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Which he’d been able to do with Rob’s help.
And now Rob was gone.
No, he couldn’t fall back into the black pit again.
The one his mother had dropped a rope down to him and pulled him up from. He owed it to her to make an appearance today and see what tomorrow might bring.
“I’m here,” he said. “And I’m hungry for something other than takeout.”
“Good,” his mother said. “Your father is going to grill some big juicy steaks, I’ve made potato salad and mac and cheese, and it’s enough for both of my boys to bring home leftovers.”
“What about your husband?” his father said. “I like it too.”
“Of course I’ve got plenty,” his mother said, sighing. It’s like all she had done most of her life was feed three kids and her husband, but she enjoyed it as much as they enjoyed being taken care of.
Not that he liked her cleaning his place on Wednesday and kicking his butt to the curb with the trash she’d taken out.
“Your hair looks nice,” his mother said. “The same with your beard. Much better than the caveman I told your father you resembled.”
“I wasn’t that bad,” he said. At least he didn’t think so, but looking back, maybe he was.
He thought of Vivian and her coworkers and how they were grinning and talking with him. They were all friendly, but he’d bet they were as stunned as him over the transformation.
What he really remembered this morning when he decided to maintain the beard that Vivian had done such a great job on was that he’d made some stupid comment about her having magical fingers or a magic touch. Something magic when she was massaging his scalp.
Yeah, talk about embarrassing.
He’d never been good around people as it was, but now working from home and having little to no contact with them, hewasturning into a hermit.
He supposed that was one thing that Rob had helped him with. Getting him out of the house and being his wingman at times.
No more.
“You almost look a littleGQ,” Tyler said. “I can’t believe your beard looks like a perfected five o’clock shadow.”
“Ass,” he said again.
“Or did you shave it all off and then it’s finally growing back?”
“No,” he said. “When I got a haircut, she took care of my beard too. It looked too nice to not keep it up.”
“She?” his mother asked. “You didn’t go to a barber?”
“They were busy and I didn’t want to wait.” No reason to say he would have gone home if he couldn’t get into Vivian’s chair. Then he would have shown up today looking the same as his mother saw him last. Though he would have at least combed his hair. He wasn’t sure it was combed on Wednesday when she barged in.
“So you had to have gone to a salon,” Tyler said. “No way one of those walk-in places does beard trimming.”
“I did,” he said, wondering why there were all these questions.
“You made an appointment at a salon?” his father asked in a humorous voice.
He let out a sigh. “I need a beer.” He walked to the kitchen and got one hoping it’d help him get through all these questions. “No. I drove by and walked in to see if they could take me. They could. End of story. Can we move on to something else other than my appearance or my eating habits? I’m sure Mom told you all about the takeout containers and empty bottles.”
His father lifted an eye toward his mother, then said, “How is work going?”
Another topic he never liked to talk about. “It’s work. Boring like normal, as you all say.”
“No one understands it like us,” his father said. His father would understand more than anyone.
