“I know. We’ve never gotten along very well. I always used to blame you for that, but then I got to thinking that maybe I could have been nicer.” Phoebe threw in the clincher. “Besides, I owe it to you, don’t I, for all the years you took care of me when I was growing up?”
Felicia looked at the travel folder. “I’d have to leave in three weeks. It’ll be cold in England this time of year.”
“So? It’ll be cold here, too. It’s the off season; that’s how I got such a good deal. Christmas in London, Mom! If you don’t want to go, I will.”
So Felicia had her roots bleached, bought some new clothes and some new luggage, and was gone, all within three weeks. Phoebe had worried about the passport, but as it was the off season, that went speedily, too. “It’s wonderful,” she told Brock during her first appointment after her mother’s departure. “A three month tour of the British Isles. Something to do with haunted houses to make up for the time of year. The accommodations won’t be luxurious by any means, but good enough to keep her happy. Oh, I feel like a new woman already!” And she really had no control over the visions of crashed airplanes and bombed-out hotels that flashed through her brain.
“You
They both laughed and Phoebe came very close to fluttering her eyelashes.
She stopped seeing Brock professionally, and they started dating. He still wasn’t the man of her dreams, but she did like him very much. The thought of sharing a bed with him began to seem less funny and more intriguing.
She packed Felicia’s things up and stored them in a rented bin in the basement of her apartment building. It was wonderful to have her apartment back again, to sleep in her own bed and not have to look at the garish sofa cushions. She had to keep the parakeet, of course, but she found that she liked the silly little bird and even went so far as to buy him a new cage and a pale blue roommate. That was the extent of her splurging, however. Every spare dime went into her savings account for Good Old Mom’s next trip... should she survive the first one.
November passed into December and December into January. Phoebe began to dread her mother’s return at the end of the month. She couldn’t depend upon a storm at sea to put an abrupt end to Good Old Mom’s homecoming, so she began to think that Felicia might like to stay on in England for a few more months. On January seventeenth, she sent her mother a cashier’s check for two thousand dollars, suggesting that she might like to see spring in the British Isles. It would be cheaper that way, she figured, than to have her come home and then send her off again. The return portion of her round-trip ticket could be cashed in or rescheduled, and Phoebe could have another four months of peace.
So time wore on. Phoebe worked hard and put money in the bank. She spent much of her free time with Brock, and she did not hear from Good Old Mom — not so much as a postcard and certainly no hint of a thank you — but she hadn’t expected to. What she did kind of expect, or hope for, was a telegram informing her that Felicia Hooks had been hit by a double-decker bus or that she’d run afoul of an IRA bomb. No such luck.
At the end of March, Brock proposed and she accepted. She didn’t think he was funny looking any more, and she supposed that she came as close to loving him as was possible. Having been raised by Good Old Mom, she probably didn’t know how to truly love anyone, but she promised herself that Brock would never be sorry he had married her.
“You’d better write your mother,” Brock said one cool evening as they walked in the park. “She’ll want to get home in time for the wedding.”
“I doubt she’ll care, Brock, but I’ll write to her.”
Felicia had, by that time, started sending postcards with terse little messages whenever she changed locations. Brock thought this was a good sign, that it meant she was beginning to miss her only child, but Phoebe knew better. It had just occurred to the woman that someone should always know where she was, that was all. It was just Good Old Mom looking out for Good Old Mom.
“I’ve never seen a mother yet who didn’t want to be at her daughter’s wedding,” Brock said.
Actually, Phoebe was thinking of sending her on to the Mediterranean. She dreaded the thought of Good Old Mom at her wedding, meeting Brock’s respectable family. And besides, there was a better chance for disaster in the Mediterranean. Remember Athens? They had that Red Brigade in Italy, didn’t they? And it was closer to the Persian Gulf.
