway, we were surprised to see some plumber walk out of the house. Someone dirtier than the woman we met that night and working for some 24/7 company you could only remember after opening the phone book. My father just stood at the open door waiting for his wife and son, hands waiting in his worn navy robe pockets. Maybe those old stubborn waters of pride and fatherhood finally passed in him.

“It was clogged to hell and back, so which one of you two monkeys did it,” he said. I couldn’t tell if he meant that as a jab or genuine inquiry, but my mother solved that for both of us.

“We got you a present,” she said, waving her box of fresh goodies.

“You better have,” he said, smiling and kissing his wife. I remembered something and walked back to the car.

“Honey, you don’t leave for another week you know,” my mother said out to me.

“I know,” I said, grabbing Mr. Stuffings off the old car floor. By the paw, I took him to my own car, and put him right where he belonged. The passenger seat. He didn’t have some stitched smile on his face, but I knew he was happy to be there with me. And he would always be.

I joined my parents on the tight outside steps. My father had already dug through his food and seemed to eye the styrofoam box for dessert, but my mother still had some food left. Of course she offered it to me. I ate, and she put her hand on my back. We looked to the nearest streetlight and whatever promise it held for the both of us.