“Yes, ma’am.” I bend over to grab my kit and toss a glance at Devin. Thank you, I mouth.
Sorry, he mouths back and I race over to our yard before Momma changes her mind about punishing me.
Gran is in the kitchen when I make it inside. She takes one look at me and lets out a laugh so big, her belly shakes and the wrinkles around her eyes deepen as she grips the counter to help keep her upright. “Good Lord, girl. You were out there for ten minutes.”
I pull the bow out of my hair and toss it on the kitchen table. “Devin was being an asshole.”
This only makes her laugh more. “You’re going to give your Momma a heart attack.” She waves her hand for me to come forward. I do, falling into her outstretched arms. She smells like butterscotch and tiger balm. I inhale, breathing her in. I love when Gran comes over—which isn’t often because Momma says she meddles—but when she’s here there’s a warm, squishy feeling in my chest. The kind of feeling I get on Christmas morning. The feeling I get when I sneak into Devin’s bedroom window at night when Momma and Daddy are arguing. Devin says it’s happiness, but I think he’s wrong. I think it’s peace.
“Come on.” She places her hand in mine. “Let’s go get you cleaned up before your Momma kills us both.”
3
Chapter 3
Roni, age 18
I run a finger along the entryway table and it jiggles a little from where I ran into with my bike when I was seven. Scanning the room, I take in every inch. Some things are the same. Like the table, and the framed painting of the Savanah River that hangs above a sofa. The carpets are gone, replaced with hard wood, but the same threadbare blue curtains frame the windows.
“The place looks good,” I tell him. “It’s clean, like really clean. The cleanest, I’ve ever seen it.”
“Yeah?” Dad blushes, scratching the back of his head. His shirt lifts up, and his belly peeks out from the bottom.
“What’s this?” I ask, with a grin poking him in his flat midsection. My daddy is as handsome as any man I’ve ever seen, but for as long as I can remember he’s had a beer belly.
“Nothing special. I replaced the drinking addiction with a weightlifting addiction, I guess.” He blushes again, shuffling nervously.
“Oh, don’t be so modest,” Gran says, carrying a tray of food to the dining room table. Her salt and pepper strands are pulled back into a bun, and she’s wearing a t-shirt that says, I’m the crazy Grandma everyone warned you about. “He got clean, got buff, and got a new lady friend.”
My eyes widen, and I turn towards my dad. I have never seen him with anyone other than my mom, and while I don’t have any disillusions that my parents will ever get back together—Momma is happily married—I just never thought about how I’d feel if Daddy dated someone. For so long his only focus was getting sober, then on rebuilding our relationship. Him having a girlfriend never even crossed my mind. “What? Since when? Why didn’t you tell me?”
Daddy pinches the bridge of his nose. “Momma, really?”
“What?” Gran shrugs innocently. “She was going to find out soon enough.”
“Yeah, but not on her first night back.” He turns to me, his warm brown eyes, filled with worry. “I’m sorry.”
“What are you apologizing for?” I sling my bookbag on the bottom step and make my way to the kitchen. Dad follows behind me. “Momma is remarried, it’s time you get back out there too.”
He rolls his eyes and mutters, “Yeah, but she’s married to a tool.”
“Paul is not a tool!” I laugh, then hold my hand up, my index finger and thumb an inch apart. “Maybe a little, but he’s nice.”
“And as boring as dry toast,” Gran adds. “Wash up, so we can eat before the food get’s cold.”
I make my way to the sink and do as I’m told. “What’s her name?”
“You remember Chloe Chen, from down the street?”
I grin. “Of course I remember Chloe. She was like the only girl who’d play with me.” I dry my hands on the tea towel, remembering my first and only girlfriend. My face contorts. “Wait, she’s like eighteen! Daddy? Gross.”
“No! Not Chloe.” Dad gapes at me in horror. “Her mother. I’m dating her mother, Angela.”
“Oh.” My mouth snaps closed, and I reel in my judgment. Angela Chen, from what I can remember, is one of the sweetest people on the planet. Whenever we’d play at Chloe’s house, she’d bake us cookies and let us listen to our favorite boy bands as loud as we wanted.
“I’d thought it would be nice if we all had dinner this week?” he says, pumping a squirt of soap into his hands. “I hate the thought of you sitting in the house alone all day while I’m at work, and Chloe is…well, she’s not boring.”
I munch on my bottom lip. “I’m not particularly…great with…people,” I say. “I mean, I don’t really have many friends back in South Carolina. Plus, I don’t mind being alone; it will give me time to paint.” Technically, I didn’t have any friends, unless you counted Mrs. Spence, my art teacher.
Gran shuffles us to the dining room table, and we begin to load up our plates.
“Chloe is easy to get along with.” Dad stabs a meatball with his fork. “And she’s comfortable doing all the talking.
Gran snorts. “You’ll be lucky to get a word in.”
“Momma.” Daddy sighs then turns to me. “Dinner, then if you still prefer to spend your summer in front of your canvas, then the paint is on me.”
“Deal.” I stab my own meatball and cheers it against his. Red sauce splatters on my thumb, and I lick it off. “And just so you know, I like expensive paint.”
“Are you sure you’re going to be okay?” Daddy says, poking his head inside my bedroom.
I’m sitting cross-legged on the floor, staring down at a pencil sketch I drew of the oak tree in Gran’s front yard, yesterday. I’d wanted to paint it for my dorm room, so I’d have a piece of Newton with me in Chicago, and I figured a tree would be easy enough to coax my muse from her hidey-hole. “Yeah, I’m fine.” I wave him off. “I’ve got big plans for today.”
He arches a brow. “Such as?”
“I’m going to attempt to turn this sketch into a kick ass painting, and finally put an end to my artist block.”
“Sounds like you’ve got a full day.”
I nod. “And for my reward, I’m going to gorge myself on leftover meatballs.”
Dad chuckles. “Don’t get too full, remember we’re having dinner with Angela and Chloe tonight.”
I exhale. “Do I have to?”
Dad’s face falls, and he shoves his hands into the pockets of his faded jeans. “I just want you to like them.”
“I do like them; at least I did when I was nine.”
“Then why don’t you want to have dinner?”
“Because I’m socially awkward, and I don’t want you to lose your girlfriend, because I’m a spaz.”