Free As You Are by Ethan Day Page A

wanted to see you, so I thought I'd come up for four or five days. You haven't used the credit card I gave you for several months, so I'm a little worried about you.”
    “I told you I was going to try not to.” Does no one listen to me?
    “I know, darling, but I didn't think you were serious.”
    “Well, if it makes you feel any better, I used it to buy some suits the other day.”
    “Really,” she said excitedly. “Does that mean you're trying to get a real job?”
    “No, Mom, it means I had a date and I wanted to look nice.” I spied my smokes on the windowsill and got up off the sofa.
    “Was it with Danny?”
    Oh Christ, here we go . “Of course not. Don't be ridiculous.”
    “Julian, why do you always insist on making things more difficult for yourself than they have to be? You are living with a handsome, charming, available man who owns his own business and is financially secure. You need look no farther than the next room, yet you run around exhausting yourself looking for I don't know what.”
    I took a deep breath before lighting my cigarette. “Mom, I know how much you love Danny, but that doesn't mean that I do, and why do you automatically assume that he sits at home pining away for me while I go out looking for men?” I opened the window and took a seat, exhaling dramatically. “Did you ever stop to think that maybe he isn't interested in me?”
    “Whatever you say, dear. Can you pick me up from the airport at two?”
    “Of course.”
    She began firing off the flight information, and I quickly ran into the kitchen to scribble it down. I was silently praying Danny didn't come home and catch me with a lit cigarette outside the tiny area he'd been generous enough to allow me to smoke in. I dashed back to the window and then, as usual, lost the argument over where she'd stay.
    Mom always refused to stay in the loft for some reason. I conceded the losing battle quickly, telling her I'd set up her hotel reservation for her, and we said our good-byes. After hanging up, I wondered why it was that she would think Danny was the man for me. My mother was one of those people who adopted others. She had a heart large enough to fit the entire world inside, and she'd certainly sectioned off a large portion for Danny, whose mother had died when he was four.
    Danny absolutely adored my mother. He doted on Delilah every time she visited. Whenever she called, he'd end up talking to her for hours. Danny's father and siblings pretty much told him they didn't want anything to do with him after Danny came out of the closet, so my mother sort of adopted him. He'd be downright giddy when he found out she was visiting.
    Delilah had a whole lot of opinions and didn't think twice about sharing them. It was one of the things I'd always loved most about her, despite not always acting like it. Growing up, I never heard her say so much as a cross word about anyone. Well…except Dad and his mother.
    At the same time, she had no problems standing up for what was right. When I was about ten years old, one of my father's business partners was over at our house. He'd made some type of racist comment or joke, and she stood up, looked him directly in the eye and said, “ I realize that I cannot control your personal beliefs or what you say in your own home, but I certainly will not stand for you coming into this one and infesting myself, my child, and my other guests with your ignorance and bigotry .”
    The entire room went silent. It was one of those moments where people begin to squirm in their seats. The man, of course, stumbled through an apology that she graciously accepted. She then smiled and got the conversation going again. It was at that moment that I realized how strong and unafraid my mother really was. Underneath her Doris Day-like exterior hid a rock-hard Bette Davis interior upon which she drew when it came to divorcing my father. I believe the phrase “she took him to the cleaners” certainly applied to my parents'