Chapter Twenty-One
“What’s your mom's name?”
Jim still hasn't let go of me. We’re slumped in our same spot on the kitchen floor, legs nearly numb from being curled in the same position for so long. His hand hasn’t stopped caressing across my back, up through my hair, and back down again. He’s repeated the process so many times I’m practically purring under his touch.
“Rene.”
“Rene. That's a pretty name.” One I don’t hear too often.
I wrap my arm around his core, tugging him to me. “What was she like? Tell me about her.”
He reaches a long arm down to wrap around my knee, adjusting me fully onto his lap. I feel his warm exhale against my cheek as he starts. “She was…I don’t know if there is one single word that could have described my mom…
“She was the typical matriarch, the glue that held our family together.” He chuckles, and I smile at the feel of his chest rumbling against my cheek. “My dad once said one of the reasons their marriage was so successful was that he could never predict what she’d do next. It seemed like every time we turned around, she’d have a new project started, or a new hobby. A newidea for something that seemed so ridiculous to the rest of us, but she’d find a way to make it happen.
She loved to garden. She’d find random-ass scraps of metal, or discarded rusted furniture my dad pulled from various job sites. She’d clean it up, maybe slap some paint on it and somehow turn it into a decoration. We’d laugh, maybe tease her about it, and then once she was done we’d eat our words.”
That sounds like something Marissa would have done. Found a way to repurpose junk into something new and creative.
“She had a beautiful voice, loved to play guitar and piano, and decided she was going to learn to play the violin. She spent a shit ton of money on one, watched Youtube videos, and sat in the living room for hours but barely learned to scratch out the chorus to ‘Skip To My Loo.’ One day my dad called, said he was driving home from work, wondering why all the neighborhood dogs were howling the closer he got to the house, only to get home and realize it was her and that stupid violin.”
The tears well in my eyes again, not for my own loss, but for Jim and the woman he so clearly loved. It’s in his voice, each hitch in his breath uncovers the ache that’s still burrowed inside his chest.
“She got so pissed. She sold the violin to a pawn shop and decided the next hobby was yoga. She turned the corner of the living room into her little studio, complete with different colored candles that were supposed to match each of her inner eyes or some shit. She’d ring a chime and try to meditate but my dad, being the jokester he is, couldn’t leave her be. He’d sit in his recliner, ask her questions or poke and tease her to break her concentration. He’d take pictures of her weird yoga positions and she’d call him a son-of-a-bitch, and they’d laugh about it.”
An image of myself and Jim pops into my mind, sometime in the future, when Jackson is older and with his friends, or at a summer job, and Jim and I have more time. I could see myselftrying to find who I am, to get back into my hobbies and Jim would be exactly like his dad. Supportive, but teasing. He'd try to tell me no, then grumble and come help me anyways.
A man can only put his foot down for so long when a woman he loves needs his help.
“She was fiercely independent,” he continues. “She’d get this random idea in her head, for a new hobby or home reno project, whatever it was. She’d want to do it right that second, even if it was the most inconvenient time, she wouldn’t care. My dad would just chuckle and go along with it. He knew it was useless to tell her to wait.”
“She must have been a hell of a woman to raise a man like you, James Charlebois.” He tangles our fingers together, and I pull his clasped hand to my mouth, kissing the back of it. “I’m sorry you miss her so much.”
“I think missing someone is a good thing. Never,ever, stop missing your sister. Never stop talking about her, to Jackson or whoever. I believe that someone never truly leaves us until the day we no longer speak their name.”
As much as it pains me to think that twelve years from now I’ll still miss Marissa, I know he’s right. Jackson was so young when she had her accident, and he’s still young now that she’s passed. My parents will be gone someday, and I’ll be the only one left to remind Jackson of who his mom really was.
“You wanna know something else?”
I nod against his chest, draping his arms over me to snuggle in.
“You remind me a lot of my mom.”
I pull back, keeping in his hold but wanting to look at his face to see if he’s messing with me.
“You’re snarky as hell. You make me laugh, even when you’re teasing me. You probably think I’m the goofball, always in a good mood—but you can ask Ryan, that isn’t always the case. Iseem to be in a good mood when I’m around you becauseyoumake me feel that way. I lose that feeling from time to time. I get down in a funk about my mom, about what she’s missing out on, but you bring me out of that without even realizing it. Those days of planning the joint bachelor/bachelorette party brought me back to life. One afternoon with you shooting me dirty looks would keep me going for an entire week afterwards.”
I had forgotten all about the early days with Jim. When Lainey and Ryan got engaged, she immediately pulled Jenna and I together to plan the bachelorette party. I suggested a girls trip to Vegas that included front row tickets to ‘Thunder From Down Under.’ Jenna vetoed the idea considering she was pregnant and insisted ‘Thunder From Down Under’ would be trash, compared to her man. It was then that Lainey dropped the bomb that she and Ryan decided on a joint bachelor/bachelorette party because they wanted to celebrate together. She also casually mentioned that we were tasked to plan the weekend with the groomsmen. I grumbled, but she wasn’t persuaded to change her mind. The next weekend, I met Jim.
I pull my bottom lip between my teeth to temper a smile. “You suggested a group camping trip. What grown man suggests camping for people who choose to live in downtown Chicago?”
He playfully pinches my side. “What’s wrong with camping? Don’t you like s’mores?”
“I don’t like to spend my weekends sleeping on the dirt and swatting at mosquitoes.”
He wraps his arms around my core, bringing his head down to my ear. “I would have brought a guitar and seduced you by the fire, no doubt about it. You would have been in my tent before the night was over.”
I giggle, pulling his arms around me. “You don’t even know how to play the guitar.”
