Aunt Grace laughed. “Don’t worry, Rippy. I’m not going to steal him from you. I just asked him not to tell you about that particular little incident.” She pushed her egg around with her fork, then smiled again. “Can’t always have you worrying.”
I started to object that I needed to know things like that but caught myself before I ruined the moment. “So Aunt Grace is singing again,” I said, chuckling to myself. “That’s something worth celebrating. I think Mars has his guitar here. Maybe we could have a little jam session some night soon?”
“Maybe soon,” she said. “I’d like to hear how that voice of yours aged, too. When you were a kid, you sang along to my records like your life depended on it.”
“You had good records,” I said. “How could I not? But I don’t really sing anymore. I’ll be sitting with my beer and clapping when you’re between songs.”
She raised her coffee in the air, like she was going to toast me. “Just give me a little more time to pull myself together, and I might take you up on that.”
“It’s a deal.”
We made small talk for a while, and then I headed back upstairs to get ready for my day. As I showered and Mars snored in the bedroom, I kept thinking about what he had done for Grace. He’d always been smart with other people and good at intuiting their needs and desires. It was part of what had made him such a playboy in the first place. But the fact that he had done that and also kept it quiet—and respected Grace’s privacy—showed me that he hadn’t been as careless as I had thought. Not really.
By the time I was out of the shower and headed to my car, I was feeling like I needed to talk to Mars. Like I needed to tell him something, although I couldn’t figure out what that was. But like Aunt Grace told me sitting at that same kitchen table a couple of weeks ago: if I wanted to pull him into our family more, I needed to say it.
Because that was what it felt like, I realized, with the three of us all living together like that. I felt like I had my whole family around me, which was a funny, new type of thing to feel. And it made me want to prove to myself all over again that I wasn’t still the bully I used to be.
Seeing Clark had been painful and thrown me off for days. Like an ugly version of myself had come rearing back to life. I remembered vividly what it felt like to be a kid, hurt and rejected, and so terrified of being rejected even more that I was willing to lash out at the most vulnerable person around.
The only person more vulnerable than me, it seemed like. But that was only because he was stronger, too.
Less ashamed of himself.
I shook my head to get rid of the feeling. That wasn’t who I was anymore. I knew I had grown, thanks to people like Aunt Grace and Mars.
I ran through the day’s schedule in my head and figured out how to take a long lunch. I’d swing by that comic book store Mars went to, I figured, and get him a little gift. I was sure there was some oldStar Trekthing he’d love, and I knew he didn’t have the money to really treat himself. It would just be small, but it would be something nice.
And maybe, by then, I’d figure out what I wanted to say to him, too.
