“Geez, Diana. Chill out. Just come over to the beach. I rented a house for me and the kids and Lanna, and I thought I’d bring Phillip too.”
“That’s all well and good, Charles, but in case you didn’t remember, our brother has autism. New environments are very hard for him. Change makes him anxious.”
“I know, Di. His doctor and I talked all about it.”
That fired me up good, Charles acting like him and Phillip’s doctor were just best friends when he’d met him maybe twice. “So what’s your plan then? Just checking him out for the week and dumping him back in there?”
He sighed. “Why don’t you come on over here, please.”
I told Frank the address.
I crossed my arms, still huffing. “Just takes him away like I wasn’t even going to know. I should have been there to talk him through it. I should have been able to warn him. He probably doesn’t even know who Charles is. He’s probably terrified.”
I knew Charles only had Phillip’s best interest at heart, but I was the one who had been there day in and day out. It was hard to let go of the control.
All of that floated away when we drove up to a plain yellow house, and Charles and Phillip were sitting in rockers on the porch, just like old times, just like regular brothers and nothing had changed.
Maybe it was all the pregnancy hormones, but I could feel my eyes filling up right off. I didn’t even think he’d seen me, but as soon as I got to the top step, Phillip said, “Diana,” and then I started crying for real. There was something about seeing him living his life like he should have been all this time that killed me—and made me the happiest I’d ever been at the same time. He stood up, and I wanted to hug him so bad, but I knew I couldn’t; I knew it would make him agitated. This moment was too perfect for that.
“Phillip.” I said it quiet like I couldn’t believe it was really him. I reached up real slow and so careful and held his cheeks in my hands. He didn’t even flinch too bad. “Phillip, you’re here.”
“Yeah,” he said, giving me that goofy grin of his that I loved so much. “Diana, you always come and see me. I love you. You’re the best sister.” He said it in his slow, stilted way, but to me it was music.
And I was all crying and a wreck again because I hadn’t seen my brother out in the real world in so long.
He was rubbing his fingers together, and I knew I was making him nervous, so I pulled myself together. “I love when you come see me,” he said.
I looked at Charles, and he looked at me, and it was one of those moments that I think can only happen between siblings or lovers or best friends. We just looked at each other, and in that look was the happiness that our brother was back and doing good and the sadness for all the years we’d lost.
“We met with a new doctor a couple days ago,” Charles said, standing up, “and she’s got him on something that’s really helped his anger and outbursts, something that helps him with being scared of people touching him, and another drug that’s even helping the way his hands do. And they’re getting him into occupational therapy, and there’s a bunch of stuff we can do to help with his talking and stuff.” He shrugged. “I mean, he can’t take care of himself or nothing, but as long as he’s got somebody to help him out, this might work.”
Now I was confused. A new doctor. Occupational therapy. “Are you taking him back with you to Asheville?”
“Actually—” Charles started.
I heard the glass door swing open before I saw it. And there she was, that sorry excuse for a mother. She made me sick, even having to look at her. Her cheeks were sort of saggy and sallow, deep lines around her eyes and mouth. Her eyes, they looked tired but also hopeful all at once, world-weary like she’d seen too much for one life. Her hair was dark like mine with gray at the roots, tucked behind ears that stuck out a little too far. She was my same height but thin. I mean, I’m thin when I’m not pregnant, but she was too thin.
“Phillip is going to come live with me,” she said. She hugged him sideways, and he laid his head on hers like she’d never left him, like she didn’t disappear, like she didn’t just throw him out to the wolves or the social service people, and I wasn’t sure which one was worse. I was shocked. Absolutely shocked. Normally that much physical contact would be a trigger for Phillip. But I guessed even all these years later, she was his momma. She was still the only one who could really comfort him.
“Oh yeah. That’s a great idea,” I said as sarcastically as I could manage, grateful that Phillip didn’t catch on to sarcasm. “Who do you think you are?” I could feel myself getting worked up again, but before I was all the way down that steamed-up road, Phillip in his simple, stilted way said, “Diana, this is our mom. She takes good care of us, remember?”
I felt those tears coming again, and I did remember. I did. That’s why it was so hard. I remembered laughing with her. I remembered having fun with her. I remembered building pillow and blanket forts that nobody cared if we cleaned up and turning cardboard boxes into spaceships and sitting around that pitiful cast-off Christmas tree feeling happy together, feeling like a family. We didn’t have a daddy, but we didn’t need one. Momma, she maybe couldn’t keep food on the table for us all the time, but she loved us.
“Diana,” Mom said softly, “I know you’re angry, and I know you’re hurt, and being left alone as a child is the most unspeakable thing. I never in a million years would have left you on purpose. I went out of my mind, but I’ve cleaned myself up. It was a battle every single day, but every time I wanted to go back to that life of drugs and drinking and emptiness, I thought about you. I did it for you, for all of you. It has taken me until now to be totally sure that I will never go back to where I was again, to even hope that maybe I could be a part of your lives. I know I don’t deserve it, but…” Her voice broke.
I guess, if I really got to thinking about it, I started to feel sorry for her then. A little—not much. Because I already loved this baby so much. And I knew, way deep in my heart, even all this time later, that my momma, she loved us something fierce. But I didn’t care about her excuses or nothing else. I was done with her.
