Turning to look at him, I searched his face for answers. “Are you sure? I could come pick him up too.” He’d already seen my house, so I was safe there. I was still nervous about letting Max go with them alone, but I also didn’t have a strong enough reason to keep him with me. I mean, other than being his mom.
They were his grandparents after all. And as far as I knew, upstanding, good people. They should take their grandson out for ice cream, right? It would be unreasonable of me to deny him this.
Besides, the voice inside me, the gut instinct I relied so heavily on, whispered that I could trust them.
“Can you have him home by nine?” I asked Levi specifically. That was an hour past his bedtime, but I figured one night wouldn’t hurt.
Darcy looked at her watch, noting that was only an hour and a half with him. “I suppose that’s fine,” she said. “Maybe we could get more time with him this weekend?”
“Let’s tackle ice cream first, Mom,” Levi said, rescuing my pounding heart from beating straight out of my chest. “Then we’ll bother Ruby about this weekend.”
I tried to smile reassuringly, but it trembled. “He’ll love ice cream,” I said. “This is a great idea.”
“Okay, wonderful.” Darcy sounded so confident, so like she had her life together and could protect my son and get him home to me safe. I knew I needed to trust her and let this part of Max go, but it was hard. I had to pay my mother to babysit him. She rarely volunteered to keep him on her own. I just wasn’t used to this.
It was hard for me to even want to get used to it.
“I need to give you his booster seat,” I told them.
“I’ll grab it,” Levi volunteered. “Dad, you could pull the car around?”
With a plan made, I kissed Max goodbye and made him promise to be good. He smiled and asked if he could get a double scoop. I told him it was up to Darcy and nearly swallowed my tongue giving up that small amount of control to another person.
God, I really was a helicopter mom.
“He’ll be fine,” Levi promised as he followed me out to my car. “My parents won’t let anything happen to him.”
“I know,” I said.
“Is this really that hard for you?”
The snow had started coming down in big, fat flakes that clung to my hair and dress. The only winter coat I had was a big, bulky thing that I only broke out in emergency situations and when the Nebraska winters dipped below zero. Otherwise, I toughed it out without one.
“It’s just strange, okay? Max has only ever had me. My mom sometimes watches him for me, and she gets him on the bus most mornings, but she doesn’t want to do those things. I pay her for her time.”
“You pay your mom to watch her grandson?”
The way he asked the question made me feel about an inch tall. I just wanted to crawl in a hole and learn to live there. “Not always,” I quickly adjusted. “Like in the mornings, I don’t pay her for that.”
“Just if you want to leave any other time.” He read between the lines.
I spun around at my driver’s side door and planted a hand on my hip. “Listen, Mr. Judgy. I raised Max all by myself, okay? It’s been the two of us for six years. I’ve managed. I’ve figured it out. I’ve handled everything, okay? You know my mom. You know what she’s like. I’m just happy she’s involved in his life. It might not look how it should to you or anybody else, but that’s fine, because it’s my life. It’s how we do things and I’m okay with all of it.”
He didn’t back down and feel bad like I did. He seemed to gain steam, his shoulders straightening and his eyes flashing. The snow fell all around us, muffling the parking lot and casting us in the shine of pure white beauty. “But are you?” he demanded. “Are you okay with it? When are you going to start demanding more from people, Ruby? When are you going to recognize how special you are? How much you’re worth? When are you going to start asking other people to treat you how you should be treated? You’re worth so much more than you let people get away with.”
He knocked the wind from my lungs and I gasped, struggling to catch my breath again. “I do know what I’m worth,” I shot back, scrambling to gather my wits so I could show him exactly how amazing I was. “My mom’s not going to change because I want her to. And as for everyone else, I’m an independent woman, Levi. I stand up for myself. I don’t let anyone get away with anything. I own my shit.”
“You hide from everything,” he countered. “You hide, and you cower, and you expect the worst so you don’t take a risk on anything.”
“How dare you—”
“Like me,” he snapped. “Or high school. You played the victim card for years. Oh, poor little Ruby Dawson, nobody wants to be my friend. Wrong. Plenty of people would have been your friend if you would have let them. Me included. Now after all these years, you’re still playing it.” He stepped forward, caging me in against my car. “It’s time to wake up, Ruby. Start paying attention. Start facing the mountains you’ve made in your head and realize there’s nothing there but your own fear.”
I’d already unlocked my car when we walked up to it, so he didn’t have to wait for me. After he’d spoken his piece and wrecked my entire life, he walked around the car, yanked open the door, grabbed Max’s booster seat and slammed the door behind him.
“I’ll have Max back to you by nine,” he confirmed. Then he disappeared inside the building while I stood in the snow desperately trying to collect my dignity and pride and all the things I thought I knew about life and this town and him.
But it was no use. His words bounced around my head in meaningless balls of tangled truths. Was he right?
