The phone rang a few times before my mother answered, her voice tentative.
“Hi, Mom.”
“Dodge?” she asked as the waves in Oceanside could be heard rolling in.
“Yeah, Mom, it’s me.”
A long, painful, and pointed silence followed. “I thought it was Dahn calling.”
“No, it’s me.” I shifted around on the old park bench that someone—Linc or Bella—had dug out of one of the barns to set up here. The setting was quite serene. Green leaves overhead, the tinkle of water from an underground spring flowing out the open window of the boutique. Birds, bees, blue skies, fresh air, the lowing of the cows and the whinnies of bored horses. I could see now why Linc came here to calm his soul. “I’ve been meaning to call for a long time, but…”
I heard Bella in her boutique speaking to a customer. A few were dribbling in regularly now, most with their own boxes, but sales were sales, Bella liked to say.
“It’s okay,” Mom said, as mothers are known to do.
“No, Mom, no, it’s not.” I blew out a long breath. “You were right about him. About everything. I should have listened to you, but I was sure I was just so much smarter than you when it came to him. I was smarter than all my friends who were trying to warn me to prepare myself for heartbreak. I didn’t want to face the fact that someone else in my life, someone important, would leave me behind like a busted shoelace, but he did, and now I see the same pattern taking place with him and Dahn and…” I swiped my eyes. “I don’t want my son to live with the feeling of not being good enough for the people in his life.”
“Oh, Dodge, honey. Let me get inside.” I heard the screen door open on the beachside home she shared with her twin, Aunt Joey, as she liked to be called. Both were single women, Mom having been dumped by the dickhead buried on Bastian land, and Aunt Joey never having been married. They’d always beenside-by-side from the womb onward. “Okay, so I’m in now. The wind is bad today.”
I took that small break to get myself under control. I’d not been this weepy since Chris had told me he wanted a divorce because I was boring. Probably the same reason my father had cut out, I’d thought, until I came to know my siblings. Seemed some men were just dicks.
“Aunt Joey there?” I asked to try to deflect from my ramble.
“She’s out with the ocean trash pickup squad. So, honey, I am so sorry that I got into your face like that, but someone had to tell you the truth, and if not your mother, then who?”
“No, hey, no, I see that now. I think I saw it then but was too lost and pained to admit that what you were saying and what my friends were hinting at was true.” I let my head fall back to rest on the side of the boutique. My hat tipped, so I tugged it off and placed it on my knee. Up by the old gutter was a bird’s nest. Abandoned now that it was nearly September. The little ones had surely fledged, and their parents moved on with life. “He’s giving me sole custody of Dahn, Mom. He’s grown bored of being a father and wants to go play football in Spain while his new man breeds salamanders.”
“Twinky Topher?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay, just wanted to check since that fucker changes life partners like most people change their socks.”
I snorted so hard it rattled my sinuses. “Mom, you calling him a fucker is just so amazing.”
“Well, he is, and so was Cash. Is Dahn okay?”
“Meh, I think he’s acting out a bit, but that’s to be expected. I’ve uprooted his life to move out here, and now his other father is passing him over like a used baton and skipping off to Spain to return to playing football. It’s a lot for a kid to digest. Hell, it’s a lot for me.”
“Should a man his age even be on the playing field?”
“He seems to think so.” I lowered my sight from the bird’s nest to the green pastures filled with horses nipping at the grass. They’d not been ridden for days due to the flooding and were feeling their oats as one chased the other, hooves kicking, the sun warming their pelts.
“Sounds like a midlife crisis to me. And salamanders?”
I chuckled. “I know. Hey, whatever Topher wants to do, I say go for it. I hope he becomes the king of the salamander market. Maybe they’ll open up a salamander warehouse in Barcelona and call it Topher’s Twinky Salamander Emporium.”
She giggled softly. “It’s so nice to hear your voice. I missed talking with you, honey.”
“I’ve missed you too, Mom. I’m sorry I was such an ass.”
“Water under the bridge. Now, tell me about my grandson! He talks about goats a lot when we chat.”
And so I filled her in on everything and then some. I invited her and my aunt Joey out to see Dahn show his goats at the fair. She accepted on the spot. It wasn’t until after we hung up—so she could book some flights—that I realized I’d opened up a home that wasn’t mine to my mother and aunt. Sure,legallyit was a quarter mine, but everyone who resided in the Sooner State knew that house was Granny’s.
I heard the door of the boutique closing and assumed it was Bella’s customer, so I rose and started making my way to the house. I’d tell Granny about my mother and aunt and then try to find them a hotel nearby. Bella, dressed in a shimmery top and dark plum pants, ran to me, threw her arms around me, and kissed me on the cheek.
“I’m so happy you made up with your mother,” she whispered and released me to run back inside her little shop. It felt odd that she had overheard, but I was also touched. Striding across the still spongy grass, I found Granny on the porch, rocking away,her now coral hair—she and Bella were having too much fun with the hair dyes—with a shawl around her shoulders.
