Chapter 23
We awoke to the sound of mom's phone, the ringtone she had saved for dad. Through the tangle of sheets, I saw mom's pale arm reaching for the light on the nightstand. It was like out of a dream -- seeing her awakening in the same bed I was in. Never, in my entire life, did I imagine I'd see this.
"Ross?" She answered the phone blearily. I could hear dad's voice in the silence of the morning, even though the phone wasn't on speaker.
"Still no clue where you both are," said dad, still annoyed. "But I guess I deserve it after doing the same to you, huh?"
Mom pursed her lips together, agreeing reluctantly.
"Anyway," dad continued, "I think I've had all the fun I can out here. My head is killing me, and I think if I so much as even think of tequila I'm going to end up puking. So I'm headed out a day early to get back to work -- the firm's reimbursing it, thankfully."
"You're headed back without us?" Mom sat up, the covers slipping down her chest, the soft pinkness of her nipples greeting the morning.
"Yeah. So I'll see you back at home," dad said without a drop of emotion or care, entirely without any hint that we were family, almost as if mom were just a roommate, though I guess in a lot of ways, she kind of was.
"Alright. See you Ross," mom rubbed at her forehead. "Be safe."
"Uh huh." Dad hung up.
Mom fell back. She looked at me as if I were a stranger in the bed. I was sure she was thinking about what we did last night.
What I did inside of her.
"Uh," I tried to open a conversation. Smoothly. "Breakfast?" Great job, Brett.
"This is the last full day, you know." Mom seemed thoughtful. Far off. "And I don't think your father would have packed everything at the villa. We'll need to go back today if we're going to make our flight tomorrow."
"We're leaving already?" I got up, incredulous. "We just got here! We're in Cancun!"
"The plane tickets say tomorrow, Brett." She swung her lovely, curvy, long legs off the side of the bed and got up. "We'll have to make the drive back today."
I was aghast. I didn't want any of this to be over.
I didn't want to go home.
"What about the beach? What about exploring the area?"
But mom got dressed, wore relaxed clothes -- just a comfortable white sundress, nothing too tight. It was a soft look, a motherly one. Sandals. Sunglasses for the hangover. She pointed at my suitcase, lowering her eyebrows in a silent order, and I dropped the subject. She wasn't going to argue with me, even a little. We packed and went downstairs to get lunch since it was closer to noon, then checked out.
Once the clerk finished processing us, I remembered the swimsuit that they had in the store where I bought the massage oil. "Hey. There's something I'd really like you to get," I took her arm and brought mom up to the display. She looked through the glass of the storefront, assessing the sexy piece that barely functioned as a swimsuit at all -- all string, all skin, two whole inches of cloth, combined. Her eyes went wide as she measured just how skimpy it was.
"Brett, that's just vulgar."
"It's sexy." I pointed at the price tag. "It's not even that much. In the US, it'd be three times that."
"You have no clue what swimwear costs in the US, do you?" Mom smiled at me. "But maybe just for you, I'll get it."
"Please."
A minute later, mom exchanged cash for the tiniest shopping bag I had ever seen -- not even hand sized. That's all it took to package it. Mom asked the lady at the checkout if they had any Plan B, and the lady behind the counter uncomfortably pulled some from under the counter. Mom paid for it, looking at it nervously as the lady put it in her hands. As mom turned away, I saw the lady, the same one from yesterday, glaring at me.
We pulled out of the parking lot and left the Isla Mujeres at the edge of Cancun. The ocean was still there, but I internally said goodbye to the long line of resorts and endless sand. I noted the fact that we didn't even step outside on the beach while we were at the resort. We missed one of the best parts of Cancun. That's how short our time was.
I wanted to ask mom if we could go back, but the fact was, we had plane tickets, and if mom was an immovable stickler about anything, it was timing transportation and getting to the airport as early as humanely possible. She wanted to make the drive back today so that all we needed was the two hour bus to Belize City the next day. Even that would make her nervous.
The drive began with mom biting her lip and looking concerned. She gripped the steering wheel with alternating hands. Nervously. I could tell she was thinking about the Plan B. I noticed it, peeking out of her purse. She hadn't taken it yet.
"You alright mom?"
"Oh. Brett." She said, in a slight daze. "It's nothing. Don't worry about it."
I didn't want to ask her to take it. We had 72 hours, and it hadn't even reached 12. It was a weird moment -- I felt nervous. Excited at an unnamed possibility. Scared. Reluctant. A part of me didn't want her to take it at all. I felt like maybe she didn't want to take it either.
Our five hour drive back to Consejo went by in near silence. We only spoke when passing off the driving, when filling up with gas, when we got lunch. I couldn't quite tell if it was a sad silence or a nervous one, but either way, it was tough to handle, made worse by the fact that I had nothing to say to make the silence go away.
Hours went by. At one point, while I drove, mom took out the box of Plan B and stared at it. She drank some water, reading the label. It went back into her purse, unopened. I heard a deep breath. Like a nervous sigh.
I turned the music mix back on at some point, in the endless highway jungle heading south. It blended into itself, the time fading it into mere noise. Every town, every tourist trap, every gas station was another reminder that we were leaving the region and that at some point tomorrow we'd be back on home soil.
