Welcome to my Heart

Sari

It's the first day of Summer, and while the rest of the graduating class of 2016 are enjoying their last bits of freedom before heading off to college or work, I'm staying home giving care to my eighty-seven year old grandmother who's suffering from advanced dementia. Mom says my job title is caregiver, and that right now, there is no one else who could take care of Gaia.

I love Gaia, I really do, but wiping her mouth when she dribbles food down her chin, or worse, cleaning her after she uses the bathroom, isn't the life goal I worked my whole life toward. I want to write television commercials. You know the kind - the really amazing ads you see during the Superbowl. Mama's crying. Baby's crying. Everyone's having a bawling fest because Great Grandma found an old Hallmark card written to her from Grandpa before he'd died in the war. I want to write spectacularly emotional television ads, not live in one.

But, as Mom says, I don't have a choice. Maybe a year from now, things will be different, she says, but I don't want to wait a year. I want my freedom now. And why is it my responsibility to care for her mother?

If Mom needs her job so badly, then why can't my grandmother be put in a nursing home to be cared for by professional nurses who know what the hell they're doing? But my mother doesn't want that. She thinks my grandmother would be happier here at home with me. So, that's why I am sitting in the family room with Gaia watching the news and listening to the man behind the desk talk about some rich playboy who went missing. Like there isn't more important news to cast to the world.

"Hey, Sar," my mother sings from the living room. "I'm home."

I stay put and wait for her to come to me. I'm kinda sorta bitter about the whole staying home this Summer and watching Gaia, and I'm taking it out on Mom. Because, hey, she is the whole reason I'm here.

"I felt bad about leaving you here this morning, honey, so I took the week off of work. The least I could do is let you enjoy your first week of Summer vacation."

I jumped up and hugged her. "Oh, Ma, thank you so much. Thank you." Okay, I'm not as mad anymore. At least not for the next seven days.

"You can even take my car. Go out with your friends."

"Oh," I sighed in complete relief. "Thank you so much."

Without hesitation, I take Mom's car and head for the bagel store, where I know I'll find half the senior class - the recently graduated senior class - and my boyfriend Tad.

As soon as I walk in, a bunch of the cheery cheerleaders start whispering in their very cheery, "No, Brandy, they can't hear us at all," voice, where, obviously...we can hear them. And I swear, I hear my name being said. I journey over to my own posse - the cool kids with the very indie music playlist shouting form their earbuds. "What's going on?" I nod my head in the cheerleader's direction.

Caitlyn removes her white buds and gives me her pity look.

"What?" I ask, demanding her to tell me.

"It's all around town already. Tad hooked up with Jillian last night at the lock-in. You should have gone, Sar."

"I don't believe it." I sit down, the wind knocking right out of me.

"If I didn't see it with my own eyes, I wouldn't believe it either. You and Tad were so in love." She says, and it sounds so false to my ears that it occurs to me she's enjoying this tragedy. My tragedy.

I stand back up and storm over to the cheery ones. "Where's Jillian?" I ask, bounding up to them with no regard for their private space. "Tell me."

Brandy's hands shoot upward as if I'd just said this was a stick-up. "I have no idea where she is. Why do you ask?"

Why do I ask? "Don't pretend I didn't just hear you telling your friends about Tad and Jillian."

She gasps. Complete with hand flying up to her mouth. "Whaaat? Tad and Jillian? Since when?"

Biiiiitttch. "Just tell your little cheerleader friend to watch her back," I threaten, most likely not meaning it, since I've never held a hand up to anyone. But it feels good to sound tough anyway.

Since I don't feel like hanging around with a bunch of eyes and mouths focused on me and what my betrayer of a boyfriend may or may not have done last night, I ditch the bagel shop and get into my car.  Where I sit and cry into my steering wheel.

I let myself feel the pain for only five minutes, because, really, I haven't even spoken to Tad to see if it's true, and even though Caitlyn says she saw them with her own eyes, she was enjoying it way too much for me to actually believe her. Plus, I also don't need my former classmates seeing me bawling like a baby.

I suck it up, put on my big girl boy shorts, and pull out of the parking lot. With my music blasting from my speakers, I find myself driving up the mountain to the park my mom used to bring me to when I was small. After I shut down my music and turn off the engine, I step out and onto my childhood playground, where I sit on the sling swing that is probably the same exact one I sat on over ten years ago. As I pump my legs high and low, I try to think about Tad and Jillian but think of Gaia instead. Maybe I don't have long with her. Maybe I shouldn't complain about taking care of her. Maybe I'd learn to appreciate her a little more. Maybe Tad is an asshole and not worth my time.

"Hello."

I stop swinging immediately, because some dirty scruffy-looking guy walks right up in front of me, and if I didn't stop, I'd have kicked him right in his dirty little nuts.