“Really?” I can’t picture the older, put-together woman I met at the ice cream place having a library of romance novels.
Dr. Paatal pats my shoulder and smiles. “I look forward to reading it.”
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Idon’t send Dr. Paatel the romance novel. I don’t go back home and talk to Jeremy.
Without thinking, without texting to warn her, I get in the car and drive two hours to Aunt Joan’s house. Her boys, Matt and John, are playing basketball in the driveway, so I park in front of the house across the street. I don’t get out of the car.
It’s such a normal tableau. A suburban two-story house. Freshly cut lawn. Rose bushes just starting to bud. Two teenage boys, sweaty and laughing, as they dribble and shoot. Dribble and shoot. Dribble and shoot. The noise of the ball pounds in my head like a hammer on a coffin.
I should leave and let them enjoy their normal, happy lives. Just as I start the engine, Aunt Joan comes bounding out of the house, shouting something I can’t hear until I open my door.
“You really think you can chicken out like that?”she hollers from the driveway with both hands on her hips. “Get out of the car, Red Eyes. I’ve got dinner in the oven.”
I nod, swiping tears away from my eyes with the sleeve of my oversized sweater. It’s too hot for a sweater, but I always feel cold now. I get out of the car and lock the door.
“Hey, Hazel,” Joan’s oldest, Matt, says, waving as I cross the street. “How’s it going?”
His brother smacks him upside the head. Matt’s wave cuts off sharply as he grimaces, no doubt realizing that’s not the right question to ask someone who just lost their mom.
John gives me an awkward smile. I don’t want to hold their reactions against them. It’s hard to know how to be around someone who’s grieving—I don’t even know how to be around myself right now. But their discomfort heightens mine.
“Don’t lag.” Aunt Joan snaps, already three steps ahead of me. “If I don’t get dinner out of the oven, we’ll be eating Lucky Charms instead of your mom’s favorite Alfredo lasagna.”
“How’d you know I was coming?” I follow her up the driveway.
“Didn’t.” She looks back over her shoulder. “I made it ‘cause I missed her.”
A sudden sob clogs my throat and hollows my chest. She loved Mom, too. The first thing I notice when we step inside is the smell of the cooking lasagna. So familiar in this foreign place. I haven’t been here in years. Mom would drive up regularly tohang out with Aunt Joan, but I rarely went with her.
There are sneakers and an abandoned backpack by the front door. A quilting project covers the living room floor. Framed photos fill both walls. There are a few of Mom sprinkled in with the rest. Even one or two of me, younger, smiling, happy.
Exhausted and wrung out, I slump onto a stool at the kitchen counter and watch Joan check on the lasagna.
“Can I stay here for a while?” I whisper.
“You don’t need to ask.” She closes the oven door and straightens up without looking at me. “But you do have to help with the salad.” She points at the fridge. “In the drawer.”
I pull a bagged salad out of the drawer, thankful for something to do with my hands, a distraction that requires little focus.
While we get dinner ready, we talk about Mom. Aunt Joan tells me stories I’ve never heard before. I learn Mom broke her arm because she tried to put a baby bird back into its nest when she was eight. She got in a fender bender when she was sixteen just after she got her license because she was singing so passionately to the soundtrack of Phantom of the Opera that she didn’t see the taillights turn red in front of her.
“I love her forever, but she was the worst driver imaginable,” Aunt Joan says with a laugh.
“Did she tell you about the time she ran over thecurb at my high school and knocked the bumper off the car?”
“No. Spill.”
“It was my freshman year. All my friends were out in the parking lot waiting for their rides. Mom comes barreling in, like she’s late, even though she isn’t. She clipped the curb, and the whole front bumper snapped right off. It was so loud everyone turned and stared. She just kept driving, completely oblivious, until she pulled up in front of me and I burst into embarrassed sobs.”
“That’s nothing,” Matt says.
I didn’t notice he and John had come into the kitchen while we were talking. They’re sweaty and breathless, glowing with life.
Matt crosses to the fridge, pulls out the milk carton, and takes a giant swig.
“That milk’s for everyone.” Aunt Joan swats his arm with the towel. He grins and puts it back before plopping onto the stool next to me.
