AllFreeNovel
Share Us
The first time Mom hugged me, h
er scent made my throat catch, a physical reaction that wasn’t quite tears and wasn’t quite allergies, either. The boy in me saying Mom at the same time my hands itched to push her away, put a little distance between us.
“I just can’t get over how good it is to have you back. ”
“Quit hanging on him,” Bo says from across the table. “He’s too old for that crap. ”
Mom takes off my cap and musses up my flattened-down hair. “He’s my baby. You get something to eat yet, Westie? I can make you chipped beef if you want. ”
She’s been plying me with my favorites. “Nah, I ate in town. Me and Frankie picked up Arby’s after I took her to Bandon. ”
Bo looks up. “What’d you go to Bandon for?”
He was gone when we left, gone when we got home. I guess he didn’t know. “I took Franks to the clinic for her physical. ”
His eyes narrow, and he turns to my mom. “You let him take her for that shot?”
My mom blinks a few times, too rapidly, and I realize she’s stuck me in the middle of something. She said Frankie needed a physical in order to be allowed to do some kind of after-school indoor-soccer thing come January. When we got to the clinic, the nurse told me Franks was overdue for a hepatitis booster and that she needed to get it or she wouldn’t be able to stay in school next year.
I figured it was a fluke. The state health plan covered it, so I told the nurse to go ahead, scrawling my signature across the form she handed me.
But now I remember, too late, that Bo doesn’t believe in vaccines. He’s got a book about it, a ready lecture about the fallacy of herd immunity and the toxicity of the stuff they put in those shots as preservatives. He’ll go on about blood aluminum levels for an hour if you get him going.
“Did Frankie get a shot?” Mom asks.
When Mom had walked in the door, Frankie showed her the Band-Aid, first thing.
I glare at her, and she gives me this weak smile. Her eyes are pleading with me. Come on, West. Take my side.
I don’t want there to be sides. Not between Mom and Bo.
“I went by what the doctor said. ”
Bo picks up his Camels from off the table and peers in the open mouth of the pack. Frowns, slides out the last cigarette. He’s got a long fuse. If he and my mom are going to fight about this, it won’t be now.
But he’s not going to forget it happened.
“I’m going to grab a Coke,” Mom says. “West, you want anything?”
“I’ll take a beer. ”
“Get me another pack from the freezer, would you?” Bo asks.
Mom heads toward the fridge. “Didn’t you just open those this morning?”
“So what if I did?”
“So you’re supposed to be cutting back. For Frankie. ”
Frankie’s out in the living room, not visible from the kitchen, but Bo’s house is small, and she can hear. She calls, “You’re supposed to be quitting, Bo. ”
“Maybe next week. ”
Mom snags a beer for me. She doesn’t ask Bo if he wants one, and when she twists off the lid and says, “You want a glass, West?” he makes a disgusted noise and pushes up from the table.
“Where are you going?”
“Out to the greenhouse. ”
