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“Take her home, Romeo!”
I hastily stepped out of Brandon’s embrace with an awkward mumble of thanks. He watched me for a moment and sighed, but stepped closer as we started to walk again. When his hand brushed against mine, he captured it quickly and tucked it into his pocket with his as if it were the most natural thing in the world to do.
“So, your dad,” he said. “He’s younger than I would have thought.”
I nodded, trying to ignore the way his fingers were curled around mine, the pad of his thumb brushing my inner palm. I should have pulled my hand away. Should have, but didn’t.
“Yeah,” I replied slowly, finding it a bit more difficult to articulate my words. “He and my mom had me young. Like, high school young.”
“Was he a good dad?”
I sighed, more out of contentment. Thinking about Dad always made me feel that way. For all his flaws, I adored my father.
“He was—he is—the best,” I said emphatically. “I mean, he couldn’t be there all the time because he worked two jobs to support my grandmother and me, but he was always game for a hug, always made sure to be there to put me to bed. He always made me feel loved.”
“And your mom?”
I frowned. I didn’t particularly like talking about Janette Jadot née Chambers. I had no idea what she looked like now, but in my mind, I saw the same person who had last visited me when I was twelve: a tall, slim woman with light-brown hair, a turned-up nose, and the big green eyes I’d inherited. She was friendly and vivacious. She was also a complete flake.
“She took off about a year after I was born,” I said shortly. “She and my dad were never married, so that made things easier. To leave, I mean. She came from…well, she came from money.”
He patiently waited for me to fill in the gaps. I realized I hadn’t ever really told this entire story to anyone, not even Jane, who had mostly deduced it on her own. It was embarrassing to admit that your own mother didn’t want you.
I sighed. “Why do I feel like you’d see through any of my bullshit?” I repeated softly.
Brandon squeezed my hand. “Trust me, Red, I’m no one to judge. I ended up in a group home after my mother fell off the wagon a few, oh, dozen times. You tell me what you want, or just say you don’t want to.” He peered down at me. “We all have a few secrets, right?”
I blew out a slow breath, watching it plume white against the night air. “It’s not a secret—thinking about her is just a waste of time.”
He didn’t respond as I decided what parts of the story to tell.
“She and my dad met at the School of Performing Arts. She’s an ‘artist.’” I held up my free hand to mime quotation marks around the word, my voice dripping with sarcasm. “She used to do these ridiculous installations. Man Ray-style stuff, if you know who that is. Like, hanging strings of glue all over someone’s office to insinuate the constrained web of capitalism.”
That particular stunt had ended her first marriage, considering the office belonged to her husband’s boss and cost him his job. We heard about it when she turned up on my father’s doorstep and stayed with us for three months. That time. I kicked a hard tuft of snow, which exploded against my boot.
“Anyway,” I continued. “She left way before that. She said she hadn’t earned the right to be my mother. That she needed to find her path in life before she could lead me down mine. That’s what her letter said, anyway.”
I was surprised to find anger on Brandon’s face, rather than the pity most people offered when they learned about Janette. “When was that?” he asked tightly.
“I was four when she wrote that letter.”
“There were more?”
I snorted. “I’ve got a shoebox of them. Let’s just say my dad was kind of her rebound every time a relationship—or maybe her latest marriage—ended. But she never stayed, and every time, she’d send me an apology note for leaving. Or for missing my birthday. Forgetting Christmas. You get the picture.”
My face twisted with the disgust that I felt every time I recalled those stupid letters, still sitting under my childhood bed. Some of them were written on hotel stationery—usually from someplace swanky, like the Plaza—but most of them were scribbled on her personal letterhead engraved with swooping cursive initials at the top of each page. The last one, sent just after I graduated high school, contained a bank account number and the legal documents for my trust fund, which I had only ever used to pay for school. I’d considered sending that one back, but in the end, I decided not to force my dad into debt for my education. I figured she owed me—and him—that much.
I was twelve when he turned her away for good. She offered to put Bubbe and me up at a hotel for a week so she and my dad could be reacquainted, and he tossed her out and told her not to come back unless she wanted to seeme. So, she didn’t. But I always got her letters.
“What a bitch,” Brandon pronounced, enunciating each word carefully as the anger gradually dissipated from his face. “I’m sorry, but there’s really no other way to say it. You’re lucky you have your dad.”
“I am,” I agreed, although my stomach dropped a little thinking of Nick’s comments at the bar. “Plus, there was my grandmother too. I would get a little jealous from time to time when my friends would have their moms cook them dinner and pick them up from school, but honestly, I got just as many hugs, and Bubbe made just as many meals. I had a good home.”
Brandon smiled. “Bubbe. You’re Jewish, then?”
I shook my head. “Not really. Bubbe attends synagogue and sometimes my dad and I go with her on special days, but that’s it. My mother’s not Jewish, so to a lot of Conservatives, technically I’m not either.”
“So, do you know where your mom is now? Is she still hanging glue in people’s offices?”
