I talked to Mom on the phone a couple of times. It wasn’t as if either of them were the type of parents to never speak to us again, but for the first time in my life, she didn’t know how to talk to me about something…and she didn’t want to. It was too hard for her to wrap her head around, so we avoided the topic and only had quick, uncomfortable conversations.
Since Timothy had never been the best with words and talking about how he felt, he usually sent his love through Mom or texts with Isaac.
It had been almost three weeks now that we’d been home. I stood in front of my finished painting, pride filling me until it overflowed.
It was everything I’d hoped it would be, maybe some of my best work. I didn’t know what I thought it would accomplish, if anything, but I’d done it, leaving my heart in every brushstroke, and I knew exactly what to do with it.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Isaac
“What are you doing this weekend?” Steven asked. It was a Saturday, and I was working a half day to get a few things taken care of. Except for the two of us, the office was empty.
“I don’t know. I need to talk to Lane. He mentioned a hike.”
“Your brother?”
I’d been waiting for a moment like this, and I planned to be truthful. After what felt like a lifetime of denial, something had just clicked in me when we told our parents. “Actually, he’s my stepbrother, but now he’s my partner.” I couldn’t pretend my pulse didn’t try to run away from me. But while I was still nervous about how people would react to Lane and me being together, it wouldn’t hold me back ever again.
“Wow. That’s…kinda hot,” Steven replied, making me roll my eyes.
“Oh my God.”
“Well, it is. Don’t tell me you never watched stepbrother porn.”
“No, I really haven’t. That was too close to what felt like an impossible dream most of my life.”
“Only you could make my porn fantasies come true.”
We chuckled. “Maybe the three of us can go out to dinner sometime.”
“I’d like that. I’m happy for you, Isaac.”
“Thank you.” I was happy for me too.
I’d just finished packing up my things to head home, when my cell rang. I looked at where it sat on my desk to see Dad on the screen. My stomach twisted into knots, worry bearing down on my chest. I’d never been such a worrier in my life, but a lot of things seemed to have changed in me lately.
“Hey, Dad. Is everything okay?”
“Yeah, I, um…I wondered if you could meet me…I’m with Mom…”
The dread in me grew. I tried to swallow around the growing lump in my throat but couldn’t. The way he said mom, I knew he didn’t mean Helena. “Right now?”
“If that’s okay. If not, I’d like to come see you. I just… We haven’t visited her in a long time.”
No, no we hadn’t. The first few days after her service, Dad had spent all day at the cemetery, but after that, the only time he went was on the anniversary of her death. That stopped a few years back, though. “Yeah, sure. It’ll take me about an hour, but I’ll be there.”
“Thank you. I appreciate it.”
I didn’t call Lane. I didn’t want to worry him until I knew what Dad wanted. He was with Kylie today. He’d told her about us, and the two of them had stayed friends.
An anchor held my stomach down the whole drive out. Even though I hadn’t been in years, I knew my way through the cemetery by heart. I saw my dad ahead, sitting on the ground in front of my mom’s headstone. He had his back to me, but I could tell he was talking to her.
I stumbled a bit but pushed myself to keep going. Dad turned and looked toward me. The sun shined off his gray hair.
“I still miss her,” Dad said, looking at the headstone.
I sighed and sat down beside him. “I still miss her too.”
“It’s hard sometimes, to come to terms with it. I love Helena with all my heart, but I will always love Leslie too. I’ve…I’ve been thinking about that a lot lately, how much capacity we have for love. How much our hearts can hold, so many people we can love in so many different ways. How I can be in love with Helena, but a part of my heart will always belong to Leslie. The way I never thought I’d be able to feel that way again about someone until I met her. How love can grow and change. It’s really quite amazing, isn’t it?” He was still looking toward my mom’s headstone and not at me.
“Yeah, Dad, it is.”
He was quiet for a moment, then asked, “I wasn’t always there for you, was I?”
My chest seized. “What? No. You’re a great dad. I’ve always known you love me.”
“Maybe you have, but I wasn’t always there for you. It’s okay. You can tell me. When your mother passed away, I lost myself. And while that’s okay in some ways, it’s not in others, because I was the adult. I was your father, and I got so buried in my own pain, I let you drown in yours, didn’t I?” He looked at me then, tears brimming in his eyes, which pleaded for the truth.
“Yes. But I understood.”
“You were a kid. You shouldn’t have had to.”
“You loved her.”
“I loved you too, and I should have been better at showing it. I shouldn’t have let you feel alone…and you did, didn’t you? Until Lane.”
It was my turn to look down. I wrung my hands together in my lap. “Yes.”
“You were always different with him.”
“I was always at home with him,” I answered honestly. “He knows when to push me and when not to—and he does it. He doesn’t let me get away with anything. He doesn’t expect me to always have it together, to be perfect. He used to ask me about her…talk to me about her when I missed her so much, I could hardly breathe.”
“And I didn’t. I’m so damn sorry for that, son.”
“I know.” And I did. Life wasn’t easy, not for any of us. We all screwed up, we all hurt people we loved, and we were all a little selfish sometimes. We were only human, after all.
“It’s funny… I’ve been thinking a lot lately, about love and the heart, and then I got a delivery, and it was Lane’s painting.”
My gaze snapped to him. “Lane’s painting?”
“He didn’t show you?”
My heart banged against my chest. “No.”
Dad pulled out his phone, found what he was looking for, and handed it over. It was a picture he’d taken of Lane’s painting. I had to zoom in to see the details. It was clear it was of me. He’d painted me so you could see me stitched together at my seams. You could see inside me, and all that was there was a large heart, one too big for my body. It was trying to burst out of my chest, stretching out the stitching holding me together.
There were different versions of me on the same canvas, progressing so that in each one I was a little more filled in, but my heart was still there, still too big to fit inside me, trying to break me open. One after another after another…until the last one, where I was whole. Flesh and blood and bone. My heart was cut in half, my threading tight instead of stretched, and there was Lane, with his hand out to me, the other half of my heart in his chest.