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His mom grins. “No problem, we can stay here and have girls’ chat.”
Brian’s eyes dart to me. “I’ll also look at the light in the garage.”
I make a gesture telling him to leave us before he throws me a sexy, lopsided grin. Shaking his head, he turns and moves into the hallway as he picks up the call.
“Didn’t you drive him home from the hospital?” Vera asks.
I nod.
She reaches over and pats my hand. “Thank you. It warms my heart to see my son finally letting a woman like you into his life.”
A blush creeps up my face, but she ignores it and continues talking. “Brian’s love life and his health have worried me for years... After his father passed away and they diagnosed him with Brugada Syndrome, the carefree boy he was became a young man who did nothing but pretend to be happy.” A thin layer of water covers her irises. “Watching him fade like that pained me. And the day Nick knocked on my door to tell me he was in the hospital...” She swallows. “I’m glad it ended up with him surviving and needing to come clean and telling his friends what he’d been hiding. Living with a secret is unhealthy.”
“The resemblance between Brian and his father is huge,” I say.
Vera’s lips curl upward into a soft smile. “Oh, yeah. It’s like looking at the past.” She nods toward the side and I feel my heart swell as I catch sight of the photo perched atop the shelf.
Brian and his father beaming into the camera with young Brian tightly gripping a soccer ball.
I swallow hard and whisper, “Brian told me what happened... It must have been so hard.”
Vera’s face conveys a mixture of sadness and joy. “Oh, it was. But even though we only had such a short time together, it was worth it knowing that we created this amazing boy. My son is a blessing and my husband lives on in him, which oddly enough brings me comfort.”
She pauses and stares at the picture with fondness as her eyes water. “For Brian to open up to you about his father is a big deal, Amanda... It proves you’re special to him.” She stands and after grabbing what I think is her purse and roaming through it, she pulls out a small square and shows it to me. I’m in awe while gazing at a baby picture of Brian.
“Oh my God. He was cute.” I take the picture she holds out to me.
“He’s eight months here, already sitting up on his own.” The pride in her motherly voice is clear and melts me.
I stare at the blond boy with sparkling blue eyes. He looks adorable, holding a light brown teddy bear and smiling into the camera.
My head shoots up, and I grin as Brian comes our way.
“Lamp fixed,” he says, with a grin, but his brows are knitted together, eyes moving from me to his mother as he closes the distance.
“What are you looking at?” he asks.
When I turn the picture, his eyes widen, and he grasps it out of my hand.
“Jesus, Mom. Is that necessary?”
She shrugs. “I’m only showing your girlfriend that you were a handsome baby. Don’t worry, I didn’t tell her about how you always farted when I changed your diaper, honey.”
The open-eyed glance Brian gives his mom makes me laugh so hard I have to place a hand on my belly while the other wipes tears from my face. It takes me a while to recover. But when I do, his mom is already talking about the time Brian was three and he tried to climb a tree in the backyard.
“He got stuck halfway up, and I thought my heart would burst out of my chest. I was so scared he’d fall, but he kept saying ‘I can do it, Mommy’ with such determination.” She smiles at Brian’s embarrassed expression.
“But that wasn’t even the worst part,” she continues, her eyes twinkling with amusement. “When I finally got him down, he started running around like nothing had happened. He ran all the way to the front yard and started digging a hole in the flower bed of the neighbors, looking for treasures.”
Brian groans while his mother shakes her head fondly. “Of course I had to scold him for it, but deep down inside I was proud of his adventurous spirit.”
She pauses and looks at me before continuing with another story about how Brian used to sneak into neighbors’ yards to pet their cats when he was five or how he once found a baby bird on their porch when he was six and kept it in an old shoe box until it learned how to fly.
The stories keep coming as she talks about all of Brian’s childhood escapades and misadventures—from sneaking out at night with his friends when they were teenagers to organizing parties.
“I wish you two could stay and have dinner here, but I must take Mr. Ash to his appointment at the hospital,” Vera says regretfully.
“No worries, Mom. Tell him I said hey.”
