Chapter 17
JJ
“He’s studyin’ to be a half-wit, and I’m afraid he ain’t gonna make it.”
~ Grandma Dixie
“So, no more baseball. You’re done and you’ve decided to move home.” My mom casually sipped her tea. Her feet pushed off the wood planks as she gently swayed on the porch swing that overlooked the pond on the west side of my parents’ land.
“What?!” All I’d told her was that I’d bought the old Mason place. How in the hell she’d connected the dots on this one, I really had no idea.
“Baseball. You’re done. You’re retiring and moving home,” she stated confidently.
I confirmed her assumption with a single nod.
“And how long has this all been in the works?”
As I straightened my shoulders, tension built in my neck. “Since I was here over the Fourth.”
This was crazy. I’d spoken to my dad and my brothers about moving home and they hadn’t had a clue about my plans. My dad had teared up, slapped me on the shoulder, and told me that it was good to have me home, where I belonged. As much as he’d always supported my career, his true desire was to have his family close. He might have been the quintessential cowboy, but he was a softie when it came to his family.
My brothers had grilled me about my injury, and they hadn’t believed that I was really moving home. They’d given me a hard time, of course. But they’d also offered to help me with the renovations, and I was sure as hell was going to take them up on it. That place was like a diamond in the rough, and the rough was really rough.
My mother, on the other hand, had actually guessed what was going on. And the biggest surprise of all was that her reaction was less than enthusiastic. Her response transported me back to my twelve-year-old self, when the front picture window had been broken and no one had come forward to claim responsibility. Just like then, I’d known I hadn’t done anything wrong—I had been at baseball practice when it’d happened—but I’d still had a sick feeling in my stomach when she’d questioned me about it. I knew why I’d felt that way sixteen years ago. Although I hadn’t been the guilty party, I had known which of my seven brothers had been to blame, but I hadn’t been about to snitch. I’d kept that vital information from my mom, which had made me guilty by association.
Today, I had no idea why I felt so…unsettled. I wasn’t doing anything wrong…
Taking a deep breath, I let the evening breeze wash over me in an attempt to put my nerves at ease. When I leaned against the porch railing, the wood creaked the way it had every time I’d leaned against it since I could remember. A comforting warmth spread through my chest. I was home. This was where I was supposed to be. I belonged there.
My mom was still swinging, sipping her tea, staring out over the land, not saying a word. It was driving me crazy, and she knew it. The Dolly Briggs version of interrogation had broken men much stronger than myself.
It’s what had caused Trace, the youngest of the Briggs boys, to confess that he’d been the one who had sent the ball flying through the pane of glass that overlooked their property. The Dolly Briggs silent torture had brought Sawyer—the oldest and by far most stubborn of the Briggs boys—to admit that he’d had a girl in his room when he was fifteen, which was a big-time no-no.
She had even broken her own husband, my father, the great Walker Briggs. He’d revealed that he’d planned a surprise party for their thirtieth anniversary on the morning of the party, and he’d been planning it for a good six months. But he’d been acting so strange for so long at that point that she’d finally turned her silent powers on to flush the truth out.
My mom could get anyone to crack, even when nothing nefarious was happening. Like now.
Not being able to take her nonverbal, accusatory questioning, I snapped. “What, Mom? What’s is it?”
Slowly shaking her head, she inhaled before shrugging. “I was just wondering where Miss Destiny Rose fits into this whole plan.”
Ahh, yes. Of course. Destiny.
Not wanting to come completely clean, I hedged my bets that I could get away with a partial explanation. “I care about Destiny. I have for a long time.”
There. That was the truth. Done. Moving on. Next subject.
“You don’t say?” The amusement in her voice combined with the all-too-knowing half smile that appeared on my mom’s lips told me that we would not be moving on from this subject any time soon.
My uneasiness was expanding like a waistband at an all-you-can-eat buffet with every second that passed.
“She’s…” I needed to get this conversation over, but I was stuck. I felt trapped, exposed. Like she could see right through me.
She probably can, my inner voice piped up.
