“You mentioned you didn’t have it easy. Feel like talking about it?”
“Not really. And I gotta shower and head over to the bookstore to help Race. His back’s gettin’ worse.”
“Oh? What’s going on?”
I’d hoped by mentioning Race and his problem that Harlan would drop his nosing about into my business. What was in the past belonged there. Permanently.
“The doctor did some kinda test. Race has degenerative discs? Somethin’ like that. Anyway, it means he’s got real bad pain that ain’t gonna go away, so I’ve been helping him more and more.”
“You really enjoy working there, don’t you?”
“Yeah. I like talking to people and seeing what they’re reading. Then sometimes I buy the book myself. I also like seeing how the books sell week by week and what the new trends are. Books are like another world to get lost in.”
“We can all use a different world. This one hasn’t been that great.” I heard someone speaking in the background. “I have to go. Time for morning group.”
“I’ll talk to you tomorrow?”
I wasn’t sure who needed these calls more, Harlan or me.
“Yeah, of course. Um, Cort?” I heard him breathing, and I wondered if he’d changed at all in three weeks. “Thanks for being there for me. I don’t know if I could’ve made it through everything without knowing you were there.”
“I told you. Friends do for friends.”
We hung up, and I stared at my phone for a long, hard minute before hitting Speed Dial.
“Hello?”
“Hi, Mama.”
“Oh, Cort.” Her voice dropped. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine. Just haven’t spoken in a while, and I wanted to see how you ’n Daddy were doin’.”
“We’re fine.”
Like talking to a stranger, I thought, yet I kept pushing, God knows why. “I’m good too. Working in the bookstore more.”
“That’s nice.”
Every month I made the routine phone call, hoping to break through the coldness, yet every month the conversation was as one-sided as a mirror.
“Mama, don’t you think it’s gone on long enough?”
“No, she don’t.” My father came on the phone. “As long as you think what you done was right, it ain’t okay.”
“What I done? It wasn’t only me, you know. There were two of us involved.”
“Way I heard it, you were the one who pushed Bobby into it. He was trying to work through his issues, but you made it impossible.”
I couldn’t help my snort of disbelief. “Is that what he’s sayin’?” We were together for over ten years. I could still hear Bobby’s moans of pleasure as I fucked him. Issues, my ass. That man loved dick.
But he loved his family’s money more.
“No, Heather’s saying that. Bobby don’t talk about you at all.” He cleared his throat. “They got married two months ago, and this past Sunday in church she announced they’re having a baby. So everything’s worked out fine.”
“Fine? You think it’s fine for me? Me ’n Bobby were together since high school. Everything woulda been fine if y’all had let us be who we are instead of tryin’ to change us into who you wanted us to be.”
“Bobby did the right thing. He made the right choice. To think my only child, myson, would shame me like this. You belong there in New York with all those weirdos.”
