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“You’ll go home for a few more days, and then you’ll work your work days, and when that’s done, you’ll move into your apartment. That will make a big difference.”
“I’ll just level with my parents.”
“Don’t do that, Leon. Everything is too new. You just started the job. Violet came into your life. You’re going to move in less than two weeks. They’ll think you’re reacting to stress.”
“Am I?”
“You could be. I’m hardly an appropriate choice for a girlfriend.”
“You’re the only choice,” he said. “And you’re right, I am stressed out.”
He grabbed her across the center console, kissing her like he had in the throes of passion. When he was finished, at least for that moment, he looked carefully into her eyes.
“Being with you relaxes me. I don’t know how I got this far without you. It’s like my life was a kid’s life until today.”
“Aw, Leon, you are so young. Why are you putting so much on yourself? It’s not like you were with Violet’s mother during her pregnancy and had the time to get used to becoming a father. You were thrown into it without any choice.”
They sat holding hands, not saying anything.
“Do you want to go inside?”
“Sure. I’ll open the garage.”
She gave him a peck on the cheek and slid out of the truck. He watched her walk to the garage, reflected in his headlights, and bend down to open one of the doors. Waving him inside, she stepped aside, and when he was in all the way, she pressed a button to close the door again just as Robert and Big Mike Saint drove by.
Chapter 6
“Was that Ava?” Roberta asked, twisting around in her seat to look out the window. “It’s late. She must have had a date.”
“I wouldn’t know,” Big Mike said, careful when any mention of Ava Adams was made, because no matter what the response was, the wife would find a way to twist it around and make it about him.
When they pulled into their driveway, the absence of cars got Big Mike’s attention right away.
“Where are our kids? Don’t Marty and Jake have a curfew? And where’s Leon? Now that he has a baby, he should be home in bed by midnight.”
“Mike, the boys haven’t had curfews since high school. And I got a text from Leon not to wait up, so I’m guessing he’s staying out tonight, which he has done in the past.”
“Yeah, except he didn’t have an infant in the past. What’s he going to do with his kid while he’s partying?”
“Mike, chill. You can’t micromanage a grown man. When the grandkids get older, you can try to do it to them if their parents will allow it, but our kids are out of our control now. I know it’s sad, but we did the best we could raising them.”
Once in the house, the cavernous space was so empty their footsteps echoed.
“This is depressing,” Big Mike said. “It might be time to downsize if no one is going to live here with us.”
“I’m not leaving this house, so figure out a way to get over it.”
***
Once inside Ava’s house, Leon gave Violet her bath and bottle and sat her in the little chair, prolonging bedtime.
“I don’t know about you, but I’m beat,” he said. “I’m ready for a shower and a night in front of the TV. You don’t have any sweatpants I can borrow, do you?”
“I’ve got Alex’s clothes,” she said. “I never really had the need to get rid of them because I never had guys over here. You’re welcome to anything of his. They might be a little short though. He wasn’t much taller than I am.”
They spent the first night together, Leon wearing Ava’s late husband’s clothes, his baby snuggled between them, having one more bottle. Running his finger down Ava’s cheek while she talked about Alex, Leon realized that what he felt for her might actually be love. Thoughts of the examples of love he was familiar with filtered through his memory; the men in his family shamelessly cherished the women they’d chosen for life partners. His father had worshiped Roberta through thick and thin, when she drank too much and during her recovery. When his family suffered unspeakable tragedy, his mother and father always had a united front.
Lying next to him was someone who had also felt the deepest pain a woman can feel, yet it hadn’t interfered with her ability to love again, and he saw that in Ava’s affection for baby Violet.