It was true. In the Briggs house, the matriarch had been teasingly nicknamed the all-knowing one because, somehow, someway, Dolly Briggs always knew everything that was going on with her nine children. How she managed to do that, I had no idea.
“Special,” I finally said. That one word didn’t even come close to summing up what Destiny was, but it was all I could come up with.
My mom nodded and made an indiscernible sound, a glimmer sparking in her brown eyes. “That she is. And what does she think about all of this?”
Good question. “Um…she…she was a little shocked I moved back. But she’ll get used to it, especially after she finds out I’m retiring.” I hoped.
My mom’s left eyebrow rose a good half inch at my confident statement.
Uh oh. That was not a good sign. Not at all. That eyebrow was the last thing you wanted to see go up when having a conversation with Dolly Briggs.
When Destiny had sprinted away from me at the wishing well this morning, there had been no doubt in my mind that she’d come around. Now that the eyebrow had gone up, I wasn’t feeling quite so sure of myself.
“Shocked?” Mom repeated. “Does that mean that you didn’t tell her that you were moving home?”
“I told her.” I was beginning to feel a little—no, scratch that, a lot—defensive.
“When did you tell her?” Her coffee colored gaze narrowed slightly.
Clearing my throat, I shifted my weight from my right foot to my left. “This morning.”
“Why didn’t you tell her that’s what you were planning when you were here over the Fourth?” Her tone was pleasant. Curious, even.
But that didn’t fool me, these questions were headed somewhere. I’d seen enough procedurals to know that, if I were in court, my lawyer would be standing up and yelling, “Objection! Leading the witness!”
Unfortunately, we were not in a courtroom and I had no representation to save me from my own mother’s cross-examination.
“I didn’t decide until right before I left to go back to Illinois.” When I’d woken up beside Destiny, I’d known that that was the only place I wanted to wake up for the rest of my life.
“Oh, okay. So, why didn’t you tell her then?”
Again, to anyone outside the inner circle of the Briggs family, my mom’s question would’ve been perceived as purely inquisitive. Innocent, even. But, to those with firsthand experience of the Dolly Briggs method of information excavation, it was a different story. Like any good lawyer she only asked questions that she already knew the answer to, which meant she was about to close her air-tight case.
“I wanted to surprise her,” I lied.
Normally, it was not a good idea to perjure yourself, but I wasn’t a criminal. I hadn’t done anything wrong. This was my life. My personal life.
“Is that why you turned your brothers into her own personal stalkers? So that, instead of speaking to her like a grown-up, you could surprise her?”
And there it was. I had just gotten pinned by Dolly Briggs with no way to tap out.
“You saw what happened with Brady. I just wanted to make sure she was okay.”
It’s not like I’d discussed the unfortunate and very public altercation with my mom, but everyone had seen what had gone down with Brady. It had gone viral, much to Jessie’s dismay. She might be the only PR person in history who didn’t subscribe to the “any publicity is good publicity” philosophy.
“Does she know that your ‘plan’ was the reason that, every time she turned around, another one of my sons was hovering around her?”
I shrugged.
“That’s what I thought.” She tilted her head to the side, and I knew the beat-around-the-bush portion of this conversation had drawn to a close. “What exactly do you think you’re doing?”
Crossing my arms in front of me, I straightened to my full height. My new stance wouldn’t intimidate my mom, but it made me feel slightly better. “I think I’m moving home. And I would think my mother, of all people, would be happy about that.”
“If you’re happy, then I’m happy. But that’s not what I was asking about, Jefferson James, and you know it.”
Oh shit. Full names were an even worse sign of things to come than the eyebrow raise was.
Not missing a beat, she continued, “If you want to play dumb, then fine. I’ll spell it out. What exactly do you think you’re doing with Destiny?”
I ran my hands through my hair in frustration. I wish I knew what to tell her. I wish I could answer all of her questions. But honestly, I had no idea what I was doing with her. All I knew is that I loved her and I didn’t want to spend another day without her.
“Did you really think you could come home for a holiday weekend, after bein’ gone for so long, seduce her—”
“Mom, I didn’t—”
She saw my interruption and raised me a stink eye. I knew what that look meant—if you value your life, shut your mouth. She had birthed and raised nine children, eight of which were boys, and she did not suffer fools.
