AllFreeNovel
Share Us
She kicked at the pile of laundry at the foot of my bed. Judging by the wrinkle in her nose, she was worried that something would come scurrying out.
“Did you know that Dad and Mom only dated for two months before they got married?” I flipped through a brown photo album with a gold accordion binding.
“Uh, nope.” She blew out a slow breath. “How long has it been since you’ve slept more than a couple of hours?”
I ignored her question.
My dad was smiling. In every picture.
Tansy was a clone of our mom.
“Two months, Tans.” I flipped to a picture of them standing outside a theater. She was wearing purple bell-bottoms, flashing a peace sign. He had long, shaggy hair and ridiculous sideburns. He had his arms wrapped around her and was kissing the top of her head. Tansy studied the picture with sad eyes. “I was reading Mom’s stuff, and she said it was love at first sight. She saw him playing football at a park by their first house. He tripped trying to make a catch, literally fell at her feet.”
“Uh-huh.” She leaned a hip against the dresser and eyed me warily. “You need to shower. And shave. And ... I don’t know ... get some fresh air?”
I set down the album. “He never took us to her grave after she died. Isn’t that weird to you?”
Her face softened. “Yeah, I guess it is.”
“We’ve never talked about this.”
Tansy shrugged, clearly uncomfortable. “I was a baby when she died, Burke. You were, like, three? We didn’t even remember her enough to grieve. We were just trying to grow up. I don’t think we needed to talk about it back then.”
I couldn’t even put into words what it did to me to realize that I was Mira’s age when my mom died. The mom I didn’t remember. That my dad never talked about.
I scrubbed a hand down my face. “I know I sound a little obsessed.”
She cleared her throat delicately.
“Fine. A lot obsessed.” I tossed the album back onto the pile, watching as she picked it up and glanced through the first few pages. Her eyes filled, but she blinked the tears away, set the album back down.
“What are you trying to figure out, Burke?” she asked quietly.
I was so tired.
Ignoring and pretending was exhausting. I’d given up on both of those things after the first week.
I didn’t fight thinking about her.
I didn’t ignore the ache in my chest when I woke up night after night, the same dream making it almost impossible to get a full night’s sleep.
“I want to know how this happened.” I settled my head in my hands. “How you can grow up and ignore so much around you until you don’t even realize the damage it’s done.”
She carefully joined me on the bed. “Like what?”
I stared at the stack of albums. “I never thought about getting married or starting a family until Chris started dating Amie. Did you know that?”
She laid her head on my shoulder. Just listening.
“Seeing them together was ... foreign. I didn’t understand it.” I paused. “But I wanted it.”
“You married the first person you dated,” she said.
“So did you,” I pointed out. “All in all, I don’t think that worked out too well for us.”
Tansy exhaled a watery laugh.
“Your kids are pretty great, though.” I wrapped an arm around her shoulders. “At least we can thank the dickhead for that.”
