To be fair, I was a right weirdo when we ran into each other in town and my empty stomach staged a coup on my ability to think, use words, and interact with her appropriately. But also… we ended the encounter on Wednesday evening pretty clearly planning to ride together tonight. I apologized and cleared the air.
Or so I thought.
“No, they’ll be fine. We can’t help it if she wasn’t there, and we tried, didn’t we?”
I turn from the front seat now that I’m in park to see them both with tears welling.Damn.I rush to unbuckle, but Ma’s already there, pulling open Lily’s door.
“Oh, no! What are we crying for?” Ma’s voice is just as dismayed as my heart is.
“We’re late.”
“We couldn’t find the lady.” Tears spill over, and Poppy gloms onto Ma’s leg while Lily sniffles back her own deluge.
“We tried, though. Daddy said at least we tried.”
My mom turns wild eyes on me as though I’ve done something to wrong these babies. And I get it. I don’t handle their tears all that well, either.
“What lady? Do you mean your new tenant?”
I nod. “I may not have been calm and happy that she wasn’t there. I confirmed the time with her Wednesday.” In passing. Trying not to stare at the way her leggings highlighted the curves of her long legs and perfect?—
“She’s already here! May brought her.” Ma drops down to gather both girls in her arms. “Everything’s alright, and we have a job to do, don’t we?”
Lily sniffles again. “We do?”
Damn, but those puppy dog eyes could kill a man.
“Of course we do, sillies! We have to set the table!”
She shoots me a look I don’t even attempt to figure out and follow them inside.
The week has been full of dead ends and frustrations at work, the girls are exhausted after starting a new dance class twice a week, and I am wrung out. I’ve got nothing left and I probably should’ve declined for tonight—honestly would’ve, had I not been on the hook to give a certain someone a ride.
Well, and the promise I made to myself since I realized how brutally I failed the girls from the very beginning. I’d balked, fearful and cowardly when presented with those two tiny humans I’d become instantly and solely responsible for at the worst moment of their lives and easily one of mine. A hundred doubts and more than a handful ofHow the hell can I get out of this?swirled around me. I kept my heart locked away as long as I could out of sheer terror andstubbornness, only to get wrapped up in them in a matter of days anyway. They wrested me onto their team, forced me to see them and love them, and there was no looking back.
But it was days of doing the necessities with obligation and forced tenderness. Days of doing everything with a frozen heart.
Just the memory of it scrapes against my throat and makes me want to gag.
And that failure is one of many reasons I’ll keep showing up here on Fridays. To everything May invites me to. To anything my other siblings or my folks need.
There is no way to scrub that shame from my record, but I’ll work every day to make sure I don’t harm them or anyone else with my weakness. It’s a must after years away living in my own world andnotshowing up for them, so it’s high time.
This thought swirling in my gut, I am far from prepared to walk into my parents’ farmhouse and see Sam laughing full-out at something my idiot youngest brother is saying. His eyes are downright sparkling with his signature mischief and I’m pretty sure he wore his T-shirt a size too small just to make his biceps look more obnoxiously big. No doubt he’s wearing Wranglers to show off his other assets like the pretty boy he is.
I manage to hold in my disgust at his display and find my way to the kitchen.
“Well, aren’t you in a charming mood.” My dad is standing at the stove nestled into the kitchen island, stirring a large stockpot like it’s a magic potion.
“How can you tell what mood I’m in? I’ve been in the house for less than a minute.”
His arm’s still toiling away with his trusty woodenspoon as he says, “I have eyes, my son, and I’ve been your father for a few minutes.”
There is no good response to this. If I say I’m not in a mood, I’ll look defensive, and if I change the subject, I’ll be avoiding it. There’s no winning with this, and frankly, Iamin a shit mood. So there.
“How about you wash up and start loading up the table?” He has the audacity to wink at me like I’ll think it’s cute.
A laugh huffs out of me because he’s always been like this. Somehow, he’s this cheery, sunshine of a man who fought in two wars and had an exacting father himself. Yet, here he is, manning the stockpot like a boss even though his own dad wouldn’t have been caught dead in the kitchen, and he’s winking.
