“I’m just here for a quick visit with your son, and then I’ll be on my way,” I say as cordially as possible. “Thank you for letting me spend the night.”
She lowers her brow as she appraises me from under her lashes. From my jeans and flats to the striped tank top I’m wearing, she gives me the once-over. If she’s judging me by my appearance, she can see I’m most certainly not the same kid who left.
“All right then, come on in. Dinner will be ready in twenty,” she says. When she starts to leave, she turns to me with a point of her finger. “You can sleep on the pull-out.”
As she walks away, I raise my brows and let out a breath I must have been holding in.
Zack nudges me in the shoulder. “I told you not to worry.”
“Let’s just hope she doesn’t try to strangle me in my sleep.”
He laughs at my comment as we walk into the kitchen.
At least one of us is laughing.
In the kitchen, Roger is drinking a beer and munching on tortilla chips and salsa.
My eyes watch as his hand shakes when he dips the chip in the bowl and makes red splotches on the tablecloth. Back in the day, that would have driven Sandy wild.
“Zack, I’ll take another beer,” Roger says, and I watch as he gets a Sierra Nevada from the refrigerator. He then looks to me. “Don’t worry about me drinking. Doctors said it’s good for me.”
I nod. “Alcohol consumption has been known to reduce tremors. The hops protect the brain cells from damage, slowing the development of Parkinson’s,” I say.
“That’s right.” He nods. “Where did you learn that?”
“I met a gentleman on a flight once. He was having horrible tremors—both from the Parkinson’s and because he was petrified of flying. I sat with him and held his hand for most of the flight. I got in trouble for neglecting my duties, but he seemed to need the company more than the other passengers needed snacks.” I glance down and remember the kind man I helped that day. A grandfather of seven who was on his way to see his daughter and her family. “He liked wine. Said it had better results than beer,” I tell him.
Roger seems pleased with my knowledge on the topic. “Maybe I’ll have a glass with you before the night’s over.”
I smile. “I’d like that.”
When I spin around, Zack and his mother are staring at me with matching bewildered expressions.
Searching for something other than them to stare at, I turn my attention toward the refrigerator where multiple pictures of a little boy are pinned with magnets.
Some are of him as an infant in his young father’s arms. Others are of him playing in a pool, hugging his grandmother and reading to his grandfather. He has a huge grin in his kindergarten graduation photo and is very serious in his little league photo, uniform and all.
This boy has brown hair and blue eyes, a Cheshire grin and handsome face, just like Zack.
He looks like Zack because this is his son.
“Have you met Luke yet?” Sandy asks from behind me.
I glance to Zack, who stops mid-swig from his beer and meets my eyes.
The searing stare of his—the one that holds me, knows me, and can read my mind—looks at me with a silent intensity.
It’s true; he’s mine, he silently tells me. When I take a deep breath, he raises his chin. But you knew that, especially after seeing the photo at my place.
I sigh because he’s right.
I’ve known from the second that child was born. I just never wanted to believe it.
When you leave a man without a good-bye and don’t see him again for ten years, he’s bound to move on without you.
“Jolene hasn’t met Luke,” Zack answers for me.
“He’s such a great kid. Plays baseball, best kid on the field. He’s at a baseball camp this week, right?” She turns to me for conformation, I nod and she continues, “And he’s super smart. He loves all things science. Pretty impressive for an eight-year-old,” Sandy says as she stirs the dinner she’s cooking on the stove. “Do you have plans to meet him before you head back home?”
I open my mouth to respond, but Zack cuts me off.
“No, Mom. Jo has plans to leave town again.”
I rub my lips together, keeping myself from saying anything I’ll regret. I do have plans because it’s my job. I’m getting tired of being made to feel bad about making a life for myself. So what if I chose to forgo creating a family, so I could spend some quality time on myself?
And yet …
I glance back at the pictures on the fridge.
Knowing Zack has a little him running around in this world is still mind-boggling to me. I can’t even keep a plant alive, let alone be responsible for another human being, especially one so young.
These past ten years, I’ve only had to worry about myself. I could do what I wanted, go where I wanted, and be whoever I wanted to be. That entire time, he’s been here, raising a child, helping his dad with his garage, and building a business of his own.
Our lives are polar opposites.
I guess that’s why I left though. We wanted different things. He got what he wanted, and I got what I needed.
We sit down for dinner, and Sandy decides to take this time to talk incessantly about Luke. His favorite color is green, and he wears dinosaur pajamas to bed but has made everyone swear not to tell his friends. He loves s’mores and hates peanut butter. He’s a Giants fan, and he wants to be a pitcher when he grows up.
While I find myself laughing at some of the stories and grinning when Roger chimes in on how Luke helps him tie his shoes, I can’t help but feel the intense gaze of Zack on me from across the table, watching my every reaction as I take in this very important part of his life.
After dinner, I offer to help clean the kitchen. Sandy agrees and lets me clean all the dishes. I think this is her way of making me pay penance for taking off. I don’t mind. Washing dishes is something I used to do with my mom. For some reason, I think Sandy remembers that because she stays by my side, silently cleaning the counters beside me.
While I can’t say the woman likes me, I’m finding that being a grandmother has softened her up a little, and her grudge doesn’t appear to be as deep as I once thought.
Roger and I decide to have that glass of wine until Sandy announces that they’re heading off to bed. That is, after Sandy makes sure my bed is set up nicely on the couch, where I apparently belong.
Zack disappeared about thirty minutes ago, so before I change for bed, I walk out back in search of him. When I step down off the back patio, I see him sitting next to the firepit he built when we were in high school.
As I walk over to him, the fire crackles, and I try not to remember the nights we spent here, wrapped in each other’s arms, talking about how we’d be together forever.
Instead of reminiscing about the past, I rip the Band-Aid off about our present. “So … Luke …”
He laughs to himself as he takes a sip of the beer in his hand. “Wow, just dive right in, why don’t ya?”
I shrug. “It’s been twenty-four hours, and we’ve been dancing around the elephant in the room.”
“You knew,” he states.
I don’t deny it.
He leans forward in the chair, resting his hands on his knees. “You saw his photo in my office. Why didn’t you ask then?”