I glared at Charles. “When this all goes down the tubes and she forgets to feed Phillip for three days, you just call me instead of dumping him back in that institution. You hear?” And I guess really what was going on inside me was fear. A whole lot of fear. Taking care of Phillip the way he needed and deserved to be taken care of was going to be a full-time job. Could Momma handle that?
Frank put his arm around my shoulders, and it was like I could hear him saying, Calm down.
I turned to walk away again, but Phillip said, in that childlike way of his that was so innocent and so profound, “Diana, our mom loves you. Don’t you love her too?”
The tears were spilling over on my cheeks now. I loved her so much that I couldn’t bear to have her back. The only way for me to deal with the pain of losing her the first time was to think that she was dead.
I thought about Gray and what she wouldn’t give if she’d thought her mom was dead and she came back. Maybe if I could just be a little more like Charles or a little more like Phillip, a little more forgiving and a little simpler, maybe I could just let myself be happy and maybe we could be a family, all of us.
I didn’t really want to, but it was like something outside me made me start walking right then, and I kept walking until I was back in the arms of my momma, and I was crying, and she was crying, and Charles was looking like his pig just won Best in Show at the fair. Everybody was happy, so I figured there wasn’t much else to do but be happy too.
For a minute, I was that little girl again, the little girl whose momma left her, that eleven-year-old clinging to anybody who would even think about loving her or trying to fill up that huge, gaping hole that her momma leaving had put there. Frank coming back had helped, and that baby being in there had helped. But now my momma was here. She was back. It might have been twenty-nine years too late, but if this year had taught me
something, it was that, in reality, it was never too late for anything.
gray: wicked spin serve
My strategic growth team on my old website (i.e. two of my college roommates and some guy that sold Greg weed) used to study Baby Center and What to Expect When You’re Expecting when we were planning our marketing. They were masters of getting people to sign up for an email list and stick with it long-term, and in studying them, trying to gain some insight from their massive success, I’d read a whole lot of their articles.
Today, I wished I still had my App because, in my eight years of parenting, I’d rarely been this nervous. I needed some guidance.
I’d gone over and over and over it in my head. Andrew thought that maybe he should come too. But I knew this was something that should come from your mom. It didn’t matter that Wagner loved Andrew, that he thought he was cool and enjoyed playing tennis with him. No one wants his mom to date anyone new. That’s normal. But I rationalized that when he was all grown up with a family of his own, he would appreciate that I had found my own life and didn’t spend every waking minute trying to control his. So, really, I could convince myself, I was doing this for him.
But when he walked through the back door, I lost my nerve. Completely. “Hi, cutie pie!” I hugged him and planted a big kiss on his cheek.
He rolled his eyes and said, “M-o-o-om.”
I was so embarrassing. I know. I was also so tired because I had stayed up all night worrying about my son’s reaction to his mother dating—and not just dating anyone, dating the hunky tennis pro. He walked to the fridge and pulled out a bottle of water and took a sip.
“So,” I said. “What do you want for lunch?”
He looked around. “Where’s Diana?”
“She’s off planning her wedding.” This was a good way to procrastinate. I could talk about Diana. “She’s getting married here,” I said, “on our front lawn. Isn’t that so fun?”
He shrugged. “Yeah. That will be really cool. Hey, can we go out to eat or something?”
I gave him my most offended look. “You don’t want me to whip up something delicious for you?”
“Sorry, Mom. I’m going to go play tennis with Johnny later, and food poisoning will really throw me off my game.” He grinned, and I ran my fingers through that sweet head of blond hair, remembering how white it had gotten in the summers when he was a baby. But he wasn’t a baby now. He was growing up, and he was going to figure out what was going on if I didn’t tell him.
I picked my bag up off the floor and said, “Sure, bud. Where would you like to go?”
“I know it’s kind of far, but can we go to Beaufort Grocery?”
Perfect. Fifteen whole minutes in the car to discuss the Andrew situation. I couldn’t chicken out or else it would seem sort of strange when he came to Disney World with us. Only, after we got in the car and had talked about Wagner’s week and the tests he had and who he wanted to invite to his birthday party, we were at the restaurant. You can’t talk about this stuff in a restaurant.
After about the third bite of my overflowing cobb salad, I realized that if I didn’t get this off my chest I was going to be too sick to eat.
“Buddy,” I said, wiping my mouth, “I need to tell you something, and I want you to know that you are allowed to feel however you want about this, and we can talk about it and we will figure everything out. Okay?”
He looked at me like I had grown a unicorn horn and said, “Okay.”
I took a deep breath. “I’m dating Andrew.”
He looked confused for a minute. Then he lit up. “Andrew from the Straits Club?”
I nodded enthusiastically.
“Mom, that’s awesome! Now he can teach me that wicked spin serve!” He took a bite of his sandwich and said, with his mouth full, “Johnny is going to be so jealous. Do you think you’ll get married? I mean, he’d be the coolest step-dad ever!”
