taking a break from the rikey drama for a chapter and playing catch up with Frank's mom :)
Frank;
Mom and I return home after my counseling session. She says she has dinner planned out for her, Nick, and myself. She informed me on the way that she has news for me, something very important. I asked multiple times if it was good or bad, in my case, because it's probably good for her. From things in the past, I'm skeptical on the positivity of it due to everything that happened to be good for her usually ended up being bad for me.
Even while she starts to prepare pasta and breadsticks for dinner, I stand at the counter repeating the questions on my mind. "Am I going to like the news?" I ask, leaning forward on the counter to peak at her face, which is leaned over, looking into the pot of noodles that she's stirring.
"Mm, I don't know," she replies, her voice raising in pitch slightly.
"What is it? Why can't I know?" I bombard, starting to get very impatient.
"I'll tell you the news when Nicholas gets here," she tells me, leaving the simmering pot of noodles to get the strainer from the cabinet next to the stove.
"Why can't you just tell me now and then we can discuss it when he gets here?" I suggest, once again getting turned down by a shake of her head.
"Can you get a pot for the sauce and start heating that up?" She says, obviously trying to change the topic at hand.
"Fine," I sigh, agreeing after a long minute of contemplation. I want to argue the matter and find out exactly what is so important that it has to wait. I just figured that there's really no point in trying, my mom is the most stubborn person ever.
"How are you and Gerard?" She prods, pushing the previous topic further and further away and I just let it happen, not finding it necessary to continue arguing.
While getting the pot out, I answer, "We're good, nothing bad has happened to us." I open the jar of Ragu sauce and dump it all in the pot, then toss both the lid and jar in the trash can.
"That's good. That's excellent, I'm glad you've found someone who makes you happy," she cheers, leaning against the counter.
After placing the pot on the burner and setting it to a medium temperature, I turn around to face her correctly. "It's good, yeah. He's a great guy."
"Your bully of all people, though," she says thoughtfully. "That's so strange, something that you'd think only happens in movies."
"My life is pretty strange," I say back. "Nothing normal really happens to me."
"Damn, you got that right." And I know I do. I mean, who meets their father, who left them, at a hospital as his patient? Who falls in love with their bully and actually ends up dating them? Whose mom does a complete three-sixty in a week's time? There's more, a lot happened back in Maine, but that's in the past, that was worse.
Before I can reply, not that I had anything in mind, the doorbell gets rung. "That's probably Nicholas," Mom says, walking out of the kitchen and into the living room.
I hear the front door open and close, just barely as my mom's voice carries horribly, tuning everything out. I can easily hear her and Nicholas' greetings, the kiss, and their steps.
"You can sit or stand, Frank and I are almost finished with the pasta," she informs him, leaving his side when they make it to the kitchen doorway.
She picks up the spoon from the counter and stirs the sauce for me while I stand here and silently hope that whatever news she has for me is at least okay. She then takes the sauce off the burner and sets it on a cool burner after turning off the stove. "Can you strain the pasta?" She asks.
