She melts into the passenger seat, eyes fluttering closed as if getting away from the house finally gives her the permission to relax that she’s been waiting for.
She doesn’t ask where we’re going or argue when I pull up outside of the house I’ve rented. She’s bone-tired, both mentally and physically exhausted.
“I’ll make sure Alex gets to school and home from practice every day,” I tell her as I turn off the truck.
“Whose car is that?” Alex asks, not making a move to climb out.
“That’s—” I look over at Tin, deciding what the best approach is. I hate that I used to know everything about her, and now, even though many things are familiar, she’s still so much a stranger to me. “It’s a rental until I can get your mom’s car looked at.”
Tinley frowns, but she doesn’t open her mouth to argue.
The silver car parked in the driveway isn’t a rental, but I know she wouldn’t just readily accept it. I don’t think I’m getting away with an argument either when Alex jumps out of the truck and pointing out to her that it’s her favorite color. I know I’m in for it when she rolls her head on the seat and glares at me.
“It’s for him,” I specify before she can argue. “He wants you safe, not stranded someplace when the car won’t start. Yes, it helps you too, having something reliable, but it’s also for him.”
Her mouth snaps closed, but I still don’t feel like I’ve won.
“Come on, let’s get you two settled.”
The house has three bedrooms, something I know Tinley doesn’t miss. It’s also fully furnished, a short-term rental probably used more for people attending conferences or needing an escape from the grind of their daily lives.
Alex is excited about the huge television in the living room and the pool table on the enclosed back patio, but Tinley seems unable to take her eyes off the bed.
“You can take a nap. I’ll stick around long enough for you to get some sleep.”
Her eyes dart to mine.
Please ask me to stay.
“If I go to sleep now, I won’t sleep well tonight,” she says instead.
“Check this out!” Alex hollers from somewhere deeper in the house before she can tell me to leave. “Did you see this?”
I grin at his excitement, leaving Tinley standing in the bedroom she’s selected, grateful my son just gave me the opportunity to hang out with them even if it’s just for a little bit longer.
“Have you never played one of these before?” I ask as I join Alex in the game room. His eyes are wide as he looks down at the pinball machine.
“Do you have any quarters? They had one at that little pizza place, but some ass—some jerk broke it before many people got to play it.”
“Doesn’t require quarters, just pull the lever back.”
We spend thirty minutes in the game room, Alex entertained by the game before Tinley joins us. Her hair is wet from a shower, piled on her head.
I want my lips on her throat, my hands all over her body. My mouth between her legs again.
I just want her.
But we haven’t spoken about that night in the hotel. Other than comforting her at the funeral earlier, we haven’t touched. There’s no longing in her tired eyes when she looks at me. I don’t see the heat she couldn’t control that night, and it’s killing me because I want her with every fiber of my being.
“Do you have one of these at your house?” Alex asks, his eyes staying locked on the game as he tries to keep the little ball from falling out of play.
“No, but I could get one,” I answer simply.
Tinley clears her throat, and when I look at her, she’s glaring in my direction.
“You’ll have to get up a little earlier for school,” Tinley says instead of confronting me about building Alex’s hope about moving to St. Louis.
“It’s no problem, Mom. I’ll just go to bed earlier.”
Tinley and I both look at him.
“Who are you and what did you do with my son?” Alex just smiles as he continues to play. I think the grin makes Tinley calm down some, a little hint that the future isn’t as bleak as she’s let herself believe.
Chapter 24
Tinley
Sometimes there is a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow.
The rainbow I’ve tried to celebrate since my mother’s death is that Ignacio was right. Cooper didn’t trash the house while we were at the rental property last week. The pot of gold is that he was gone when we returned to the house, leaving a note that demanded to let him know when the house sold.
Of course, the bracelet my dad gave me when I turned thirteen and my father’s wedding band Mom kept after he died are gone as well, but getting upset because my brother is awful will only give me a headache, and the tears I’ve cried since I came into her room are already doing a good enough job at making my temples throb.
I touch each item of hers, not wanting to get rid of anything because each item holds sentimental value to me.
The long, red socks she’d pull up to her knees over her lounge pants were her favorite despite the tiny hole in the toe of one.
The faded sweatshirt she wore in an effort not to have to turn on the heat has a coffee stain on one shoulder, but I just can’t seem to part with it either.
Three things take up space in the trash bag I carried in here after Alex left for school. Two being jeans I don’t think she’s worn in years, and one being the gray blanket she used to cover her legs during chemo. None of those carry good memories and were easily discarded.
Everything else?
I can pull images of her wearing, using, or planning to use it all.
How can I dispose of or donate any of it?
Not the shoes she wore to weed the flower beds in front of the house.
Not the book on her night table, a torn piece of the Sunday paper marking her spot on page one forty-two.
Not even the half empty bottle of water. It was one of the last things to touch her lips.
It’s been two weeks since the funeral and I’m no closer to being okay than I was the day I whispered my goodbyes, praying that she could hear me and that she knew how much she was loved before she went.
Hanging my head, I press curled fists into my eyes. They burn from tears and lack of sleep and the misery of watching Ignacio walk out of the house every night.
It made sense to come back to the house after realizing Cooper was gone, and I hate to admit I had gotten used to him being around during Mom’s final days, through the funeral, and the week we spent at that house.
Then we come back home and nothing.
At the rental we didn’t touch, kiss, or flirt, but his presence was calming. The second we get back here, he’s out the door faster than I can blink.
I’ve done my best not to imagine where he is when he’s not with us, but it’s nearly impossible not to imagine him with someone else, his mouth on another woman’s skin, his tongue in her—
“No,” I hiss into the room. “Fuck, no.”
“Tin?”
I spin my head around so fast, I grow dizzy, my eyes taking a long moment to refocus on Ignacio standing in the doorway to my mother’s room.
“You okay?”
God, how many times is he going to ask that question? The words have been on his lips on repeat for weeks.