My Life as an Album (Books 1-4): A small town, southern fiction series

by LJ Evans

  It was late. I was pretty sure that Derek was asleep or lost in Mia, but I was going crazy.

  ME: I need help.

  It took a while for the little ellipses to come back saying that he was responding.

  DEREK: More than normal?

  ME: Yep.

  DEREK: No quip back, it must be bad.

  ME: She agreed to a date.

  DEREK: About fucking time.

  When I didn’t reply, Derek eventually came back with his own addition to our conversation.

  DEREK: So, what’s the problem?

  ME: Everything. Plan. Babysitting. Plan.

  DEREK: We’ll watch Edie.

  ME: I feel guilty about leaving Edie out of it.

  DEREK: You need grown-up time.

  ME: When did you become a parenting expert?

  DEREK: Do you want help, or do you want me to tell you to fuck off?

  ME: Help.

  DEREK: Wow. You really are screwed up over this. Call me tomorrow. We’ll figure it out.

  ME: Thanks, man.

  DEREK: Love you too, asshole.

  I left it at that, but I still couldn’t sleep. Excitement. Pressure. Worry. What if it went horribly wrong even though I knew we were horribly right for each other? I’d never done a date with the idea of it being for the long haul. I’d only done dates for the one-nighter. Many of them weren’t even dates. They were just two people, wired on adrenaline, and losing themselves in sex. And I knew I didn’t want any of that for my date with Wynn, even if it ended in sex.

  I brushed a hand over my stupid beard. It wasn’t sex with Wynn. That was the problem. It was that stupid “making love” phrase that people used that I’d always cringed at and now understood. The thought of losing myself in her skin was so different from any thought I’d ever had about sex.

  I must have eventually fallen asleep on the couch, in my clothes, because I woke to my phone ringing on my stomach and a crick in my neck that wasn’t going away any time soon. Not a great fucking start for my day. My phone was still vibrating and singing to me all at once. I picked it up without looking at it.

  “Hello?”

  “Leander. It’s Mark.”

  I sat up, hands rubbing the crick at the back of my neck, elbows to my knees.

  “Yeah?”

  “I was hoping we could have breakfast before we left.”

  I didn’t want to deal with Rochelle over breakfast. I didn’t want to deal with Mark much either, but especially not Rochelle. As if sensing my hesitancy, Mark added on, “It’s just me. Rochelle has a migraine. She’s going to stay at the hotel until we have to leave for the airport.”

  “Okay. I have to wake Edie up. She’s still sleeping.”

  “No hurry. Maybe ten? Do you have a place you want to meet?”

  I told him the name of the only diner in town. The place where I’d been with Wynn and her parents before they’d gone bowling with us. Mark said he’d see me there and hung up.

  My hand hovered over Wynn’s number. It was still early, but for some reason I didn’t want to do this without her. I needed her there. To make sure I didn’t lose my shit and go off on Mark and Rochelle and our whole fucked up lives. How they hadn’t cared about leaving us behind. How they’d made it okay for Lita to leave us behind because that’s all she’d learned from them.

  “Lonnie?” she asked, her voice still hazy with sleep, the way I liked it every time she’d spent the night next to me in my bed. I wanted to make her sound like that for other reasons. I knew I could make that happen, and my jeans were suddenly uncomfortably tight.

  “I’m sorry to call so early.”

  “Is everything okay?”

  “Yeah. I’m just a fucking wuss.”

  “Why? What happened? More bodily fluids?” Her voice was teasing as well as serious.

  “No. Not that. Mark wants to have breakfast. No Rochelle. Just Mark.”

  “Oh.”

  She was awake now. I could hear the shifting of her blankets as she sat up. I wondered if she had her tiny tank top on or a t-shirt. I’d seen her in both. Had liked her in both. “Will you come with me?”

  “Do you think that’s a good idea?” she asked.

  “I wouldn’t have called if I didn’t.”

  “But what if he wants to—”

  “Spill his guts?”

  “Well…yeah.”