I raised my eyebrows. This really wasn’t how I saw this conversation going. I wanted to be thrilled, but I felt like somehow that was the wrong reaction. “I don’t know, buddy. There’s a long way between dating and marriage. We’re just enjoying each other’s company for now.”
He nodded. “Okay. Hey!” He brightened. “If you get married, do you think we could get our own ball machine?”
Seriously? “I don’t know, sweetie. We’ll see. Do you have any concerns or anything? Do you have any questions? Anything you want to talk about?”
He nodded, and I braced myself.
“Yeah. When’s Diana going to be back?”
So that was it. A night of sleep that I would never get back and all that worry for absolutely nothing. He couldn’t have cared less. I didn’t know if it was because he was eight, and he didn’t really get it, if it was because he liked Andrew so much, or if it was because my screw-up of an ex had paved the way, but, whatever the reason my son was so laid-back about my dating, I was eternally, unendingly grateful.
For about an hour. Then I called Marcy. “He didn’t care,” I said.
“He’s an eight-year-old boy,” she replied. “It will come to him little by little. He’ll have questions. You’ll be there. I’ll be there.” Then her voice took on an undeniable glee when she said, “Andrew will be there!”
We both laughed. Andrew would be there. He absolutely would. And for the first time in a long time—maybe ever—that didn’t make me feel conflicted. Not even a little.
CHAPTER 23
gray: the very best year of your life
It was the day I had been dreading. Only, as the sun came up and the water gleamed outside the window and Andrew was beside me, I realized that maybe it wasn’t going to be as bad as I thought.
Diana came by early and handed me a cake. “Before you get all sassy, I am still perfectly capable of making cake. I’m pregnant, not on my deathbed.” She winked at me. Then she paused, her face changing. “This is bad timing,” she said, “but can we forget it’s your birthday for five minutes?”
I crossed my arms. “I’m trying to.”
“I lied to you.”
I could feel my heart racing. Diana had become one of my best friends in the world. More than that. She had become my protective big sister, the mother figure I had needed so desperately.
“Bill Marcus didn’t fire me because of you.”
Ohhhhh. I put on my most confident face and could feel myself blinking really fast. “Well, I’m disappointed that you felt you needed to lie to me, but I’m ready to move forward.”
She studied my face. “Oh. So you did know.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
She nodded. “Okay, so that’s how you’re going to play it?”
“It is indeed.”
“Thank you, Gray. I’m grateful. Truly.”
I could feel myself welling up, mostly because I felt grateful. She’d made me feel like I had somebody again, like I had a person to count on no matter what, to turn to with anything. But I didn’t have to say it because I knew she knew. And now I knew I could trust her. I knew I could get what I had been thinking off my chest. “Di, you were right,” I said.
She smiled. “Aren’t I always?” She paused. “But why now?”
“I was so mad at my mom.”
She nodded.
“I felt so abandoned by her. But you changed all that for me. You made me see that my mom wasn’t choosing to leave me. That’s just how it ended up. You and your mom made me see that I had to move forward from those feelings, even if it was hard.”
And it was true. “Well, good. That’s something, right?” She got up and hugged me.
“You have helped my heart so much,” I said.
“Okay,” she said. “Enough. Birthday back on! Am I the first to tell you happy birthday?”
A scantily-clad-as-usual Andrew entered the room and said, “Oh, believe you me, Diana, I made sure this one had a very pleasant entrance into her thirty-fifth year.”
I grinned at him. I wanted to tell
him that I was actually beginning my thirty-sixth year, but that made me feel even older, so I let it go.
Diana said, “Gross,” but I could tell she was amused.
The back door flung open and Price, Marcy, and Quinn trailed in with three bottles of champagne, singing, “Happy birthday to you…”
And, as a familiar figure came in on their heels, I squealed, “Trey!”
I leaned over on Andrew, who wrapped me up and planted a kiss on me. “Is this happening?” I asked.
“Oh, it’s happening,” he said. “But if it makes you feel any better, I think your ass is tighter now than it was at thirty-four.”
“That would make me feel better,” Marcy said.
Quinn popped a cork and said, “Yay for thirty-five-year-old asses!”
“Guys,” I said, “I love y’all. But it’s eight a.m. Could you come back at, like, noon?”
Price looked at me like I had lost my mind. “You’ll need to be well lubricated by noon to ensure that the thirty-five depression doesn’t set in.” He handed me a glass of champagne and gave Andrew the up-and-down. “Jesus,” he said. “I think I’m pretty much the most amazing thing ever, so to say I’m in a deep depression right now isn’t an understatement.”
I looked at him, confused.
“You left me for that?”
I examined Andrew’s perfectly defined abs and muscular arms, precious dimples, and that gorgeous face. Damn, he was hot. It never got old. “It’s not only because he looks like a model,” I said seriously.
“Yeah,” Andrew said, yawning. “She loves me for my brilliant mind.”
We all had glasses. Quinn raised hers and said, “To my sister, the most beautiful thirty-five-year-old I’ve ever known.”
We clinked glasses and drank. Well, Diana didn’t drink.
“To my best friend,” Marcy said. I braced myself for something raunchy or inappropriate, so it surprised me when she said, “Who is positively timeless.”
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