4
T H E R E T U R N
Shield my heart with armor.
Shovel strength into my bones.
THE NEXT MORNING, I WOKE to the faint sound of Charlie watching The Weather Channel in the living room. My heart swooped and then crashed. He was always so good to me. Always quiet when he got up and made his bowl of cereal, so I could get a couple of extra hours to recover.
Sinking, crashing, swallow me whole.
I wished things were different. Wished I didn’t have to work nights just to make ends meet. I wanted to be the kind of mom who was up bright and early with breakfast made and a smile on her face. Who had everything laid out for him so he didn’t have to know so early on in life what it meant to be responsible.
But that was a wish I knew would never come true.
Charlie and I were a team. We took care of each other. Sometimes I cried into my pillow because of how quickly he’d had to grow up in the past couple of years. It shouldn’t be this way. I should have made better choices… maybe even taken up my parents offer to keep him until I finished college.
But I couldn’t live without my boy. The moment the nurse put him in my arms, I was a goner. Nothing else mattered but him. When I looked into his deep blue eyes, I’d known I’d do any and everything I could to give him the best life possible, even if it meant putting my dreams on hold.
Since then, there hadn’t been a day gone by that I’d regretted that decision.
After I rolled out of bed, I headed to the bathroom to brush my teeth. My eyes felt gritty, making it hard to blink into focus. As I rubbed them, my toes connected with the edge of the bed, sending a shock of pain up my spine.
“Damn it,” I cursed, bending to rub the pain out. I could already tell it was going to be a wonderful day.
The mirror was no kinder than the bed. My hair was a tangled mess that looked like a squirrel had taken up residence. My eyes were bloodshot and puffy. I squinted, trying to see what Eric saw in me. Willing his words to be true as I lifted a hand to my face.
Inch by inch,
Piece by piece,
Watch me wither.
Watch me cease.
My lips had a pout, I supposed, and I did have big, round eyes that normally weren’t so bloodshot, which were pretty much my favorite feature. I turned to the mirror on my door and stared at myself. At my hips I’d always thought were too wide and the thighs I’d always thought weren’t shapely enough. At the war stripes lining my stomach from carrying a child and the chest that could use a lift.
But this wasn’t what Eric said he saw, and I so desperately wished I could borrow his eyes for a moment so I could look at myself like that to connect the missing dots.
What are you doing?
I rolled my eyes and turned back to the sink, loading my toothbrush with toothpaste. As I scrubbed my teeth, I scolded myself. “You’ve no business worrying if you’re attractive or not. You don’t have any time for a man. The only man in your life is Charlie. Focus.”
I spit, rinsed, and then dressed in cotton shorts and a T-shirt.
“Morning,” Charlie said from the couch the moment my door opened.
“Morning, sweetie,” I said, snuggling up next to him. He smelled like chocolate cereal, and it made me smile. “How’s the weather lookin’ today?”
He crunched through a bite, and then swallowed. “Hot and humid with a thirty-percent chance of rain.”
“No tornadoes?”
He sighed and gave a small shrug. “Nope.”
Ever since Charlie read a survival book I’d bought him last year, he’d been avid about his ability to read the sky for any sign of a tornado. I believed it was what had fed his obsession for watching The Weather Channel and the shows they played about the distinct types of storms. The posters of monster trucks were replaced by ones of the planets and various weather charts. The toys were donated and interchanged with Galileo weather stations and gadgets like wind meters and air-pressure sensors.
In one night, he went from wanting to crash trucks to wanting to chase storms.
“How was your night?” I asked as the meteorologist on the screen held a hat to his head as a demonstration amidst the gusting winds he stood in.
Charlie swallowed another bite. “Good. Mrs. Julia and I played a game of bridge.”
“Oh, yeah?”
He nodded, eyes glued to the show. “Yeah. It was fun. I won somehow. She gave me a small bowl of jelly beans as my prize.”
I kissed the top of his head, and then pulled up emails on my phone. “That was nice of her.”
“Yeah. She’s cool. How was your night?”
I clicked on the email regarding my reservation for a rental car. I had to be there by the end of the day to pick it up. My blood felt like needles had been set loose, picking and scraping from the thought of having to spend the next two weeks with my mother.
“Mom?”
I forced a smile. “It was good sweetie. The usual.” I tried not to think about Dean plowing into that man from the side. He was like a bulldozer. Unmovable. Powerful.
“Who is chivalry?”
My forehead pinched. “What?”
He set his bowl down and turned, questions swimming in his eyes. “Mrs. Julia talked to me about Dad. I asked her why he was so mean to you, and she told me that people are a lot like potatoes.”
“Potatoes?” I repeated, laughing as I tried to keep up.
He giggled, and then grabbed my arms, eyebrows lifting with enthusiasm. “Yes, Mom. I’m serious. We’re like potatoes. Want me to prove it?”
“Please do.”
