Page 3 of Heartsick & Lipsticks
Was it so I could show her the man I’d become?
I had no idea. I was just going with my gut.
Before I got out of the car, I forwarded the info on the hospice care home to Jada. Once I’d handed it off, I knew that was one thing off my plate. She would take care of it.
My head felt like it wasn’t attached to my body as I made my way up to the visitor’s entrance of the prison. I noticed the ambulance I’d hired to transport my mother was already there. It was parked beside a loading dock. I’d been alerted by text that it had arrived about ten minutes before me and had already checked in through the appropriate channels.
Everything seemed to be happening in slow motion as I went through the security check before being told to take a seat in the waiting room. I lowered myself onto a blue plastic chair and took in my surroundings. The facility wasn’t exactly how I remembered it. There had been some renovations—new flooring, new paint, new furniture—but it smelled the same. The combined aroma of the musty scent and cleaning supplies was unique, and it instantly transported me back to the first and only time I’d seen my mother. She was not what I’d expected. With long blonde hair, big blue eyes, and porcelain skin, she looked so young and innocent. At the time, she would have been thirty-six, but I remember thinking that she looked like she was in her twenties.
“Nicholas Locke.”
Hearing my name called snapped me out of my memory. When I stood, the guard who had just called my name smiled, and her cheeks flushed on her olive skin. On the way down a long hall, she glanced up at me through thick, inky lashes. “Has anyone ever told you that you look like Chris Hemsworth?”
Yes. I got Hemsworth or Brad Pitt on an almost daily basis.
She tilted her head to one side. “Or no, maybe it’s Brad Pitt.”
Or both.
If this were any other situation, I’d reply by asking her if anyone ever told her that she looked like Jessica Alba, because she did. Then I’d probably follow up by telling her that I’d always thought Thor, who was played by Chris Hemsworth, and Storm, a role reprised by Jessica Alba, would make a cute couple.
Flirting was my default mode. It had always come naturally to me. It was like breathing. I loved women of all shapes, colors, and sizes, but I’d always had a soft spot for a brunette with curves, and this CO fit that bill to a T. But today, I barely noticed how attractive Officer Storm was and had no desire to engage in flirtatious small talk.
I responded with a flat, “Sometimes.”
There was no more talk of celebrity lookalikes as we continued down the hall, stopping at the last door on the right.
“Come in. Sit down,” the woman behind the desk instructed without looking up from her computer screen as her fingers flew across the keyboard.
I lowered into a chair across from her as she typed away not sparing me a glance. She wore thick black-rimmed glasses that covered half of her face and wore her black hair in a short bob. After a minute or so, she stopped typing and turned her attention toward me.
“Hi Nick, I’m Mona Campbell,” she introduced herself. I recognized her name from the emails we’d been exchanging. When I’d read those emails, I’d never envisioned they were being sent by Edna, the character who made the superhero suits in the movieThe Incredibles.
Edna, er Mona set a pile of paperwork in front of me and instructed me to either sign or initial at the bottom of the page. Her voice was a pack-a-day for twenty years raspy, and the stale stench of cigarettes backed up the audible tell. I was doing my best to focus on everything Mona was saying, but to be honest, it was going in one ear and out the other.
Both Alex and Maddox had offered to accompany me today, but I declined both offers. For some reason, I had it in my head that this was something I had to face alone. Now, I was regretting that decision. Due to the high level of anxiety running through me, any pertinent information I was receiving was not being retained.
Once the paperwork was complete, she informed me that my mother would be released from the back gate and asked if I wanted to meet her there before she was loaded into the ambulance. I declined.
My mind was racing a million miles a minute as I went back to the parking lot and sat in my vehicle. I watched from a distance as the woman I’d met over twenty years ago was escorted out of the gate in a wheelchair by two guards. With assistance from the paramedics, she was transferred from the wheelchair to the gurney before being loaded into the ambulance.
From a hundred or so yards away, her features were fairly indistinguishable, but I instantly recognized her. I hadn’t realized until that moment how much Bella looked like her. They shared the same honey blonde hair, sweetheart face, full pink lips, and almond-shaped blue eyes.
It had been so long since I’d seen my mother that I’d never noticed the resemblance between her and my daughter. Now that I saw her again, it was clearly undeniable. I was glad that I’d been able to observe her from afar instead of seeing her for the first time up close.
The two-hour drive back to San Francisco was a blur. I stared at the double doors of the ambulance as I followed behind it. My dashboard kept lighting up with phone calls and text messages from both Alex and Maddox, but I ignored them. I didn’t have the emotional bandwidth to speak to anyone, not even the only people other than Bella who I considered family.
I spent the entire drive waffling back and forth on whether or not this was a mistake. One minute, I was sure that everything was going to be fine. The next minute, I was convinced it was the worst idea in the world.
It was definitely one of those. And only time will tell.