“As I was saying, seduce her then disappear again for a month. Then show up out of the blue, buy a house, announce your retirement…and she would just, what? Come running into your arms?”
I shouldn’t have been shocked that my mom had summed it up so succinctly and correctly. But I was, because, yeah… That was pretty much how I’d seen it going.
Covering her mouth, she shook her head slightly as her eyes widened. This time, it was her turn to look surprised.
Apparently, my inner thoughts must have been written on my face.
“Oh. My. Gosh. You did.” Her words were muffled behind her hand. Then she patted the empty space beside her on the porch swing. “Sit down.”
Not having much of a choice, I crossed the porch in one stride and took a seat. Leaning forward, I rested my elbows on my knees.
“Listen to me.” My mom’s voice was calm and assuring. “For as long as you’ve been wrestling with your feelings for Destiny Rose—”
My head whipped her direction. “You knew?”
“Of course I knew. That girl has always had a special place in your heart. You teased her mercilessly when she was in grade school, poor thing. But you always took care of her. Don’t think I didn’t notice the way that you always made sure she didn’t ride her bike home alone, that she never had to carry groceries home from the store, and that she always had someone to ride with at the carnival when Harmony and Cara rode together. I thought it was just that you were protective of her the same way you are with your sister, but by the time Destiny hit her teens, I saw that it had changed.”
“Mom, nothing happened,” I blurted out.
I wasn’t one to get embarrassed easily, but the fact that my own mother knew I’d had an inappropriate…whatever I’d had…for an underage Destiny made me want to crawl into a hole.
“Oh, stop. I know that.” She waved her hand dismissively. “I also know that you’ve been fighting the way you feel about her and that you’ve stayed away because of it. And I know that, for some reason, the moment I said that she would be bringing her cupcakes to the annual party…you stopped fighting.”
“Wow. Am I seriously that transparent?” I’d always known that my mom had a pretty good idea of what was going on in all of her kids’ lives, but this was so specific, it was ridiculous.
“Not usually, no. But the fact that you didn’t even let me finish my sentence on the phone. Hung up on me! Then showed up hours later? That was a dead giveaway.”
“Fair enough,” I conceded, feeling a little less exposed. I’d known that that conversation had not been my subtlest.
I also knew that, if my mom, the Great and Powerful Oz, was pulling back the curtain, showing her cards, there was a point. I just hoped she’d get to it soon.
“What I was trying to say was that, as long as you’ve had feelings for Destiny, the torch she’s been carrying for you has burned brighter and longer. She’s looked at you with stars in her eyes since she hit pre-K. That’s not something to take lightly. Yes, you had good reason to stay away. Keeping your distance was the right thing to do. Ethically, morally, and legally.” She let out a forced laugh. “And I know that, once you set your mind to something, you get it. Usually without much effort on your part. But, JJ, that doesn’t mean that everything is just going to fall into place with you two. Especially after the boneheaded move you just pulled.”
“Boneheaded?”
My mom defended her children to the death to anyone and everyone. No one spoke a bad word about them without feeling her wrath. But, when it came to telling them when they were screwing up, she pulled zero punches.
“Boneheaded,” she repeated.
A smile lifted on my lips. Mom never pointed out how we were messing up without telling us exactly the path we should be on instead. I wasn’t exactly batting a thousand in the Destiny department, and if my mom had some insight on how to up my batting average, well, I’d have been a fool not to listen.
Imagine my surprise when, without another word, my mom rose and started towards the back door.
“Hey.” I stood. “That’s it? I was a bonehead? Don’t you have some words of wisdom to impart?”
Looking over her shoulder, she chuckled as she pulled the back door open. “Now, what would the fun be in that?” Her smile grew larger and genuine love was infused as she said before heading inside, “Welcome home, son.”
“Thanks,” I mumbled as the door shut behind her.
Not knowing what else to do I sat back down on the swing and watched the sun set. Bonehead. I was sure Destiny would have a much more colorful way to describe my behavior—not that she’d say it out loud. She’d spell it in her head. And knowing that made me love her that much more.