(no subject)

[mallorys_camera]

So around 4pm I get this surprise call at the store: it's the Number 1 Son who's just breezed into town from SoCal, a 450 mile run that he made in just under (gulp) six hours. And he wonders why the new (to him) car gets vapor lock on the Tehachapi Pass!

"Well, as you know, Ben gets twitchy when there's not something parked permanently in the driveway," I say. "So after he sold the broken down boat, he bought a broken down RV! It doesn't have a functioning bathroom but it has a door that locks and you can bunk there."

One of the ongoing resentments in the Number 1 son's life is that as soon as he left for Deep Springs, both sets of parents immediately made over his respective childhood bedrooms. So there's no permanent shrine to his childhood anywhere. Sleeping arrangements on visits to both homes are thus problematic.

"Uh, well actually I'm not thinking of staying –"

"You're not?"

"Well, I have three weeks before Stanford starts. I was thinking of driving up to Sonoma to hang with Josh."

"That's fine. You're an adult with a car. You can come and go as you please. So I'll see you later tonight. Around eight?"

"Well, actually Fletcher, Nathan and I are thinking of going out."

Read: thinking of partying and passing out on somebody's floor.

"Well, either I'll see you tonight or I'll see you tomorrow." Says Max plaintively and I'm thinking, you'll see me tonight or you can forget about getting your hands on any of the fabled DiLucchio Cough Drop Millions.

And for the next four hours I stew. I think: well, you're the one who brought him up to be an arrogant so-and-so. It's odd, isn't it? My mother brought me up to have no self esteem at all. I was kicked around in the back of her life like a duffel bag nobody wanted. And let's not even start on the father who abandoned me. When we become parents, we look at the mistakes our parents made and smugly think, I'm never going there. Forgetting that there are other sets of mistakes.

So I pack up the store and go home. No Max. And I'm working my way up to Full Sicilian which is what I do when my feelings have been hurt.

Loll on Robin's bed and hit him up for advice.

"You're over reacting, Mom," he says. "You have a tendency to over react. You go all drama queen."

"I feel like Xena," I say, looking at the little white dog Max abandoned when he went away to Deep Springs. On his last visit to Monterey, Max had told me, "It's funny. I don't even think of Xena as my dog anymore."
"Relax, Mom," said Robin. "Me, I'm thinking of this as a financial opportunity. Those surfing lessons Max wants? I'm gonna charge him fifty bucks an hour."

Finally around 9pm, I see the headlights of a red Ford Focus.

And instantly melt.

"Good thing you showed up," I say gruffly. "I was in the process of redrafting my will. And after that I was going to write you an email so scathing it was going to emasculate you permanently. I figure missing out potential grandchildren is a small price to pay for redressing petty grudges."

Max laughs. "It's good to see you too, Mom," he says.