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He gave a snort to cover his discomfort. “Mom, can you honestly see Gracie and me married?”
“Oh, yes, I can see it quite easily. I admit I couldn’t at first, but after I got to know Gracie, I thought she was perfect for you, especially when I saw how happy she made you.”
“That wasn’t happiness. I was just laughing at her, is all, because half the time she’s so ridiculous.”
She looked at him, slowly shook her head, then rested her cheek against his chest for a moment. “I worry about you, sweetie pie. I really do.”
“Well, I worry about you, too, so we’re even.” On the other side of the dance floor, he saw Gracie glide by with Dan Calebow. His former coach seemed to be having a wonderful time. Dan’s wife Phoebe, in the meantime, was dancing with Luther Baines, who was trying hard to keep his eyes off her bust line. “Mom, we’ve got to talk about this thing with you and Sawyer.”
“His name is Wayland. And there isn’t any ‘thing’ to talk about.”
“That’s not what he tells me.”
Her eyes flashed. “Did he talk to you? He had no right to do that.”
“He wants me to play Cupid and get the two of you together.”
“I can’t believe he talked to you.”
“The two of us rub each other wrong, so it wasn’t the pleasantest conversation I’ve ever had. Still, I’m not the one who fell in love with him, so I guess that doesn’t matter.”
He waited for her to deny what he’d just said. He prayed her forehead would crinkle and she’d get indignant, but, instead, she turned her head away. “He had no right to involve you.”
His mother loved someone else. As the knowledge hit him, he waited for a rush of anger, but to his surprise, it didn’t hurt nearly as much as he’d thought it would.
He tried to pick his words carefully. “What if you were the one who died, Mom? And what if four years after you’d died Dad met somebody he cared a lot about, somebody who’d make him stop being so lonely all the time.” After avoiding this conversation for so long, it somehow finally felt right to be talking about it, and he had the queer sense that Gracie was holding his hand. “And what if he did the same thing you’re doing and shoved this person out of his life because of the way he felt about you. What would you want me to say to him?”
“It’s not the same thing.”
He heard the agitation in her voice and knew he was upsetting her, but he kept on. “Oh, it’s exactly the same thing.”
“You haven’t been through this! You don’t understand.”
“That’s right. I’m just imagining what I’d say to him, is all. I guess you’d want me to tell him to stay lonely for the rest of his life. To do what you’re doing and turn his back on this new person he’d grown to care about so he could spend the rest of his life lighting candles to your memory.”
“I don’t understand why you’re pressing me on this! You don’t even like Wayland. You admitted it.”
“No, I don’t, but I’ll tell you this—I sure as hell respect the sonovabitch.”
“Don’t be vulgar,” she said automatically. And then her eyes filled with tears. “Bobby Tom, I can’t. Your father and I . . .”
“I know how you felt about each other, Mom. I saw it every day. Maybe that’s why I’ve never had much interest in getting married myself. Because I’ve always wanted the same thing.”
Gracie danced past in his peripheral vision, and at that exact moment, the fact that he could have the same thing his parents had had all those years hit him so hard he nearly stumbled. Jesus. As he held his mother in his arms and felt his father’s presence, he knew that same intimacy was right here waiting for him on the other side of the dance floor. He loved her. The knowledge almost knocked him to his knees. He loved his Gracie Snow—funny clothes, bossy manner, and all. She was his entertainment, his conscience, the mirror into his soul. She was his resting place. Why hadn’t he understood this weeks ago?
He’d grown so used to thinking of his life a certain way that he’d blinded himself to his real needs. He’d actually compared Gracie with the sex trophies and made Gracie the loser because she didn’t have big breasts. He’d ignored the undeniable fact that women who existed only to go to parties and look good had bored him for years. He’d overlooked the way gazing at Gracie’s pretty gray eyes and flyaway curls made his mouth water. Why had he clung so tenaciously to the idea that those sex trophies were what he wanted? Gracie was right. At his age, he should have learned something about what he needed from life a long time ago. Instead, he’d continued to judge women on the same artificial scale he’d used when he was a hormone-driven adolescent, and it made him ashamed. Gracie’s beauty had pleased his eye from the beginning. It was real and bone deep, fed by her innate goodness. It was the kind of soul-nourished beauty that would still be with her when she was an old lady.
He loved Gracie Snow, and he was going to marry her. He was going to marry her for real, dammit! He wanted to spend the rest of his life with her, to fill her belly with his babies and fill their house with his love. Instead of scaring him, the idea of spending the rest of his life with her sent such a rush of joy through him that he felt as if he were rising up off the dance floor. He wanted to pull her out of Dan Calebow’s arms that very minute and tell her he loved her. He wanted to see her melt in front of his eyes. But he couldn’t do any of that until he’d tried to set things right with his mother.
He looked down at her. His chest felt tight, and his voice didn’t sound quite normal. “All this time I’ve been acting like my aversion to Way was personal, but the fact is, I know that I’d have gone into orbit no matter who you might have taken up with. I think part of me wanted you to lock yourself away and mourn Dad for the rest of your life just because he was my father and I loved him.”
“Oh, sweetheart . . .”
“Mom, listen to me.” He regarded her urgently. “I know one thing as sure as I know my name—Dad would never have wanted me to feel like that, and he wouldn’t have wanted you to suffer the way you’re suffering, not in a million years. Your love for each other was big and generous, but by turning your back on the future, you’re making it seem small.”
He heard the quick intake of her breath. “Is that what you think I’m doing?”
“Yes.”
