Chapter Two
I spent the rest of the afternoon walking in the thicket of woods behind my house. I didn’t want anyone seeing me in my manic state. I cried, I screamed, I kicked down a dead tree, and I laughed as old random memories flickered through my mind. I don’t know why I thought I could escape to the woods and leave my grief behind as easily as stripping off my clothes of something like that. Suffocating and somber, it hung around me—a silent specter taunting and goading me. It draped over me like a heavy coat, weighing me down. The usually easy trek up the small hills felt like trudging through thick mud. My chest constricted so tightly every breath was agonizing. While over and over in my mind, the words echoed Jake is dead. Jake is dead. Jake is dead.
When I finally swept through the back door shortly before six, I found my mom pacing around in the kitchen. She was out of her usual blue or green scrubs along with her pristine white doctor’s coat. Instead, she wore one of her dark and somber “funeral dresses”. With her long, dark hair swept back in a twist, it made her blue eyes, which were sparkling with tears, stand out. I’d barely made it two more steps before she leapt at me, wrapping her arms around me. Her wet cheeks dampened my shirt, and I knew then she had been crying for a long time. “Oh Noah, when I heard, all I could think about was what if it had been you. Just the thought of losing you…” her voice choked off with her sobs.
“I know,” I croaked, although I wasn’t sure I did. Patting her back absentmindedly, I tried in my own fumbling way to comfort her.
“Thank God, you’re all right.” She then began rubbing comforting circles over my back just like she had done my entire life when I was hurt physically or emotionally. “I’m so sorry, sweetie,” she murmured over and over in my ear.
I pushed myself away from her, giving her skeptical look. “Oh, come on, Mom. You know you hated Jake.”
“That’s not true!” she protested.
I cocked one eyebrow at her. “Really?”
“Okay, maybe I disliked what he became later in life, but I never hated him,” she admitted.
I knew that was probably closer to the truth. She hated that Jake was a manwhoring player because it hit too close to home with her when it came to my father.
Mom exhaled a sad, defeated sigh. “I like to think of Jake when he was younger—that mischievous little boy with the crooked grin.” A hesitant smile played on the corners of her lips. “Remember when you guys were little how he always acted like Eddie Haskell from those old Leave it to Beaver reruns whenever he was around me?”
I couldn’t help laughing. Before he hit puberty, Jake was forever helping her carry in groceries, straightening up the kitchen, or telling her she looked pretty or smelled nice. Basically, he hung on to her every word like a lovesick puppy.
But then the way my mother felt about Jake began to change when we got to high school. It was then that that Jake informed me my mom was a MILF. I was well acquainted with the term from the movie American Pie. The moment the words left his lips I almost punched his face in. So what if it’s a well-known fact my mother is beautiful? She’s a dead ringer for the late Elizabeth Taylor. So much so, that all her friends nicknamed her Liz, which wasn’t too far off since her middle name was Elizabeth. Growing up, I never got the analogy since my only frame of reference was the old chick in the really airbrushed White Diamonds perfume commercials. My mom’s mom, or Grammy as I call her, swears when I was three, I saw one of Elizabeth’s earliest movies, National Velvet, on TV and cried, “Mommy!”
It wouldn’t have mattered to me if she looked just like Angelina Jolie cause no self-respecting male wants to acknowledge the fact their mom is hot. It’s freakin’ sick and warped.
Mom snapped me out of my thoughts. “Did you hear me, Noah?”
“Huh?”
“I spoke with Jake’s mom earlier while you were gone to the woods. She wanted you to come over tonight.”
Shit. That explained Mom’s mourning attire. Damn, the last thing on earth I wanted to do was go over to Jake’s house and face his parents.
Mom noticed my hesitation. She ran her hand over my cheek. “It would mean a lot to Mrs. Nelson, Noah.”
I nodded. “I’ll go change.”
“When you get done, come help me load the car, okay?” She motioned towards the table that was loaded down with food for the Nelson’s.
“Whatever,” I replied, and then pounded up the stairs.
I knew that deep down my mom hated Jake because he reminded her too much of my father. Though I guess sperm donor would be a better way of describing my dear old dad. You see, my mom got pregnant with me when she was seventeen. It was a major shock to everyone considering my mom was the angel of the family. As the only girl with five brothers what the hell could you possibly get away with anyway?
