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“Her name is Vanessa and she’s real easy on the eyes and I heard she makes a killer pot roast. They invited us over for lunch sometime. We should go.”
“Bev,” my dad groaned and gave her a look that told her to shut up already before picking up his paper like he couldn’t bear to watch the train wreck about to happen.
“What? I’m just trying to be friendly.” She feigned innocence, but we all knew her plan and it was all about grandchildren. Grandchildren she would probably never have.
Annie and I had always wanted children. But between my deployments and her cancer, it just hadn’t been in the cards for us.
And that thought made me sad. So fucking sad it completely killed my appetite. I stood up and dumped the rest of my food in the trash. “Thanks for breakfast, Mom,” I said softly, not wanting her to feel bad but knowing I needed to head home.
“See!” Dad said accusingly to Mom.
Mom followed me to the front door. “Don’t leave, Scoots. I’m sorry.”
I gave her a soft smile. “It’s okay, Mom. I’m not mad. I just have a lot to do at home.”
And I did. The grass needed to be cut and I needed to replace a window at the front of the house. And I had to get the hell out of here before she tried to guilt me into dating the neighbor’s daughter.
She knew I wasn’t interested in dating. There had only ever been one woman for me, and now she lay in the cemetery down the street. She was the only woman I visited.
I leaned in to hug her and she wrapped her arms around me but didn’t let go.
“You know I just want the best for you, Weston. Because you deserve the best. And it’s been so long since Annie…” her voice trailed off. She couldn’t even say the words. She’d never been able to. She’d loved her almost as much as I had. It wrecked me how much my mother missed her. It was just another added layer to the pain that felt like it would never go away.
“I know, Mom. I know,” I said, patting her back, consoling her. Losing Annie had been hard on us all. The years of chemo on and off. Watching her suffer and wither away to nothing had damn near killed us all. And in the end, even though we’d all had plenty of time to say our goodbyes, nothing had prepared us for the gaping, empty hole she’d leave behind where she’d once been.
Fuck cancer.
She pulled back and placed both of her hands on the sides of my face. “I just want you to be happy. I want you to have someone. I want you to have someone to talk about your job with. Someone to cook for you and take care of you. Someone for you to love. Someone for you to take care of. It’s important.” She placed a kiss to my forehead and let my face go.
“I’m okay, Mom. I swear. You don’t have to keep trying to set me up. I’m good.”
Her eyes lit up. “Why? Did you meet someone?”
“Beverly Reeves,” my dad groaned from the kitchen, probably even more over her shenanigans than I was.
“No, Mom,” I half lied.
I didn’t make a habit out of lying to my mother. She was my closest friend, but I’d tasted the acrid, sour taste of it on my tongue even as I said it.
Because as soon as the words were out of my mouth, I thought about her. The woman with the sad eyes and fiery spirit.
I thought about her euphoric laugh as she lay beneath me the first night, her smile so big, her eyes completely disappeared.
I thought about how she’d shown up at my home out of the blue in the middle of the damn day like some crazy person weeks later.
And for some reason that made me grin. She was a nut. I remembered how she’d followed me into my garage asking if I’d heard her.
How she kept repeating that it was all a mistake.
Only that hadn’t been what she was saying. Not really. Oh, her mouth made the words, but her body told another story. I knew what she had come for and I’d been happy to give it to her.
But it seemed like every time with her only made me want her more. It was some kind of sickness.
I thought about her more than I cared to admit. The nights in my room at the station when I was alone. At home when I was working on my bike.
And after the day I had, I could only think of one thing I wanted to do.
And it wasn’t the yard work.
