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“Will you come to the wedding?” The question stops my train of thought.
“Wedding?”
“When I marry Jordan. Will you come?” Jesus Christ. Is he saying . . . ?
“Are you engaged?”
“Not yet, but it’s coming. I told you that.” He did. Months ago. Shit, not even long after he started dating Jordan, he texted me a picture of her in a Coleman Construction tee, hammering God knows the fuck what, wearing this ridiculous pink hard hat, and captioned it just that. “I’m going to marry this woman.”
“Fuck. I feel old,” I mumble under my breath.
“You are old. And lonely.”
“Fuck off.” As he laughs, I hear a voice in the background—the woman in question.
“Alright, Princess, calm down,” he says, the words muffled like his hand is on the receiver. “I gotta go. Sit on it, okay? I want you there. It’s been forever. I know Mom would appreciate it, too.” I know that. That’s the only reason I ever even entertain any invitation. But . . .
“And Dad?”
“Dad?”
“How would Dad feel about me coming home? Staying at his place like the good old days.” Tanner sighs, a heavy sigh that he has from being the monkey in the middle, trying to balance letting me do my thing and Dad’s overbearing ambition for the company he no longer operates.
“He’s dad. You know . . .”
Yeah, I know. Dad spent my entire childhood expecting me to take over Coleman Construction. As the oldest son, it was my privilege—my duty. It wasn’t for me, though. I’ll never know if part of me just rebelled at the idea of having my life planned out for me or if this was always where I was destined to wind up.
When I was 10, my mom gave me a sketchbook. She’d always be up early in the morning before any of us, sipping her coffee and doodling on her own. She said it was her own time, time to feed her soul.
I never understood until she gave me my own, numbered with the days of the year, a page for each day.
That first day I drew a strawberry riding a skateboard, and life made sense.
I think a part of me started planning how to get out of my destiny from then on. That same part of me bears the guilt of knowing I forced Tanner to take on that destiny while I lived out my own dreams.
My mom gives me a new journal every year for Christmas. Every morning I wake up and sketch something out, a habit that is as natural now as breathing, as ingrained as brushing my teeth. Sometimes it’s stupid, like a strawberry on a skateboard; sometimes it turns into something gorgeous, a new tattoo to put to skin.
But it’s a habit that feeds my soul. A precious routine that was given to me by my mother.
“I’ll think about it, okay?” I ask, hoping that will appease him. It does. I don’t know if he realizes that something will have come up in a month to prolong my grand return home, but either way, he accepts.
“Alright, man. Let me know. If not, Jordan will try to get on your ass.” I laugh before saying goodbye and swiping to hang up. I lean back in my chair and sigh at the ceiling, a patchwork of fluorescent lights and particle board ceiling tiles.
“You’re so full of shit,” a voice says, interrupting my thoughts. My head moves to the break room doorway where Hattie leans against the frame, blunt, black hair to her shoulders, dark glasses framing her blue eyes. Black pants and a tank show off her colorful arms.
“What?” I ask. Hattie is not only one of my best friends, but she’s also a pain in my ass. If I feed into this conversation, I will be stuck in it indefinitely.
“You can’t go to your own mother’s birthday party?”
“How long were you standing there?” I ask, and she rolls her eyes, walking in and sitting in one of the plastic chairs.
“Long enough to know you need to go home,” she says, leaning over and grabbing the sharpie and capping it like she’s a mom who wants my focus and I’m her petulant child.
“No, I don’t.”
“I can move appointments around. I can take over for a few days. Shit, we can close. The shop will survive. Go live a life.”
“I do live a life.”
