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“We’re having it now, and you’re not paying.”
“My company makes a lot of money. Like, a lot a lot. If your kids need college tuition, they’ll have it. End of story.”
“You’re too kind, but the answer is still no.”
“We’ll see.”
“Gage?”
“Yes?”
“You said you don’t want a relationship, right?”
“That’s right.”
“I’d just like to point out that by running to me in my time of need, by holding me and making love to me all night long, by talking me through the calamity and wanting to pay for my kids to go to college… This is starting to feel like a relationship.”
“It’s not.”
Her body shakes, and for a second, I’m alarmed, until I realize she’s laughing. At me. “You think that’s funny?”
She nods because she’s laughing too hard to speak.
“How dare you laugh at me?” I ask in pretend outrage.
“Can’t help it,” she says, gasping for air. “You’re in arelationship,” she adds in a singsong voice. “Gage plus Iris, sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G.”
The only way to shut her up is to kiss her. I can’t be in a relationship with her or her kids, not when I promised myself I’d never again love anything or anyone I can’t live without.
11
IRIS
I decide I want to be with my kids. When they’re around, I have no time to think about anything but them and their endless wants and needs, their arguments, their sweet commentary and their sweeter love. I text my mom to let her know I’m feeling stronger and will pick them up after school.
Are you sure? I don’t mind having them another night.
I’m sure. After being away from them for the weekend and then last night, too, I don’t want them to think something is wrong. And when they’re around, I don’t have time to think.
Understand completely. I made a lasagna for dinner that I’ll drop off so you don’t have to cook.
I don’t deserve you.
Quit saying that. LOL
For the longest time, she thought LOL meantlots of love. When I told her it actually meanslaugh out loud, we laughed so hard, we had to hold each other up. So now she says it stands for both. No one has ever loved me the way she does, and I’m thankful for her every day, especially since I lost Mike. She’s always been one of my greatest sources of support, but never more so than the last few years.
Without her to help, encourage and support me, I probably would’ve rolled into a ball after Mike died, when the idea of raising three heartbroken little kids on my own was more than I could bear to contemplate.
“I’m going to pick up my kids,” I tell Gage at two forty-five. He’s been strangely quiet since I teased him about being in a relationship. “You want to come for the ride?”
“Will it confuse them if I’m around?”
“I don’t think so. They know we’re friends and are used to seeing you.”
“I don’t even know what I’m doing here.”
“I do,” I say with a knowing smile.
