Page 86 of Back for Seconds

“Everyone’s sleeping in their own beds tonight. No one’s pressing charges.” I sucked down a deep breath. Suddenly, I was exhausted. “So, good? I guess.”

She took a long inhale of her cigarette, rolling her eyes. “Happy freaking holidays.”

I pressed my thumbs into the tender tissue above my eyes. “Happy freaking holidays, indeed.”

We slid into an easy quiet, both of us rocking back and forth gently in our chairs, the sulfur smell of the bay mixing with wood fire and tobacco smoke and Christmas dinners. Someone had smoked a ham. A spiral ham. The kind with pineapples poked into it.

I cleared my throat. “You already knew June and her mom—that night we met at the ceramics party, you said hi to them.”

My mom nodded. “I’ve known her mother for years. AnneMarie—she’s a nice lady. Pretty quiet, but always smiling. June used to come into the aftercare program at the rec center, and her mom would pick her up. She was always the last kid to get picked up; sometimes we’d have to stay late waiting for her parents.” She paused to ash her cigarette into the ashtray on the little table between us, shaking her head. “She had these big glasses, and she always did all her homework.” She gave me a sideways glance. “That brother of hers is trouble, though. Always has been.”

“Oh, believe me—I noticed.” I picked at a stray thread on the knee of my new pajamas. They’d been a gift from my nieces, and I’d put them on right away. To make them laugh. Not to spend an entire day in. “His intentions are good. He really loves June, that’s for sure. I thought he was gonna bite Brian’s ear off.”

My mom let out a phlegmy chuckle that turned into a prolonged wet cough. I hated that she smoked. I tried for years to bribe her into quitting—with nicotine gum, patches, promises of buying her a new car. Nothing worked.

“And what about you?” she asked, once her cough had calmed.

“What about me what?” I asked, sinking down deeper into my rocking chair.

“Do you love June?”

I paused—how was I supposed to answer such a direct question? With honesty? Sarcasm? Part of me wanted to mouth off like a teenager. But really, I needed to talk about it. “I do. But I think maybe…she just broke up with me.”

I explained our last conversation to her. She listened, cigarette propped up close to her face so her narrowed eyes were fixed on me through a thin patina of smoke. The smell reminded me of my childhood and my grandmother. But a conversation like this, with my mom, would have never happened when I was a kid. There had been too much going on. Too much to worry about, too much to fight about, too many problems that needed more attention than me.

My mom listened intently and then, when I finished, she sighed. “Nonna would have known exactly what to do. She would have given you perfect advice.”

“I know.” I fixed my gaze on the house across the street. They’d adorned their windows in multicolor lights, successfully covering up how shabby their overgrown front lawn and dirty windows were. “That’s what’s hardest about her being gone. The years just keep passing, and there’s more and more about my life she doesn’t know. It feels impossible.” I huffed out a small laugh.“How am I supposed to get through this without her?”

“My sensitive Joey.” Mom reached for my hand, giving me a squeeze. “She’s everywhere, baby. She’s in the ocean and the trees—the evergreen pine needles that never fall. She’s in your heart. She gave you her heart.”

I inhaled long and slow, pulling in a chest full of cold, cleansing air. “June’s right. We both need to make sure we aren’t just running into something that feels good because we haven’t felt good in a long time. Because right now, everything’s moving really fast. Hell, I’m sitting here telling you I love her. I know she’s right…”

“But?”

“But I miss her already,” I said simply.

“But you trust her too,” Mom pointed out. “And if you trust her, then you gotta take this time. Take all the time. Show her how right she is—about everything. About you.”

There it was. Plain and simple. I looked over at my mom—her soft, round eyes and freckled brown skin. She wasn’t Nonna’s biological daughter, but sometimes she really reminded me of her. I’d missed a lot of years with my mom, years she spent working her ass off to give us a better life. And hadn’t she succeeded?

It was an honor to have this time with her now. I reached for her hand. “That’s really good advice, Mom.” I leaned over and gave her a sideways hug.

She leaned her head against mine, patting my cheek. “You know, you’re just enough the way you are, right? You don’t gotta do anything else. You’re perfect.”

Suddenly, my chest ached. Like she’d reached into my chest and taken a walnut cracker to my heart. I pressed my lips together. “You mean that?”

“Of course, my love.” She gave my cheek one last pat before pulling away. “We’re proud.”

I nodded, focusing my gaze on the multicolor lights across the street—which were growing, blurring, blending as my eyes swam with tears. I cleared my throat, blew out a breath. “Need help with anything, Ma?”

“No. You need to go home and ice that eye.”

I composed myself, then leaned over and planted a kiss on her forehead. “Tell Dad I said bye.”

***

I got in my car and drove back to my cabin in the woods—the one I’d bought when I’d needed Amber to see me and all my pain; when I needed her to see the weight I’d carried since I was a kid, how I’d quietly shouldered the responsibility of keeping our family going. And on top of all that, how badly I missed my grandmother.