Page 4 of The Baking Games
“Mate, it’s basically paper. It disappears down there.”
“Have you watched the videos about trash in the ocean? Stop throwing your butts in there.”
He puts up his hands like he does every time we have this conversation. It’s the one good thing about being built like a linebacker. People tend to listen to you.
“Fine. Anyway, I thought your dream was to work in a Michelin-star restaurant?”
I eye him carefully. “A three-star Michelin-rated restaurant.”
“Right, right. Only the best for Rhett Jennings.”
“Don’t you have some fruit to prep for dinner?” I say, trying to get him out of my hair. Eric is inherently lazy, but he knew someone who knew someone that got him this job. I expect him to get fired at every port, but here he still is, looking disheveled and smelling of stale ashes.
“You’re becoming an old coot right before my eyes,” he says, chuckling as he heads back toward the kitchen we share. I pick up my water bottle from the ground, ready to follow him back inside, when my phone buzzes in my pocket. Being out on the water most of the time, I rarely use the thing. I forget it’s even there until I want to look at social media and check my email.
“Hello?”
“Rhett? Oh good. I’m glad I caught you. Where are you this time?” There’s a hint of disdain in her voice, as always.
“The Bahamas. And where are you?”
My mother sighs. “At the hospital.”
“Well, that’s a good place for a cardiologist, I suppose.”
She pauses for a long moment. “I’m not here for work, Rhett.”
My pulse quickens. I rarely see my family, so I’m always out of the loop, but this is the first time I’ve been worried. I love them all, of course, but it’s just easier this way. Being picked apart for all your life choices can get a bit taxing.
“Why are you there then?”
“Your father took a fall.” She says it like she’s telling me the most boring piece of information she’s ever uttered. Like she’s reading a lunch menu.
“Is he okay?”
“He will be. He was off work for a few days—we know how rare that is—and he decided not to call our handyman, Pete. Instead, he climbed up on the ladder to clean the gutters, and bam! Down he went onto the sidewalk. Broke his leg in two places. He’ll be home for a very long time now. I might lose my mind.”
I wanted to laugh at that last comment. It isn’t as if she spends much time with my father. She doesn’t clean the house. She never cooks meals. Even as kids, we had a nanny who took us everywhere, cooked meals, and put us to bed. “Mother” was more of an official title and reason to deduct us from their yearly taxes.
She spends most of her days at her office or the hospital. As harsh as she can be, my mother is a terrific cardiologist. She’s known around the country for her innovative treatments and approach to heart disease. She specializes in women’s hearts, which is funny because she doesn’t have one herself. Okay, that might’ve been too far. I get it. But it was funny.
“Is there anything I can do?” I don’t even know why I asked the question. What can I do? I’m in the Bahamas. They’re in Boston. And I’m not a doctor, as my mother likes to remind me on a perpetual schedule throughout the year. It’s like she sets an alarm on her watch to remind me of that fact as often as possible.
“Well, dear, you’re not exactly a doctor…” Ah, there it is. Now I can set my timer for three months from now when she says it again.
“No, Mother, I’m not.”
I’ve noticed other people call their mothers’ names like “Mom” or “Ma.” My friend Hal, who is from Tennessee, calls his “Momma”. My brothers and I have always called ours “Mother” like something out of a horror movie.
“Mother is killing a goose in the backyard.”
“Mother is holding a knife to Father’s throat.”
“Mother drove the getaway car for a gang of human organ thieves.”
“Mother needs a sponge bath.”
There’s a lack of affection in the word, at least how I say it.