AllFreeNovel
Share Us
It’s like playing a weird game of Jekyll and Hyde.
“I should go in,” she says, lifting her head from my chest and peering up at me. “Explain myself to Bob.” She gives a small chuckle.
“Yeah,” I agree—though I’m dying a little inside. This inner conflict is killing me. “I’m late getting to the shop anyway.”
“I’ll see you soon,” she says. It's a statement, not a question. But is that what’s best for her? Should she really be seeing a twenty-nine-year-oldbear?
Selfishly, I want to say she should.
But if I ask myself what is best for Meredith? And if I’m being honest. I get a different answer.
“Right. Later.” I lean down and kiss her cheek—because I’m leaning toward masochistic at this point.
I watch her go, her warmth and light going with her. She disappears into her house and I am left numb. No light. No warmth. No hope.
“Well, that’s a dark, pathetic thought,” I say, staring at Meredith’s closed door.
If I didn’t have the truck here, I’d walk home. I need the air, I need to clear my head.
But I do, so I drive the truck not to the shop, but back to my house, where I’ll bike to the shop. I’m already late, what’s another ten minutes?
Mom sits on the grass, shovel in hand digging in the dirt—I cannot remember the last time I saw that. Did she garden before?
“Hey,” I say, hopping from the truck. “What are you up to?”
“Hi, honey.” She raises a hand to her eyes, shielding them like a visor. Her nose wrinkles as she looks up at me with the sun overhead. “Just a little weeding.”
Did she weed before? I can’t remember.
“Are you growing something?”
“I’m going to—once I get rid of all these thistles. How was your morning?” She holds out a hand and I help her to her feet, then brush the dirt that transferred from her gloves to my hand.
Thistles. “I can get those for you, Mom.”
“I kind of like getting my hands dirty.” She tugs off the glove on her right hand and tucks a strand of brown hair behind her ear. “Did you and Meredith have fun this morning?”
I clear my throat. “Um. Yeah. I think she had…fun.”
“Let me see the pictures.” She tugs off her next glove and tosses them to the ground. When I don’t hand over my phone, she sets one hand on her hip. “Levi, you did take pictures, didn’t you?” Mom knew where we were going—Mom and Alice. That’s who I told about my plans.
“Oh. Um. Yeah.” I hand over my phone, feeling a little like a teenager in trouble. I open my photos app and hand Mom the device. She scrolls through the half dozen photos I took—all of Meredith and all of her in the same spot, surrounded by butterflies.
Mom chuckles, her smile ever growing as she scrolls. “She’s a pretty girl.”
She is, but I don’t agree—or disagree with her. I’m pretty sure Mom is talking more to herself than to me.
“She’s sweet as can be too.”
Again—silence. I plead the fifth. There’s no way I’ll admit that Meredith Porter is the sweetest dang woman I’ve ever set eyes on.
“Don’t you think she’s sweet, Levi?”
She’s going to force an answer out of me—she has that motherly intuition and power. She knows I’m determined to keep quiet on the subject. She carried me in her womb for nine months just to hold it over my head—to make me confess.
But before I can summon any words, she’s talking again. “No picture of the two of you? I was hoping to put one on the mantel.”
“What?” I say, snatching back my phone, as if my mother’s maternal powers could produce a framed photo of the two of us out of thin air. “Why? Why would you do that?”