He took my hand and pulled me through our small apartment into the kitchen. Stood on his tiptoes until he caught the edge of the potato bag. Unfortunately, he got his height from me.
Huffing, he undid the wire, and then pulled a handful out. He separated them until he found one that had a large, rotting spot. “See,” he said, pointing to it. “She said that, like potatoes, people have ways of sustaining the important parts of life. They nourish the stomachs, but we can nourish the soul, carrying each other through times of hunger. And she said every once in a while, there’s a rotten potato in the mix, just like people, but that doesn’t mean that the rest can’t do their job.”
I grabbed the potato and tossed it in the trash can, wishing it were that easy to get rid of the rotten ones. “As profound as that is, Charlie, I wouldn’t compare your father to a rotten potato. And what does that have to do with chivalry?” I asked, wondering if I’d have as many stories when I reached Julia’s age.
He ruffled a hand through his hair. “Oh, yeah. I asked her if she thought you’d ever be happy like the other moms with husbands.”
My heart split clean in half. Dropped right there at my feet.
“She told me not to worry. Said someone would come along soon enough to make you happy, and then she said chivalry isn’t dead yet.”
I pulled him into a hug, trying not to get too emotional. He hated when I did. “You make me happy, Charlie. I don’t need to be like the other moms when I have someone as wonderful as you to focus on.” I took a small breath. “And chivalry isn’t a person. It’s an expression. You know the stories with knights who defend and protect? Who put others before themselves? Who are brave and true?”
He nodded.
“That’s what chivalry is. Someone who possesses and enacts those qualities.”
“I’m chivalry, aren’t I?”
“Chivalrous,” I corrected with a small laugh. “And yes, you are. All the best people are.”
He put his hands on his hips and jutted his chin out, looking as if he’d just stepped off the pages of Peter Pan.
I giggled. “Did you pack like I asked you to?”
His chin dropped a little, eyes lowering, just like he always did when he felt guilty.
I laughed and put my arm around him. “Come on. I’ll help you.”
“NOW, YOU REMEMBER THE RULES of Nana’s house, right?”
“Yes, Mom,” Charlie said from the passenger seat. He was playing a game of Words with Friends on his iPad.
“Okay, well, let’s just go over them one more time, okay? Just to brush up.” My nerves had twisted together like unorganized cables. Nearly every exit we’d passed I thought about taking so I could turn and head back to the safety of my average, boring life. I could handle the judgment from my friends, and even Josh, but my mother…
“We don’t touch any of Nana’s things unless told to,” I recited, internally cringing as I recalled the time I knocked one of her favorite pieces of china off a shelf in the dining room. I couldn’t sit for the rest of the day. “And we always use manners when addressing anyone. We also always wear our best to dinner with guests and use the utensils the way I taught you to.” I paused and glanced over at him. “You do remember the purpose of each fork, right?”
“Mom…” he dragged out.
I was losing him.
“Right. You have an elephant’s memory. Okay. We don’t leave towels on the floor, or clothes, and our beds always have to be made.”
I glanced over at him. He’d set his iPad down and was staring out the window, watching the blur of trees pass, not saying anything.
“Honey?”
He looked over at me, his eyes so bright and wide, like a mirror of my own. “Why does Nana have so many rules?”
I looked back at the road. Tightened my grip on the steering wheel. “Well, um… Some people just need a lot of rules in life, Charlie.”
“It’s no fun.” He looked back at his iPad.
“It’s only two weeks. And you’ll have plenty of fun. There’s the pool and the bonfires,” I said, knowing he’d relax once we got there. “Plus, I’m sure Grandpa has tons of fun things planned for you.”
That made him sit a little straighter.
The iron gates to the Hale manor came into view, and my stomach tensed up. This is it, I told myself. Two weeks. That’s it. Easy-peasy. But that was a lie. Nothing about the next two weeks would be easy. It never was.
Charlie pushed up on his seat so he could see better. Even though he acted like he didn’t care, I knew he liked coming here, and that was the reason I agreed to come back. He got freedom he rarely ever had. A chance to roam and wander and play.
He got to be the ten-year-old boy he was at heart.
Magnolia trees shadowed the driveway, white petals dancing in the wind, forming into tiny cyclones with the onslaught of the breeze. Rocking chairs and potted plants furnished the porch that wrapped around the house. Nothing was ever out of place. Not even the leaves on the hedges.
“There’s Nana,” I said as she came down the steps of the colonial, two-story home once featured in a southern home magazine. She wore khaki slacks and a white, silk button-down tucked into the waist. Her golden hair was pinned and her makeup was just right. She looked closer to her late thirties than she did her fifties. Slender and put together, like a good southern woman always should be.
Dad was right behind her, dressed in his usual khakis and argyle sweater, waving us in. His smile could light up a room. His words were even more powerful, which was why his record in the courtroom was near flawless.
