Free Live Fast Die Hot by Jenny Mollen

me that with Jason gone, my mom was the only one I could rely on for assistance. I was bound to my beach chair. If Sid needed anything or, worse, if
I
needed anything, it was going to fall to her.
    After ordering a beer and a coffee, my mom discreetly peeled back her top, exposing a dental floss–like bikini that barely hid her still-perfect breasts. I looked at her, both mortified and envious.
    “What?” she asked, genuinely.
    “Your boobs are basically out!”
    “Not even! I usually catch rays topless. I’m just trying to be respectful of Sid. Nana is getting tan lines for you,” she said to Sid as a cabana boy stood next to her, handing her both drinks.
    “You know my boobs look this way only because I didn’t breast-feed you. It wasn’t the cool thing to do back then,” she informed the cabana boy as he walked off.
    I’d been anticipating my mom’s anti-breast-feeding rant for months.
    “Formula saved my tits!” she called out proudly, adjusting her sunglasses.
    “Did I ever latch on?”
    “Oh, you tried, all the time! But I had to bat you away like you were a deranged little bird.” She sipped on her beer and smiled, shedding light on why my nickname had been Bird before it was Choppy.
    Eventually, Sid fell asleep under a makeshift chuppah between my legs. For the next four hours I listened to my mom rant about her three favorite topics: her condo in San Diego, how my sister’s kids gave her pneumonia, and my dad’s inability, after thirty-two years of divorce, to have a normal friendship.
    “It’s just, like, get over it already. What did I ever do to make things weird?” For as much as she protested, I think part of my mom loved the fact that she and my father still had an awkward dynamic. What annoyed me the most was that behind closed doors, things between them were amicable. It was only in front of us kids that my dad pretended he wanted nothing to do with her. He used her when it was beneficial, calling her up to ask for advice or to sniff out gossip. But when called out for yenta-ing, he would blatantly lie. My dad’s ego was too big to admit to speaking to a woman who’d divorced him. And my mom’s ego was too big to corroborate his lie, which constantly left them at an impasse.
    We talked about my upcoming book release. Namely, the chapter about her.
    “Oh, God! You don’t talk about me having lots of boyfriends, do you? John won’t like that!” she said, with faux modesty.
    “Not really. Maybe? I don’t know, it’s supposed to be funny. Was I funny as a kid?” I asked, curious.
    “Hmm…You might have been…I wasn’t really listening.” She looked out at the water as if she was genuinely trying to recall. “But I think you were pigeon-toed. That could be why your leg is fucked up. You know you are slightly pigeon-toed, right?”
    When Jason returned he was salty, sated, and in completely different scuba gear than he’d left in. I tried to be happy for him and not guess how much money his new outfit cost.
    “Did you have fun?” I asked, faking a smile.
    “My dive watch was the wrong one. I gotta return it when we get home. But it’s gorgeous out there. We saw two pods of spinner dolphins over at First Cathedral and the water is crystal clear,” he said with the passion of a schoolboy who still thinks he’s going to be a marine biologist. Jason grabbed Sid and we started packing up.
    The longer I stayed off my leg, the more it seemed to hurt. I hurled my body toward my mom, forcing her to lend her support as I tried to stand.
    “I can’t keep using the crutches. They suck.”
    My mom suggested checking with the hotel for a wheelchair.
    “Then at least you could hold Sid while we pushed you around,” Jason said optimistically.
    I wrongly assumed that after a day and a half of sitting, I’d be fully recovered. I wasn’t. Not even remotely. In fact, I felt worse.
    “I can’t take this anymore. I need to get back to taking care of my child, not watching him fly in