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I pick at my nails and peek up at Dean. Freshly shaven. I hadn’t noticed that before. “Has it been a while since you’ve seen her?” I ask him and suddenly feel way too uncomfortable.
We’re not even ten miles from his place. We have hours to drive. This conversation is a little too heavy for comfort.
But … I’m curious. I can’t deny that. What the hell did she do to him?
“Yeah, it’s been a while,” he says and his answer’s short. Maybe it’s heavy for him too, but that only makes me want to push him more.
“How long’s a while?” I ask him.
“I left home when I was sixteen.”
“Sixteen is a good age for change,” I mumble, looking out of the window as he turns onto the highway and finally picks up speed. The trees blur by and I keep talking before Dean can comment. “When was the last time you saw her?”
He doesn’t look at me as he switches lanes and answers, “When I was sixteen.”
“Damn.”
“Yeah,” he says and then adds, “I probably should’ve told you.”
“I mean … I’d have thought it would have come up in conversation, maybe?” I say jokingly but really, what the fuck?
“I wasn’t going to go, but then I wanted to get away after that picture. And I wanted to take you with me.”
“So you just figured it’d be fine to drop it all on me once I was securely fastened in your car?”
He shrugs, making the shirt that’s already tight across his shoulders look that much tighter. “It seemed like a sign, I guess.” His words come out soft and they’re nearly drowned out by the faint music and the sound of the air conditioner, but I heard them.
“Anyway, I just wanted to apologize since it may be a little weird. But you asked for this,” he adds, lightening his tone and trying to be playful.
My heart thuds and feels like it’s flipping. Like it’s trying to move inside my chest. It takes a moment for me to realize it’s because I’m not breathing. “Yeah, I did.”
“So, it’s normal for moms to be bitches?” Dean asks me, and I glance at him in my periphery, picking at my nails. That’s all he’s getting right now. He doesn’t let up though, eager to push the conversation. “I’m guessing mine’s going to be worse than yours.”
“I was just trying to make you feel better,” I respond half-heartedly, and he gets a chuckle out of it that makes me smile.
“Well, shit,” he answers and then glances up at the large green sign on the side of the road.
“So?” I say, drawing out the word.
“What?”
“What’d she do that made her a bitch?”
“Oh,” he says and his tone drops again. “She just is.” I nod once, thinking he’s going to leave it there. But as I pull a book out of my bag to read, committed to sitting in silence the entire trip, Dean proves me wrong.
“I didn’t think she was when I was younger.”
“Most kids love their moms.” I think about how my mom was my hero. She was the one who was supposed to make it all better.
“She was bad with money; my parents were always fighting about it.” He glances at me and then asks, “You really want to know?”
Placing my hand on the book in my lap, I tell him, “Consider me the in-car shrink. Tell me everything.”
“There’s not much to tell. My mom’s a greedy bitch. My dad got sick and my mom cashed in on his insurance.”
“Is he okay?” I ask hesitantly, and Dean shakes his head.
“He died a long time ago,” he tells me and before I can even tell him I’m sorry, before I can share that my dad’s gone too, he keeps talking. I recognize the nature of his voice, how it’s like a story. Someone else’s story he’s telling. It’s so he can pretend it doesn’t affect him anymore. And that makes the wound that much deeper. “She couldn’t wait for it to come. She married a guy more well-off than my father,” he says and then lowers his voice to continue, “who was a fucking asshole.”