  “The more reason for you to be there,” I said with determination in my voice. I couldn’t handle Mark’s guts on my own. Bodily fluids in a different form.

  “Okay. What time and where?”

  “I’ll pick you up.”

  “Lonnie.”

  “Fine. Ten o’clock. The diner.”

  She agreed to meet us there, and then we hung up and I missed her calming influence already. Our roles had switched so many times in our journey together. My calm to her crazy, her calm to my crazy. At least we hadn’t both gone crazy at the same time. Not yet anyway.

  When Edie and I walked into the diner, Mark was standing by the “Please Wait To Be Seated” sign. He looked uncomfortable and tired. He ran a hand down his face and his beard in a motion that I recognized as mine. I hadn’t ever realized that it was a habit I’d picked up from him. Could physical habits like that be genetic?

  When he looked up and saw us, he smiled weakly. “Hey!”

  Edie waved at him, and he tweaked her nose. She giggled. The hostess came up. “Three?” she asked.

  “Four,” I told her.

  Mark looked surprised but didn’t comment.

  The hostess grabbed a child’s menu, and three other menus and led the way across the room to a booth. “Do you want a booster seat?” I shook my head. We’d been moving away from the booster seats and the diapers. Edie was making progress. The waitress put the menus down. “Coffee?”

  Mark and I both said yes, and she left. I put Edie in the booth and handed her the crayons and the children’s paper menu. She started coloring it right away this time. No confusion over what to do. Mark watched her.

  “She looks so much like Lita.” His voice was tight with emotion. I didn’t respond. I couldn’t respond. “You’re doing an amazing job, Leander.”

  “Lonnie,” Wynn’s voice said over my shoulder, and I turned, unsure if she was correcting my dad or if she was just getting my attention.

  I got up, kissing her cheek, as she eased into the same side of the booth as Edie and me. She picked Edie up and set her on her lap. “Wynn!” Edie hugged her tightly, and Wynn kissed the top of her head.

  “Hey, my favorite super hero.”

  Edie giggled. Mark watched it all.

  The waitress came with our coffees, took our order, and said she’d be back with a coffee for Wynn and a juice for Edie.

  “You look like you belong together,” Mark said. Wynn and I both looked up at him startled. “If no one knew any better, it would look like Edie belonged to both of you.”

  It was the truth. I knew it. I think Wynn even knew it, but we’d never said it aloud. Wynn’s auburn hair and pale skin matched Edie’s and mine even though her hair was so much richer and Edie’s was so much paler. I was in between—the tomato-haired man.

  The waitress came, and Wynn ordered for the three of us, knowing by now what I always ordered when we went to breakfast and also knowing that I’d correct her if I’d changed my mind. I wondered what Mark thought about it.

  In the silence that the waitress left behind was an awkwardness. Wynn’s hand made its way to my thigh, squeezing, letting me know she was there, but also encouraging me. Telling me to be the bigger man. Maybe she wasn’t, but that’s what I chose to read into it.

  “I’m glad you came, Mark.” I knew I should add that I was sorry for losing my cool with Rochelle last night. For asking her to leave after she’d upset Wynn. After she’d made Wynn talk about the babies.

  “I shouldn’t have made Rochelle come.”

  “Probabl
y not. She’s better without the reminder of us,” I told him honestly.

  Mark bowed his head. “She knows she failed. It’s what makes her hate herself.”

  “Herself? You mean us. Lita and me,” I snapped back and then took a breath, trying to get control again. Wynn’s hand rubbed my leg soothingly.

  “She doesn’t hate you. She hates herself for not being able to be the perfect mom like she’s perfect at everything else in her life,” Mark said quietly.

  I sniggered, unbelieving.

  Mark looked from me to Wynn and then back, shifting uncomfortably. “Look…I should have told you this a long time ago, but I didn’t. I didn’t want to say it wrong and screw up Lita more than she was already screwed up.”

