I could man up, though. Harlan 2.0 was going to be 30% less petty. I headed back into the house to look for a toolbox.
Nothing like havinga woman sit on your face for the first time and then having her meet your mom the next day. But that was the situation presented to me, and I had to accept it.
After a nap and a shower, I was there to pick my mom up for the team’s special road trip. NHL teams rotated which guests joined the team on a weekend trip each year. Sometimes it was siblings, dads and mentors, or for this year, moms.
I knocked before trying the handle at my parents’ house in Upper Arlington. The door caught on a massive duffle and a rolling suitcase sitting by the door. My parents’ house was a lot to take in, built with the kind of suburban opulence that was hot in the 2000s. A grand wooden staircase, beveled glass in the door, and a black and white tiled floor that was less diner and more ballroom. My dad was an investment banker and my mom was an interior designer, which was really more of a hobby where she got to tell her friends that their decor sucked.
Meanwhile, this was our gaudy-ass entry.
Not that my mom was lazy or anything. She was always in motion, and my sister and I could count on her to shuttle us to every practice and be at every game in her St. James High gear. That all changed when I left my junior year of high school to play hockey in Minnesota. At the same time, my sister moved to California for college. Neither of us moved back home and I had no clue how she spent her days now.
My mom’s Pomeranian, Gucci, yapped at me upon entry.
“Be there in a sec!” came Mom’s call from the kitchen.
I crouched to pet Gucci, who immediately sank her ridiculous needle teeth into my finger. “Ow, you little shit! Did you miss me or something?”
“Don’t cuss at my angel!” Mom said, breezing into the entryway.
I pointed at Gucci, who was now rolling on her back and snarling, trying to get me to give her more delicious fingers to gnaw on. “Tell her that! I was just trying to pet her and she used my finger like a Milk-Bone.”
Mom sniffed. “She must not have forgotten the time you were an hour late to feed her when your father and I were out of town.”
I rolled my eyes and stood. “She wasn’t about to die of starvation. She would have lived through the night.”
“Tell her that,” my mom teased in my voice. “She was famished! Practically withering away!”
“Her brain is the size of a walnut. There’s no way she’s holding a grudge up there,” I argued.
Mom bent to scoop the dog up and deliver copious kisses to her fluffy face. “Gucci knows grudges are like lovers. You gotta hold ‘em close, don’t you, my puppy queen?”
Gucci responded with a long slurp to the side of Mom’s face.
I laughed and shook my head. “You’re ridiculous.”
Mom returned Gucci to the floor and opened her arms to me. “How’s my big boy?”
I chuckled as I hugged her. “Good. You really need all these bags for one weekend?”
Mom squinted at me. “Harlan Jeremy, I raised you to never question a woman’s packing needs.”
“It’s a small plane, Mom. I don’t want it falling out of the sky because you need dinner shoes that differ from your lunch shoes.”
She popped my arm with the back of her hand. “What’s gotten into you? Respect your elders, young man.”
My insides squeezed at the thought that, just the night before, I was deeply respecting a woman twelve years my elder. Treated her like a queen, even. Or my princess. Was the age gap weird to me? Not really. I was a firm believer that age was just a number. Good energy transcends years, and Emma had it in spades.
“Where’s Dad?”
“Working.” Mom put air quotes around the word.
“So, golfing?”
“You know him well,” she sighed.
Together, we parroted the phrase my dad used so much, it was almost his catchphrase. “Business is done on the golf course.”
“Come on. We’ll be late,” I said, bending to pick up Mom’s bags and head for my car.