Chapter Thirty-Seven
Braxton
I woke up the next morning just before dawn. Pale fog pressed against the windows, and the room had that unmistakable early morning smell. Turning over, I reached for Jaimie and found to my surprise that her side of the bed was empty. I was alone in the room.
My immediate instinct was to wonder if maybe Jaimie had panicked and run away in the night. But that didn’t hold; we had spent the night at her house. Why would she dart off and leave the place to me? Then it occurred to me that she might have gone in to work early. She had taken yesterday off, and I wasn’t yet familiar with her new schedule. Working at FAF, she had been able to sleep in, but not every job would be so accommodating.
I was still puzzling over her absence when the bedroom door came slowly open and Jaimie walked, a little shyly, back into the room.
“Hey, sorry,” she whispered. “I hope I didn’t wake you.”
“Where did you go?” I asked, rubbing my sore eyes. “I thought maybe you’d gotten scared and slipped out.”
“And what, just waited for you to leave?” She climbed back under the covers next to me. “No, Winston woke me up, so I went ahead and fed him and Gina.”
“Winston?” I gave her a blank look. “Is my cat here?”
“Mm-hmm.” She reached for the bruise over my left eye. “Just how bad did you hit your head?”
“Sorry, I guess I had just forgotten. Nick usually takes care of him while I’m gone, but he couldn’t have done that because he was with me.”
“You must have been really pressed for time before you left. You texted me about an hour before your flight and asked if I would look after the cat during the weekend. You left the key under the stone toad on your porch. I let myself in and brought him home with me.”
“Oh, that makes sense. I didn’t realize you had taken him home. I figured you would’ve just left him there.”
“Nope, he came home with me.” She smiled. “Not that we’ve really had the chance to hang out, since he spent most of the weekend hiding under the armchair. If I want him to eat, I have to leave the food in his bowl and leave the room.”
“Yeah, sorry he’s so extra.” I shook my head in exasperation. “I hope he at least got to spend some time with Gina.”
“I think they’ve been hanging out while I’m at work. When I come through the door, they streak off in opposite directions like they’re ashamed to be seen together. Like a couple of third-graders experiencing their first crush. Anyway.” She patted me firmly on the knee. “I hope if we ever have kids, they’re a bit more social.”
I continued to ponder that last statement as I drove home with Winston in the murky pre-dawn light, the silence only broken by the shrill cry of a rooster. The possibility of children hadn’t occurred to me until she brought it up. I wouldn’t want to have kids unless we were married because my parents had taught me that kids fare better when their parents are married.
But they had also taught me, maybe without intending to, that raising a family is hard. It isn’t all roses and breakfast in bed and making eyes at each other until daylight. There’s a lot of logistics, and planning, and having to be certain places at certain times and making sure the kids are fed and bathed and caught up on their vaccines. There are a lot fewer declarations of love, and a lot more negotiations and compromises and hard conversations in bed.
The phone buzzed as I pulled into the driveway. It was Mom. Switching off the car, I grabbed the phone from the dashboard and ran into the house.
“Hey, Mama. What’s up?”
“Just calling to check on you.” In the background, I could hear a dog barking. “Your dad and brother were busy all weekend ripping out the old floorboards in the bathroom and laying down vinyl planking. It looks so much more rustic now, and I can’t get over how good it looks. I’ll have to send you pictures.”
“Please do.” I had never paid much attention to Mom and Dad’s household renovations, but I loved how excited she got about them. “Mama, how did you and Dad know when you were ready to start a family?”
Mom paused for a second, as though surprised by the question. “I don’t know that anyone is ever truly ready. I think once we were married, and he was making above a certain income—why, do you have news you’re wanting to share with me?”
“No, nothing like that,” I said hastily. “It’s just something I’ve been batting around. You and Dad had, what, three kids by the time you were twenty-five?”
“Well, it was a different time,” said Mom. “Not everyone can do that, and I don’t expect them to. Regardless of what you decide to do, I want you to know that I’m already proud of you. I didn’t think I was going to be. I told your dad, we raised five boys and four of them turned out how we wanted. Maybe that was the best we could hope for. But no, you surprised us.”
“Thanks, Mom.” It was the equivalent of getting a “most improved” award at the end of the school year, but somehow the words filled me with a sense of pride nonetheless.
“It’s true, though. You’ve become a genuinely good and decent person in your own right.”
“Did you and Dad happen to watch my fight in Vegas this weekend?”
“No, he was busy working on the bathroom, and I was busy cooking. But I’m sure you did well. It’s a mystery to me why anyone would want to get knocked around in the octagon, but I know you’ve always put your best effort into it and I’m proud of that.”
She hadn’t watched it. I could understand why; it must be hard to watch your own son climb into a ring or cage to get hit in the face and punched in the gut and kneed in the groin.
“Anyway,” she asked. “How’d you do?”
“I did alright,” I said quietly. “I think I did really well.”
“Well, I’m glad to hear that,” she said, and she went on talking about the planking.