  He sighed, brushed his hand over his beard again, and then sat up straighter, leaning forward. “Rochelle has been perfect her whole life. She had to be. It was expected of her from her parents. Her dad. When I married her, it was the first time someone didn’t expect her to be perfect. But she’d had it banged into her for so long that she couldn’t let it go. And when she agreed to marry me, it was on the condition that we’d never have kids.”

  “What?” I couldn’t help the surprise that came out of my lips. I glanced at Wynn, and she didn’t seem as surprised.

  “I was fine with that. She said she didn’t know how to be a good parent. She’d had shitty examples. She didn’t want to do the same thing.”

  “Oh, hell,” I sighed.

  “We thought we were being careful, using protection. But…well, like the box says, it’s only ninety-eight percent effective.” Mark shrugged with a wry grin. The thought of my parents going at it like bunnies was not a pleasant thought at ten in the morning.

  “When she found out she was pregnant, she made an appointment for an abortion. She didn’t even tell me. She just made it. I only found out by accident, and I was furious that she was going to make that decision without consulting me.”

  I didn’t really want to pity Mark or Rochelle, but suddenly I couldn’t help it. The tenuous situation that they had found themselves in.

  Mark cleared his throat and continued, “I got her to agree to keep the baby. Promised I’d help. Promised we’d have others help. That she wouldn’t have to do it on her own. Promised she didn’t need to be perfect. That no parent was perfect.”

  “And then she had twins,” I said in resignation.

  Mark nodded. “It was too much for her.”

  I felt Wynn stiffen next to me, felt her hand tighten on my leg. “They were her babies,” Wynn said quietly.

  Mark looked over at Wynn, taking her in. “I’m not sure you can understand that. If you’ve wanted kids. If you want kids.” He looked from Wynn to Edie in her lap where Wynn had her nestled with love. “I’m not making excuses. I know that’s what it sounds like.”

  Wynn removed her hand from my thigh and squeezed Edie in a hug so tight that Edie squirmed. I hated that everything about my parents and Lita always reminded her of what she’d lost.

  Mark looked back at me. “You know how Lita was ill? How she was never going to not have her mental illness? But how she could just control it at times better than others?”

  I nodded, trying not to react at hearing him say what he’d never once said to Lita.

  “It’s pretty much the same with Rochelle. She controls the voices in her head telling her to be perfect better at times than others. Children aren’t perfect. Raising children can’t be perfect. She couldn’t deal with that.”

  Mark was trying to get me to understand Rochelle. To understand the parentless childhood. But his explanation was only making me more pissed. “If she knew that, then she should have understood Lita even better. It should have been a bond. And yet, she was always all over Lita about just getting over it, picking herself up, and moving on.”

  Mark nodded. “I know.”

  “And you did nothing,” I said, anger curling through me. Edie looked up, eyes moving from me to Mark to Wynn, sensing my mood. I tried to control my voice. For her.

  “I know,” Mark said again. “I love your mom. I was doing everything I could for the person I love more than life itself.”

  Which meant more than his kids. And that stung. Six months ago, if he’d told me that, I wouldn’t have been anywhere near close enough to understanding that. But now, with Wynn sitting next to me—a woman I think I loved more than life itself—well, I guess a tiny piece of me could understand that. But could I love and support Wynn at the cost of Edie’s happiness? I don’t think I could. I don’t know how I would react if I was in his shoes. That made me pity Mark more than anything. That he’d had to choose.

  I also understood why Mark was telling me all of this now. He could see the way I looked at Wynn and Edie. He could see that I might just be able to catch a glimpse of what he’d gone through with Rochelle. Maybe he thought that if I couldn’t forget, or even forgive, that maybe I could at least move forward.

  The waitress came, setting down the breakfasts that I was pretty sure no one but Edie wanted or would eat now. Wynn spread the butter and syrup on Edie’s pancakes with Edie chattering about more and enough. The adults were quiet, watching the little being that was in this world because of my sister who had been so lost that she’d chosen to disappear for good.

  “I can’t excuse anything we did, Lea—Lonnie.” I looked up at him as he said my name for the first time. The name I’d always been called by everyone but my parents. Even the housekeepers and nannies had called me Lonnie, just not the two people who were supposed to love me the most.

