“I’m never going to be able to pack up Lena’s whole life and put her away. But I thought I could start by changing out one thing she rarely used for something…” I pause, struggling for the right words, “I can cook for the kids. That’s one thing I can do here. One good thing I can offer. And I have pretty pans to do it in. I can cook and I can use new pans. And it can be different from Lena without taking away from Lena.”
I find myself searching his face, almost expecting him to know exactly what I’m trying to say, to understand my intentions. “I had no idea I would be hurting Tammy. Hurting her is the last thing I want to do.”
Jovi nods, the corner of his bottom lip stuck between his teeth in that trademark look of his. He rounds the corner to take the seat beside me. “I made a‘dead Trent’joke in front of Abe the other day when I started cleaning out Trent's office.” He looks at me, dark eyes widening before he lets out a long breath. “It didn’t go well.”
“We’re terrible people.”
“We’re not terrible people.”
“You’re damaged people,” Holly chimes in, wandering back into the kitchen. “Washer’s fine, by the way. The dryer has about half a load in it, like items were retrieved as needed. And you’re out of detergent. Don’t let the three bottles on the shelf fool you. They’re all empty.”
Sounds like Lena. She’d have been saving them up to make a recycling run. “Thanks for checking on that.”
“No problem.” She stops at the opposite end of the island, propping her elbows on the counter across from us. Then she proceeds to stare directly at Jovi. “I know why Liz is all screwed up. What messed you up?”
Jovi scoffs in response.
“His dad got cancer and died on him when he was nineteen,” I fill her in. Only because she won’t quit poking at him unless I do.
“Nineteen,” Holly makes a face I’m sure she means to appear sympathetic but really just looks uncomfortable. “That’s shitty, I’m sorry.”
“Fourteen,” Jovi mutters, fingers tapping over the counter like this conversation is making him anxious. “I was fourteen when he got cancer.”
“What?” I turn in my seat to face him. “No, you weren’t. You were nineteen. I was there. I remember.”
“You were there,” Jovi informs me, his voice as unreadable as his expression. “When he relapsed. The night I found out the cancer was back. You were there.” His eyes hold mine, and the thing he’s not saying out loud wraps around me like a chain pulling tight around my heart. I was there. The night he found out. The night he ran his skateboard off our fucking roof.
I swallow, but before I can acknowledge what he’s shared, he goes on, “The first time he got sick was two years before I met Lena. Before I met you.”
My brow crinkles and I can feel the tension crawling up my neck until it settles in the creases of my forehead. “I didn’t know that.” I didn’t knowanyof it.
“Of course not.” He shrugs, turning away from me and drawing from an air of casualness that feels all wrong here. “No one knew.”
“Lena and Trent?” They had to have known.
He nods slowly. “Trent knew. He told Lena.”
I swallow. I can suddenly hear Lena’s voice ringing inside my head. All the times she came to Jovi’s defenses, always insisting Ididn’t get it. Now I do.
“Well, there you have it,” Holly cuts through the uncomfortable silence spreading between us.
“There we have what?” Jovi looks like he can’t decide if he finds her confusing or just plain annoying.
“Proof.” She stands up tall again, bouncing her shoulders like it’s obvious. “You’re not terrible people. But your emotional IQisseverely corrupted from childhood trauma. And thus, you have some messed up coping mechanisms which left your social skills a little inappropriate or, on occasion, lacking entirely.”
Jovi spins back around in his seat to glare at me. “Make her go away.”
Holly gasps but her mock indignation fades into laughter too fast to be taken seriously. “Relax. I’m going to disappear all on my own.”
She hooks her thumb, pointing at the door behind her leading to the back porch. “I have a Zoom meeting to attend in four minutes. Got my laptop and everything all set up out there already. Was grabbing a different shirt from the car when I ran into Jovi, so, you know, this whole conversation was actually an inconvenience for me more than you.”
She sticks her tongue out at him like she’s five. Then she laughs again, probably at him and the stunned expression on his face, before she wanders out of the kitchen and leaves us alone as promised.
“You really need to start picking your friends more intentionally,” Jovi grumbles, sliding off the stool and heading for the pantry. “Being stuck with someone for work does not mean you have to go out of your way to include them in your personal life.” He turns back toward me, holding a bag of pretzels that’s been open for God knows how long. “Or mine.”
“Consider yourself unincluded,” I snap, more out of instinct than a desire to be nasty. “And while we’re on the topic, feel free to keep Casey away from me as well. I don’t want to suffer the consequences of your choices either.”
He snorts. “Like I would make anyone I care about endure the torture that is your company.”