I waved to them, but Mother never waved. She stood at the base of the steps, hands folded in front of her, wearing a haughty smile that kept the same cold shape.
I put the car in park and turned off the engine, willing my lungs to work as I stared back at the gates. At my only chance at salvation.
Toughen up, buttercup, I coached myself, deeply inhaling. You got this.
My legs screamed for movement, pins and needles of sleep tingling in my thighs. “I don’t know about you, but I’m ready to be out of this car. Five hours to Georgia is plenty for me.”
Charlie didn’t answer. He was already out of the car, running to the steps to hug my mother and father. That brought a smile to my face. I didn’t have a childhood like Charlie’s. I’d had more rules than I could count on two hands. More expectations than I could ever live up to, but he’d never see that side. He’d always only know their love.
In some twisted way, I was thankful for the childhood I had because it was the reason I chose to go to a college as far away as I could. It was the reason I chose to take chances.
The reason I found myself in bed with the wrong man, which resulted in a godsend—Charlie.
My mother watched me as she hugged Charlie, waiting for me to get out and show just as much excitement. But mostly, waiting to judge.
“Andrea,” she said as I carried our suitcases over, the summer heat thick and stifling. By now, she should have started graying, but she’d never let that show. Everything about her was kept orderly and fixed, as if cosmetics could suspend the aging process.
“Hello, Mother.” I sat them down so I could hug her. She was stiff, as if she’d been pressed with starch.
When she pulled away, the floral scent of her perfume lingered. “For a minute, we thought you decided not to come. We expected you hours ago.” Her southern accent was thick and her disdain even thicker.
“Give her a break, Lizzy,” my father said, his smile as sweet and smooth as warm molasses. His dark hair was combed back, eyes sparkling. “They’re probably exhausted.”
“We stopped a couple of times to stretch our legs,” I offered as my dad took our suitcases from me. Mom made the face she always made when I said something that sounded like an excuse—pursed lips and pinched eyes, so I followed up with an apology, which seemed to do the trick.
Following them up the stairs, I smiled as Charlie rushed past us into the house. “I don’t remember the drive being as long as it was this time around,” I said, trying to make idle conversation.
“I keep telling you to move here, Andy. Then you can have a real job working in your father’s law firm.”
I bit my tongue as we crossed the threshold. The house still smelled the same, like fresh linen and spring, but everything was out of place. Rearranged or replaced to fit the season. Bright red and yellow flowers filled crystal vases. The walls had been given a soft white coat of paint, the natural light radiating throughout the house.
Even the artwork had been interchanged with summery images.
“Andy’s doing just fine,” Dad said after shutting the front door, always coming to my defense. The one and only time I’d ever seen disappointment in his eyes was the day I told them I was pregnant and dropping out. That was a day I try not to ever think about. “Charlie’s happy and healthy, and she’s making it on her own without asking for a penny. I’d say that is far better than Josh at the moment.”
Mother made an appalled sound, her hand touching her throat. “Josh is in the midst of finding the right job, John. He has every reason to need our financial help.”
Dad rolled his eyes, setting my suitcase outside the door to my old room, and then Charlie’s directly across the hall from me. “Lizzy, you and I both know good and well that boy doesn’t have a clue about responsibilities. The sooner you realize that, the sooner he can stop living off us and make a name for himself. Just like our Andy.”
He wrapped his arm around my shoulder and I melted into the side of him, grateful that at least one of my parents could love me through my mishaps.
Mother shook her head and walked away, disagreeing like always.
“How are you, kid?” he asked, smiling his wide, toothy grin.
A yawn caught me. “Tired.”
“I hear ya.” He pulled me into a hug. “Listen, I know you dread coming here, but your mother means well. You know she’s just a little rough around the edges.”
I snorted. “Rough like a rusted razorblade, right?”
He chuckled. “Take these two weeks to unwind, Andy. Really. Don’t worry about your mother and me, or what any of her friends think. Just relax, kid. Okay?” He waited for me to nod. “I have many things planned for Charlie, so you’ll have plenty of time to relax.”
I attempted a smile. “I love you, Dad,” I said, yawning again. “And I… I think I might take you up on that offer and take a little nap.”
His smile widened as he clapped his hands. “See! That’s what I’m talking about. Don’t worry about Charlie. I’m going to take him out to the lake to catch dinner. Just relax and enjoy yourself.”
“Okay, Dad,” I said as I walked into my room.
He shut the door as my eyes fell over the space. It was nothing like my old room. Mother had a designer renovate it, making it flow with the rest of the house. Large tapestries. A huge rug covered the old wooden floors. A four-poster bed. Bedside tables with crystal lamps. Even my bathroom had a marbled facelift.
But I didn’t care.
I wasn’t going to care. I was going to sleep until my body woke itself up, and I wasn’t going to give a damn what my mother or anyone else thought, because I deserved this nap.
I deserved…