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“I have to tell you—this isn’t very convincing.”
“I should have been happy, and I was, but I also fucking hated it.”
By the end of his sentence, Jameson’s voice has gone dark and slightly raw, and I feel it in the air—emotion that you could mistake as hatred, if you wanted.
“All I could think about is that my parents weren’t there. They weren’t there to meet Robin after he was born, and they’re not coming to the wedding, and they’re never going to meet you.”
Now I’m the one holdinghishand in a tight grip, because I don’t know what else to do.
“I’m sorry.” It’s not enough. It’s not enough by a long shot, and I wish, weirdly, that I could make him a charcoal sketch to show him I understand. Or—maybe not that I understandexactlyhow he feels, but I want to understand it, and then I want to make him feel better. “I’m really sorry, Jameson.”
“It’s not like I don’t know.” He takes a harsh breath and lets it out. “I already fucking know. I’ve known since they died. And then we get together to do some completely innocuous thing, and it’s like it just happened.”
“It’s not the same, but I—I get it. How things keep coming back. I knew my mom was never going to come to my wedding, but it didn’t hit me until Charlotte started working on my dress.”
We’re equally squeezing each other’s hands now.
“We could try to find her,” Jameson offers. “My brothers—”
“Charlotte said the same thing, and I said we should wait.”
“She did?”
“We talked about the wedding, and how not everybody was going to get to be there. She’s, like,reallysweet. I can see why you call her Sunshine.”
“I call her that because of her hair.”
“Well, her hair is the same as her personality. But I told her that it wouldn’t be a good idea.” My throat feels weird and hot, and I swallow a few times to get it to go away. “I might just find out that she’s dead, and that would be…I don’t know how I’d react to it. I could be a weeping mess for the ceremony, and everyone would think I didn’t want to marry you.”
“Oh my God. You want to marry me? Why didn’t you say?”
I pull my hand out of his and brandish my ring at him. “Ididsay, and don’t you forget it.”
I like when he laughs.
Alot.
I put my hand back in Jameson’s. “And my grandfather is out of line.”
“Woah.”
“What?”
“Yourgrandfather? Not Grandpapa?”
My face gets so hot that I can see myself turning red even in the dim reflection. “He’s not acting like a Grandpapa right now. Showing up at the building and making demands like he didn’t take my car keys andgroundme.”
“Not Grandpapa behavior at all. I agree.”
“So, if you—or someone—did manage to find my mom, and she was alive, and she knew about the wedding, she might come.”
“And youdon’twant that?”
“My grandfather’s been looking for her for as long as I can remember. I always thought it would be a good thing if he found her, because I thought it was a bad thing that he couldn’t.” The commercials on the radio end, and it switches back to more hits from the eighties. “Now I don’t want her anywhere he can reach.”
Jameson makes a soft sound. I’m pretty sure it’s agreement.
We hold hands for another mile, both of us looking out the windshield at the dark road. If my mom was in this situation, maybe she’d tell Jameson to keep driving. It feels safer with the sun down, like we’re hidden.
