Chapter 20
I felt myself being shaken awake. Somebody's hand was on my shoulder. There was a whispering noise as my eyes opened -- the room was still dark, and above me, I could barely make out my mother's shape as she pushed at my shoulder.
"Don't make any noise," she said, her finger on my lips. "I've already packed your stuff. Are you ready?"
"What?" I sat up and tried to understand. Mom sat on my bed, already dressed and ready to go. She wore a loose, flowing dress, a wide brimmed sun hat from the other day. She looked absolutely radiant, even in the darkness of my room. I looked to the window and realized it was still dark.
"What's going on?" I asked, trying to read what she was getting at.
"I've rented a car," she said, half breathless. Mom was clearly excited, smiling grandly. It reminded me of one special birthday where she woke me up, told me she called school to tell them I was sick, and we spent the day together instead, eating ice cream and playing some of my favorite video games. But today, in Belize, she had much, much bigger plans.
"A car?"
"We're going to Cancun," she said, her voice tense with suppressed joy. "Just you and me. Your father has no idea. I've got the car outside and we're going to make the drive, right now. It'll be a mother and son road trip!"
"I thought Cancun was..." my knowledge base of geography in any foreign country was nonexistent.
"It's only five hours north. Just get your pants on and load up the luggage. Hurry, before your father wakes up." Mom left, her dress swishing behind her. She looked back, winking at me while I rolled out of my bed in a daze.
By the time I got to the car, the cool morning mist of the ocean chilled me. I carried our suitcases and threw them into the back of a nifty little red sedan.
"Ready, mister muscles?" Mom climbed into the driver's seat.
"Did you even sleep last night?" I asked, trying to gauge whether mom was high. I got into the passenger seat anyway, ready to go even if mom was on something. "How did you get this thing so early in the morning?"
"With a cell phone, anything's possible." Mom waved her phone, showing off a new rental app and then started the car.
We took off, the heat running, right as the sun started to crest over the edge of the ocean. The villa disappeared as the roads bent into the main thoroughfare of the village, and then we left even that and onto a stretch of tarmac that went on into the endless jungle. We passed through towns as small as a single shack while occasionally passing through tourist spots lined with thatched huts over lagoons and lakes. Mom set up a mix of old hits from her time in high school and college -- the best of 80's pop blaring as she rolled down the windows to let the color of the morning in.
At some point, we heard a ringtone from mom's phone. She purposefully ignored it until it went quiet, and then I heard a last chime from her voicemail.
"Did we even leave a note?" I asked.
"I don't have to explain a thing to your father," mom said. "He's been such a fucking pain in the ass this entire trip. The only time we've had any fun at all has been when it's just you and me, so why would I even let him know where we're going?"
I shrugged, trying to make sense of it. "But isn't he going to get worried?"
Mom laughed and I felt the stupidity of the question manifest in my cheeks. "I don't think dad will care once he gets a few drinks in him."
The highway stretched on into jungle. We filled up on gas at a little convenience store setup and mom passed me a hot breakfast torta while she sipped on a chocolatey coffee. As we started the car mom's phone went off again. She rolled her eyes and shoved it into the glove compartment.
The drive went on, and on. We started to talk about the future. About the jobs I wanted, about my dreams, about the kind of house I wanted someday. Mom kept asking me to go on, the expand on my hopes for the future, but the more I thought about the kind of house I wanted, the more I envisioned just living at home and seeing mom every day.
I wanted to tell her about it. I wanted to even tell her that I wanted to take her out on dates. But she seemed so set on hearing me talk about my own dreams, the things I wanted, to keep talking about different places, different cars, different people, goals. I wanted to somehow connect them to her but the more I went on, the more I kept halting and keeping myself from bringing those dreams into contact with my own mother's life.
A weird feeling rose in my stomach. It was a mysterious ache. I thought of the vacation ending in a couple days, of the flight back, of returning to college. Mom would be stuck again with dad. I'd be stuck in a party college. Then a career. An existence as a man on my own. Life would go on.
"Don't let anything keep you back, baby. Take the life you want, study hard, meet good girls. Don't get them pregnant too early," mom said, her voice firm as she sipped at her coffee. It made her seem like a cutthroat businesswoman -- the coffee, the dress, the way she leaned back in the chair, dispensing common sense. I felt small again, lectured. She was so pretty in the rising light of the sun filtering through the jungle around us. "You're a man now, aren't you Brett?" She asked me so firmly while we drove.
My mother, my mentor. I nodded, trying to keep from getting sad while my mother gave me a talk about life that I didn't quite get from my dad.
"You'll call on the weekends, won't you?" Her last question came completely out of left field, entirely different from the life advice theme she chose for the first leg of the drive. Her lips were pressed together. Soft. Concerned.
"Of course," I replied, eager.
"And you'll visit for all the holidays?"
