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“You need to leave.”
“Hope—”
“I get it. I understand you’re right. I did deserve everything I got and more. What you need to understand is that Jack didn’t and while most of that is on my head, the fact that he loves you and you let him get that pain up close and personal is not alright. It’s so far from alright that I can’t even express it. So I get it, but you need to go.”
“I do love Jack,” she says.
“I know you do, but you didn’t protect him and he’s not an adult. He only needs people around who will protect him. I’ve had the other kind in my life when I was Jack’s age and I won’t allow people like that to touch him. I might have been a bad mother for a little while, but Jack’s all I have and I won’t let anyone hurt him for their own agenda.”
Daria looks at me, then at my aunt and she turns and leaves.
“Damn, I’m starting to think you have more excitement here than we do back in Mason,” Aunt Ida Sue says.
“You think I was wrong in what I just did?” I ask her.
“That’s not a simple question to answer, my girl.”
“I got time, seems like that’s all I got,” I whisper.
“You can’t see it now, but you have a lot more than that,” she tells me.
“I have Jack,” I agree.
“You have, and that’s more happy, in one little bundle, than some people ever get in their lives,” she answers, and I know she’s right—I do. I just wish…
“You’re right,” I answer, determined that I need to move forward. I don’t have a choice. I have Jack depending on me.
“Good, I can see you’re talking to yourself,” Aunt Ida Sue says, making me smile. She has a way of talking that you can’t help but love and enjoy. “Now, I’m not one to go pushing my two cents in here and there,” she begins, and at that I almost giggle. She is totally the kind of person who gives her two cents out. She does it loud and often—it’s one of her charms.
“But since you asked,” she continues, “I think the girl that just left this room has a big bunch of hurt inside of her and sometimes hurt can color our choices and turn them really black.
“Like mine did with Aden?”
“I wasn’t here, but I’m guessing from what White has said, and from the things you’ve been crying over that Aden had some hurts of his own and those caused him to lash out at you.”
“He did?”
“Yeah according to White and that pretty chocolate dessert he calls Titan. That man makes me want to be about thirty years younger,” she says with a wistful look in her eyes.
“Maybe we could focus…”
“Oh I’m focusing, dear. It’s just, even at my age and with a man I love more than cheese loves ham, you will see a fine specimen and you just wish to go back in time and see just how good that boy could butter your biscuit.”
“Umm…if you went back in time thirty years Titan would probably be Jack’s age.”
“Quit ruining the fantasy, Hope. You’re just like my Lotus Petal, always trying to play the reality card. Now, what were we talking about?”
“Aden’s hurt?”
“Oh yeah. He took his hurt that he had suffered from women in his life and he transferred that, fairly or unfairly, to you.”
“And…”
“I’m guessing that made you lash right back, because you have your own hurts.”
“I’m sensing a theme here,” I sigh.
“Shit has a way of snowballing, and when it takes off it knocks down everything in its path.”
“And whatever shit hits…”
“It sticks to and stinks it all up.”
“So, I should cut her some slack.”
“You want Aden to cut you some…”
“I get it.”
“That said, doesn’t mean we have to let our babies be unprotected, because you never know what kind of darkness has swallowed up your friend. You get what I’m saying?”
“Yeah, I do.”
“Good. So, are you done feeling sorry for yourself?”
“For now, yeah. I’m not sure about tonight when I’m alone.”
“You get strong and remember you have babies depending on you.”
“Babies?”
“You’ve been throwing up every morning for a solid month, Hope. Don’t tell me you don’t understand why?”
“I… Oh God. I have.”
“Yeah, you have.”
“But, I was on birth control! I swear Aunt Ida! I take it religiously.”
“Then you forgot to pray one morning, or you took something that made it less effective. Doesn’t matter. In my experience when little soldiers want to come out to play, they swim hard, they go deep, and they do it and fast.”
“Oh God. He hates me already…”
“And some of those damn swimmers won’t take no for an answer,” she finishes, but I’m already in a mini-panic.
“Aunt Ida, he hates me!”
“He’ll get over it. It may just take him a bit.”
