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Several hours later, I’m pulling into my parents’ driveway. Stephanie, my oldest sister, is here. Her car is in the driveway, and three bikes are dumped in the front yard. She must have her boys with her. They’ll be a good distraction.
“Hello?” I say as I push open the side door. It opens into a mudroom off the kitchen.
“Griff?” my mom asks, coming around the corner from the kitchen. Her red hair is pulled back in a frizzy ponytail, and she’s got flour on her shirt. She’s definitely baking something; it smells like cookies of some sort. “What are you doing here, honey?” She wraps me in a hug, and even though she’s almost a foot shorter than me, I feel like a kid again.
I didn’t think of a reason for coming home. They’re definitely going to know that something is wrong. I would never show up like this if things were okay. I can tell by the look on her face she’s thinking the same thing. I’m still in my clothes from last night. I really didn’t think this through.
“Are you okay?” Concern etches deep lines into face.
“No.” I shake my head. “I’m really not.”
“Well, come to the kitchen, and let’s talk it out. Stephanie’s here, the boys wanted to swim.”
Sure enough, I look out the kitchen windows and see them all in the pool, splashing each other and laughing. My oldest nephew dunks his younger brother, and Stephanie wades over to break up the ensuing fight. It’s such a typical display and feels like a balm to my shredded soul.
“Tell me all about it while I make these cookies.”
I blow out a breath, trying to figure out where to begin.
“Start at the very beginning,” she says, reading my mind in the way only a mother could, “leave nothing out.”
“Well, it all started last summer in Greece. The night after Con and Lilith got engaged, we were all pretty drunk and celebrating. Everyone went to sleep, but Claire and I stayed up awhile talking. We ended up kissing. It was very spontaneous, and to be honest, I had never thought of her like that before, but something flashed between us, and before I knew it, we were locked in an amazing kiss. A deckhand walked by and startled us, so we broke apart and went to our cabins.”
“I see…” she trails off as she scoops cookie dough onto a baking sheet.
“Nothing happened for the next six months or so; I didn’t even see or hear from her aside from the kidnapping. Then when we were together at Con and Lilith’s wedding in January, sparks started flying again. We both decided to give into it for one night. We spent the night together, and without going into cringe-worthy details, it was amazing. We connected physically on a level I’ve never experienced with anyone else.
“I couldn’t be with anyone else after that. I tried, but my interest in any other person just evaporated into thin air. It was like the only person who made any sense for me anymore was Claire. I never said anything to anyone else, obviously. I was thinking it would just be a one time thing, and eventually she’d be out of my system.”
Mom looks up at me with a look of skepticism all over her face.
“I know.” I hold my hands up in front of me.
She slides the cookies in the oven and pulls out the stool beside mine.
“Then a couple months ago, right when I moved back to the city, she came to the office one night needing a catch and kill.” I sit for a minute trying to figure out whether to tell her everything, it’s not my secret to tell, but I need to share it fill in all the gaps.
“What did she need the catch and kill for?”
“She was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis earlier this year.”
Mom gasps, flinching at this unexpected news, already putting everything together.
“She felt the sharks circling her at the dance company and wanted to land a principal position just once, before she has to stop dancing.” Despite being heartbroken, I’m still so proud of her that I smile when I say, “She got the lead role in the Midsummer Exhibition.”
“Good.” Mom pats my knee as she gets up to take the cookies out of the oven. “Continue on with how you’ve become entangled with her.”
“When she first came to me, she didn’t want to tell me the reason for the favor. I told her I wouldn’t do it unless she told me what was going on, and after a bit of a stand-off, she gave in. She told me she didn’t want to tell her family about the diagnosis yet. I agreed but told her I wanted to see her regularly, just to keep an eye on her and provide a person she could talk to about it.”
“Oh yes, definitely just for her benefit, right? You weren’t searching for any excuse to spend time with her,” she says with a sassy eye roll.
I smile at her; she knows all my tricks. “So, we started having dinner together at a diner every Friday night unless I was out of town. Things snowballed from dinner to kissing to other stuff.”
“Sex.”
“Yeah, Mom. Sex,” I say deadpan.