  Mark met my eyes with his own. They were filled with sincerity and a shimmer that said he was fighting emotions that I’d never known he really had. “I’m not asking you to forgive us. I’m just asking that you allow us—me—to continue to be a part of your lives. To have a chance to know my granddaughter. To try to be a better grandparent than I was a parent.”

  The silence was loaded. Full of wants and desires that had nothing to do with sex. Full of hopes, and fears, and rejections. My brain and heart were warring with each other.

  “Rochelle?” I finally squeaked out, sounding like the boy I’d been before my voice had changed at thirteen.

  He paused. “I don’t know. I can’t speak for her. I can only speak for myself.”

  I took a deep breath and thought hard about what Lita would want. What Lita without drugs would have wanted. What she’d always wanted her whole life. To be loved by her parents. To be accepted. To have someone—besides her stupid twin brother—tell her that she was enough. If she’d been sitting there, holding Edie like Wynn was, what would she want?

  She’d have wanted Rochelle’s approval. It was what she’d wanted more than anything. But it also seemed like Rochelle was never going to be in a place to accept anyone—even herself. Mark was here, though, asking to be a part of Edie’s life, and I couldn’t say no to that. He was her grandfather, and like he said, he’d have to figure out if he could do that better than he had been a father. I wouldn’t let him hurt Edie like he’d hurt Lita, though. I couldn’t.

  “Okay,” I said.

  Mark smiled. A smile that looked like mine. A smile that looked like Edie’s and Lita’s. And I knew I’d done the right thing, because as much as family can be the worst part of you, they are ultimately still your family. They are still part of who you are whether you walk away or not.

  Mark finished breakfast, joked a little with Edie, and then paid the check for all of us and left to get Rochelle before heading to the airport. Wynn and I sat there in silence for a few minutes, watching Edie color again.

  “You did the right thing,” Wynn finally breathed out. She tucked her hand into mine and squeezed. I knew I had, but hearing it from her still felt good.

  I looked down at her and wanted so badly to kiss her again. To taste what it felt like to be loved. To be wanted. To have found my way home in a place that was miles away from my actual one.

 
; “Derek said he and Mia would watch Edie for us when we go on our date,” I said instead of what I wanted to say, which was that I loved her.

  She looked down, but I saw the smile.

  Edie looked up at her name. “Date?” she asked.

  Her eyes were so wide and inquisitive that it made me think maybe we should just take her with us. But when I looked to Wynn and her beautiful lips, I knew I wouldn’t be able to give Wynn the attention she deserved if Edie was with us. That made me understand Mark even more. But I also knew that neither Wynn nor I would put Edie aside every damn day just to be together. We didn’t want that. We wanted her with us.

  “You get to have a date with Mia. I bet she’ll let you make cookies with her again. And Uncle Derek will show you how to play his guitar. Would you like that?”

  Edie nodded.

  “Would tomorrow be okay for the date?” I was really asking Wynn, but I said it to both my girls. I knew I was pushing Wynn, but it felt like I’d waited a goddamn century already, even though it had only been a handful of months.

  Edie shrugged, Wynn nodded, and I smiled. When they both returned my smile, my heart constricted. We slid out of the booth, and I wrapped my fingers around Wynn’s with Edie’s hand in my other hand as we walked out the door. I felt like the luckiest man alive.

  Wynn waited while I tucked Edie into the car seat, and then she nervously played with the bracelet I’d given her. It was way too much for breakfast at the diner, but I was glad she’d worn it.

  “I’ll see you tomorrow then?” she asked.

  “I’ll pick you up at noon?”

  “Noon?” Surprise hit her face, and it made me smile. But Derek and I had come up with a good plan that morning after I’d hung up with her.

  “Yep.”

  “That’s strange.” But she just smiled, and I knew her mind was already trying to figure it out as she moved away.

  “Wynn?” She turned back. “Wear something comfortable.”