“That’s amazing, Mr. Taylor. I love Briggs’s house. You do beautiful work.”
My dad perked right up at that. “Thanks, son. Call me Robert. Brigham, do you want me to talk to Brad about a possible door or opening between your businesses?”
“Well, Sanders and I still need to talk about it, but—”
“I want to do it.”
I turned to Sanders, a grin on my face. “Since you already got a head start?”
He blushed and tried to ignore me as I leaned in to kiss his temple. “I think it’s a great idea and will help both of our businesses.”
“Okay, then. It’s settled.” I turned back to the phone. “Dad, talk to Uncle Brad about it and see what he comes up with.”
“Will do. I’ll call you, and we can make plans about timing and materials as well. On that note, I think it’s time for us to say goodbye and let you two get on with your day.”
“Robert, I’ve barely had any time to talk to Sanders! And if we’re going to do Christmas there this year, I have to plan everything with Brigham.”
“Mom, I’ll need to talk with Sanders about his schedule and his Christmas plans, so why don’t I get back to you about timing and everything, okay?”
“Well, all right, but Sanders, you’re officially invited to Christmas dinner, whenever we have it. I can’t wait to get to know you.”
Sanders relaxed into me now that he knew the conversation was coming to an end. “Thanks, Molly. I look forward to seeing you.”
I said goodbye to my parents and hung up the phone. Lifting Sanders up, I maneuvered him so he was straddling my lap and wrapping his arms around my neck. His gentle, happy smile tugged at my heartstrings. I clasped his face and pulled him in for a kiss. “So, since you don’t have to study and you have the whole day off, what would you like to do for the rest of the day, baby?”
He reached toward the table and gave it a little shake. “Seems sturdy enough. What do you think?”
I threw my head back and laughed. Damn, this boy was going to keep me on my toes.
20
Sanders
Later that afternoon, I told Briggs I needed to go. As much as I wanted to spend the entire day with him, there was one thing I needed to do before I had to return to work the next day.
Visit my mother.
I stopped by my house for some fresh clothes and a shower, then I headed to Millie’s Hardware Store. It was December seventh already. Normally, my mom and I would decorate for Christmas the day after Thanksgiving, but she was gone, and I had been studying for a stupid degree I didn’t even want.
At least now I had time to catch up on all the things I’d fallen behind on over the last few years.
Millie’s Hardware Store sold live wreaths of varying shapes and sizes. They weren’t fancy or anything, but they were real, and they’d fill Mom’s room with the smell of pine. I selected a smaller one festooned with acorns and tried to pay at the cash register. Millie—another good friend of my mother’s—wouldn’t let me. She simply hooked both of her weathered hands into her toolbelt and told me my money wasn’t any good at her store.
“Say hi to your mom for me, Emmett. And you let me know if there’s anything you need fixed, okay?”
I nodded. Conversations like this were always awkward. Plenty of people in town gave me stuff for free or offered their help.
Maybe I’d never know who my father was, but I had this community.
And now I had Briggs.
Polly smiled at me when I walked in the front door of the Red Canyon Rest Home. “Good to see you, Emmett.”
I held up the wreath. “You too. I’m going to hang this on the inside of her door. That okay?”
She nodded. “You can use the same nail you used last year.”
I signed my name in the logbook. Just above my name I expected to find Leo’s, but his name was a few rows up. The name on the line right above mine was Matt Hall. My brother.
“Matt came here?” I asked.
Polly’s smile widened. “Yep. This morning. Stayed several hours too. Your mother has been very popular as of late.”
Well, how about that. My brother. He hadn’t been to visit in… two years?
“Maybe Matt just needed time to figure out how to deal with this,” Polly said. “It can be hard when someone as young as your mom gets Alzheimer’s.”
That hit me hard. I’d always been angry with Matt for how he dealt with Mom’s sickness, but it had taken me time to learn how to deal with it too. I was quite the self-righteous martyr about my busy schedule and running Mom’s business all by myself, wasn’t I? And what good did that do me? What good had that done anyone?
It wasn’t until Briggs helped me to relax that I realized how wrong I’d been about school and overdoing things.
Maybe I was wrong about more than just my schedule.
Matt had never loved Red Canyon the way I did. I was the awkward gay son who all the local lesbians took under their wing, and he was the quiet straight guy who hated the outdoors. He was just as skinny as me and just as pretty. Which meant he didn’t date any more than I did. The summer before he moved away for college, he started on this protein shake diet and spent all his time at the gym, trying to bulk up.
He wanted to start over. He talked about opening his own dental practice and making enough money that he could have a family of his own. It wasn’t the same dream as mine, but it was still a dream.
Mom’s illness could have ruined all of that for him.
She wouldn’t have wanted that.
I took slow steps back to Mom’s room. The smell still wasn’t great, but I noticed things I never had before. Like how clean the floors were, and how Christmas garland lined the ceiling. Matt said this was a good place, that the staff here was good to Mom, and only the richest families could afford the facility I wanted to put her in. He also said we were both in our twenties, and we couldn’t be expected to live paycheck to paycheck for the rest of our lives so Mom could live in luxury.
I’d called him selfish. I’d said he was a bad son and brother. But he didn’t get angry with me. Instead, he’d told me he loved me, and that I was allowed to be happy, even though Mom was sick.
I had forgotten about that.
All this time, I’d never stopped to consider what Mom really would have wanted, even though I was working so hard to take care of her. She wasn’t a selfish person. She had a lot of friends for a reason: she gave too much of herself.
Just like me.
I plastered on a smile and knocked on her door. There were soft footfalls on the other side. The door opened, and my beautiful mother smiled at me. “Oh, Reggie! It’s so good to see you.”
I held out the wreath. “I brought you something.”
She gestured for me to come in. “You just missed the new treasurer of PFLAG. His name is Matt.”
My heart sunk as I remembered that Matt didn’t look like Mom’s brother. He didn’t get to pretend to be someone she loved anymore. He always had to make something up. Treasurer of PFLAG. A new coffee bean vendor. A friend of Reggie’s. He didn’t get to hug her or talk to her about anything that mattered. And when he left, she didn’t remember his visit for long.