Member-only story
Boomtown
Some time ago, on the last night of the year, I sat next to my mother as she lounged in her faded recliner, swaddled in the faux fur throw she was given for Christmas, gazing out the window at a sky bursting with pompoms. Although her eyes had exceeded their usefulness, she could still see color and light. Silhouetted in the low light of the room she sipped the pink champagne I’d poured for her. One of our dogs curled in her lap, quivering with each boom and crackle of my neighbors’ fireworks as they rang out on all sides of us. I looked at our little Tilly as she sought my mother’s comfort and thought of the many times I had too. “Ninety nine New Years!”my husband said to her as he loaded the fire with another log. She answered with a chuckle, with a surprise in her voice, “How about that?”
The fire was big and warm and bathed us all in an encouraging light. My husband rose slowly from the hearth, his eyes tired, his hand bracing his back on the way up. He’d just returned from his own mother. Over the drone of her oxygen tank, he’d drawn close to her to wish her a happy new year, then he put brightly colored roses in a vase next to where she too sat in her chair, propped like an astronaut, a pitiful scene I pictured as he told it to me. He then returned home to tend a fire for a roommate he hadn’t invited. In a moment of desperation I’d moved my mother in without really consulting him. It’s a foolproof way to kick the tires…
