“Jesus, Mom. Go inside,” Devon orders.
I touch the knot forming on my head. I feel like we are thirteen, and as Devon turns on me, I half expect to see the braces from the picture in the hallway.
“Stay here,” she hisses. Her cheeks are flushed the most appealing shade of pink. “I don’t—I can’t be near you.”
“You want me to stay in the shed all night?” I ask, trying not to laugh at how frazzled she is. “You know you are of age to be kissing men in the shed.”
“Ew. Just stay there. Count to sixty,” she says, trying to shut the door as she steps out into the yard.
“Am I in timeout?”
“Yes,” she says simply.
She shuts the shed door with a clang and leaves me in the dark. With a chuckle, I start the count loudly so she can hear, then try not to feel too proud when I hear her giggling outside.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Devon
Lesson 26: Stay out of sheds.
I should have locked Jeff in the shed.
He and my mother have exchanged phone numbers, favorite recipes, and their deepest darkest fears. We are moments away from him braiding her hair. I’m watching him across the table, his face alight as he talks about his family—Jenny and her second-grade class antics, Sammy and her glorious troublemaking, and his mother. Oh, his mother. And all I can think of is how much I want to meet these women.
He meets my gaze across the empty plates smeared with my mom’s sauce and reads my mind.
“You’d love them,” he says quietly.
I’m nodding like a bobble head doll when I feel Meredith’s claws dig into my thigh, reminding me we are at a table of five—not two. I digmyclaws intoherthigh, but I don’t dare to look ather. I know what I’ll see there. And she can’t be right. No matter how much I might want her to be.
Kevin swirls his red wine in his glass and asks Jeff about his residency in Chicago. The gold in Kev’s hair catches the light from the pendants dangling above and I shift my eyes from him to Jeff. Jeff to him. These two men are so easy to admire. Good looks aside, the way they discuss their patients, the way they care—it’s the same tone I use about my students. I don’t understand a word they are saying about subdural hematomas, but the tone—the tone I can relate to. The concern etched between Kevin’s brows and around Jeff’s mouth. That feeling of responsibility. I glance at Meredith and she winks and grins. Immediate regret.
Of course I can’t completely understand them—what they face. If I screw up as a teacher, which I do by the minute, someone doesn’t die. Worst case scenario for me is a lifelong inability to calculate tax. And who wants to do that anyway?
“Devon, you’re doing that thing you do where your face changes with your thoughts,” my mom leans in and tells me.
Pfffft. I don’t do that.
“You’re doing it again.”
I turn to her and she pats my head like I’m Brutus, who currently has his head in Jeff’s lap waiting for food to drop into or around his mouth.
“Are you all going up to Tara’s next weekend?” my mom asks.
She smiles, but it doesn’t reach her eyes. It’s not that she’s not happy for Tara. She’s worried. Which is a baseline state for her, a constant piece of motherhood amplified of course by her condition. And there’s something else there tucked into the corner of her semi-smile. Regret, maybe? Guilt that she can’t be a part of this.
“Unfortunately, I’m at the hospital all weekend,” Kevin answers, meeting my gaze. The same regret I just saw on my mother’s face frowns back at me from his. Despite the coldhard logic of “he chose this life,” I feel badly for him, too. Kev will never stop working to impress his father—Chief of Staff at Lankenau Hospital and Chief of Pricks along the Main Line. But his daddy issues don’t stop that small, bitter voice in my head that reminds me of his priorities.
“I can’t,” Meredith says, softly. But she doesn’t glance my way to see my surprise. Mer never misses an opportunity to go to NYC. “I’m on call.”
She says it like she’s being tortured.
“Will you be going, Jeff?” my mother asks. I go to kick her, but she’s already shifted her legs to the side. Clairvoyant bitch.
Jeff looks at me. I look at the table.
“I have an interview in New York City on Saturday, so I’ll be up there anyway,” he says. If I look up, I know there’ll be eight eyes on me—ten if Brutus looks away from the food for once. This is more awkward than a sixth-grade dance.
