AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“You know…” Dad says. “Maggie’s really taken to that girl of yours.”
“She’s not…” I trail off because I don’t know how to finish the sentence. She’s notwhat?Mine?Because she was …last night… for all five minutes, and then reality came crashing down, and the entire world turned to shit. I push off the bench. “I guess I’ll just catch her when she gets back.”
“Holden,” Dad calls when my back’s already turned. “I think you should have dinner with us tonight. I feel like I haven’t seen you in a while. Maybe we should just… check-in.”
I turn to him slowly. “We see each other every day.”
“No. Weworktogether every day. Tonight, I want to have dinner with myson. Six thirty. Don’t be late.”
“Yes, sir.”
* * *
I show up at precisely six thirty, but when I enter the kitchen, the only one there is Jamie. She’s sitting at the round table that’s been here since I was born, and on the table are takeout bags from the diner. Jamie stares at me wide-eyed as if she didn’t know I’d be here. Maybe Dad didn’t tell her I was invited. I look at the clock on the wall, then back at Jamie. “Am I early or late?”
“You’re on time,” she says, shifting in her seat. “We just got back.”
I glance around the room, listen for any sounds. It’s silent. “So… where is everyone?”
“Maggie went to her room to”—she air quotes—“‘freshen up’ and your dad went in there to comfort her.”
“Comforther?” I ask, taking the seat beside hers.
“I think I broke her.” Jamie turns to me, her bottom lip pushed out in a pout. “I told her she didn’t have to sit in the meeting with me, but she insisted, and she sat beside me and held my hand and had to listen toeverything.She barely said two words on the drive home, and I feel horrible.”
“Don’t feel bad,” I say, turning my entire body toward her. I allow myself a moment to take in her profile. She’s always been classically beautiful… in a way that doesn’t smack you in the face but haunts you in your dreams. The longer I stare at her, the redder her cheeks get, and I fight back a smile, fight back the urge to reach out and shift a stray strand of hair away from her eyes and tuck it behind her ear. I want to kiss her there, at the spot right beneath her ear. I wonder if it still makes her squirm the way it used to. Her shoulder shifts, and I follow her arm down to her hand resting on her lap, her thumb stroking the “mood” part of the pendant.
Slowly, I reach out, my fingers gently prying the pendant from her grasp. “It was initially a mood ring,” I tell her, flipping it over in my palm. “I’d found it online and had it sent to my dad, along with instructions of what I wanted to be done with it. He’d taken it to a local guy who lives in a shack in the woods surrounded by metal artwork he makes and sells.” I set the pendant flat on my palm and trace the dahlia petals surrounding it. “Everyone calls him Peg-leg Jimmy, but I don’t know why. He doesn’t have a peg-leg, and as far as I know, his name is Paul.” I pause to watch Jamie’s eyes narrow in thought. “What’s up?”
“Well, that’s a little mean. Unless he gave himself that name, but if he didn’t and people just call him that…”
“I guess,” I murmur. “I never really thought about it, but you’re right.”
“I’m often right.” Jamie smiles. “Please continue…”
After a slow exhale, I tell her, “I wasn’t sure whether you would want another ring—especially since all the ones you wore were your mother’s, so I had him make it into this. That way, you could do what you want with it.” I carefully place the pendant on the table and slide it back toward her. “Remember that time when Mia was in the hospital, and I flew back here?”
Jamie nods, but she doesn’t speak.
“The only time I left her side was to pick this up from him, so I could give it to you when I got back… but then we found out Mia was pregnant, and I freaked and got scared, and well… you know the rest.”
Jamie’s eyes are soft, but they’re clear of the tears she’s been clinging to since she got here.
My shoulders lift with my long inhale. “So you went to an Al-Anon meeting?” I ask.
“Yeah.”
“How was it?”
“It was… good,” she replies, perking up a little. “I had a little breakthrough.”
“Yeah?”
Nodding, she says, “All this time I worried about becoming my mother… turns out we’re the opposite.”
It’s only now I realize that Jamie’s been here an entire week, and this is the firstgenuineconversationwe’ve had. I’m also not oblivious to the fact that it’s entirely my fault it’s taken this long. “How so?”
“Well… my mom drank to drown out the pain of her punishment… and I drink as a form of punishment for my pain.” Her eyes meet mine, the acceptance in her smile making me lose my breath.