My uncles were legendary at Creekview High School. They were known as the Mighty M Sullivan’s because of their athletic ability. There wasn’t a sport there they didn’t dominate, and surprisingly, they each had one that was their specialty. Mark was a Golden Glove in baseball, Mike was the quarterback of the football team, Matt was an all-state guard in basketball, Mitch was a wrestler, and Mason was lighting in track.
By the time my mom entered high school, their reputation was enough to steer every horny a*shole away from her. Once any panty chaser found out she was Maggie Sullivan, they ran the other way with their tail between their legs. But it really didn’t matter to my mom because she was the ultimate goody girl, Straight A’s, National Honors Society, Academic Team—any brainiac thing, she did it because she had her eye set on medical school and becoming a doctor.
Like Jake, Joe Preston was a major player A real smooth operator who weaseled himself into the good graces of all my uncles and my grandparents and made the entire family believe he walked on water. He was my Uncle Mark’s best friend all through high school, and then they both ended up at the University of Georgia with a full ride in baseball.
By senior year, Joe and my Uncle Mike were both being scouted by major league teams. Because his family wasn’t the lovey dovey type that my mom’s was, Joe spent occasional holidays at the house—a Thanksgiving, an Easter, an odd weekend here or there. But this time, he spent the entire month of August at my grandparents’ cabin in the mountains.
Now my mother’s never told me any of this. All my information has come from my uncles or older cousins over the years. The way they told the story read like some NC-17 rated fairy tale: oversexed wolf charms innocent lamb resulting in an unexpected pregnancy.
I guess it goes without saying that at twenty-one with a major league career ahead of him filled with money, fast cars, parties and women my dad wasn’t ready to settle down. He bolted, and basically he’s never looked back.
Sometimes I personally think it’s easier for some kids to have a dead-beat dad. Yeah, the pain is there, but you can push it to the backburner cause you don’t see the a*shole much. For me, my douchebag dad was shoved in my face constantly. The worst was April through October—the months of the major league baseball season. I had to see and hear my father’s stats constantly. Even now at thirty-eight, he’s still one of the most sought after pitchers in the National League. He’s currently playing for the San Diego Padres, but he’s been with some of the biggies all over the country.
So for a while my mom was the black sheep of the family. A kind of conspicuous black sheep who had been the Salutatorian of her graduating class and was slated to start medical school. But she didn’t remain that way for long for two reasons. One was that my Uncle Matt went on a mission trip to Brazil, met a girl, and got married all within eight weeks. To my very Southern, old-school family, marrying a foreigner was some pretty heavy shit. But just like my mom, they got over it. That’s where my cousin, Alex, comes in, or I guess I should say Alejandro Matthew Sullivan. Seriously, there’s nothing like a Brazilian Irishman! Of course, Alex has always been more of a brother to me than just a cousin. We didn’t go to the same elementary or middle schools, but luckily by the time high school rolled around, we were back together. Jake took an instant liking to Alex, and during the summers, we were a lot like the Three Musketeers hanging out together.
The other reason was my mom worked her ass off to make her dream of becoming a doctor a reality. Fortunately for her, one of the best medical schools in the country, Emory University, was practically in her backyard. Because of her love of babies, she became an OB/GYN, and she was now part of one of the biggest practices in town.
My eyes rolled towards the ceiling as I thought about how Jake always found Mom’s profession fascinating. Whenever I would shrug my shoulders and be like, “So?”
“Dude,” he’d say. “Don’t you get the beauty of it? She looks at tits and ass all day long!”
Yeah, that was Jake.
At the thought of him, the burning ache I was growing accustomed to seared its way through my chest like bad heartburn after an all-night beer and pizza binge. He wouldn’t be making any more pervy comments about my mom being a MILF or that she specialized in looking at vaginas.
Because he was dead.
I shook my head wildly back and forth so fast I thought I might get whiplash. No, I couldn’t start with the bullshit emotions again. I had to keep it together, especially now that Mom was dragging me over to Jake’s house. Just the thought of being over there without Jake sent a shiver down my spine. There hadn’t been a single time in my life that I’d been there without him.
With a heavy sigh, I dragged myself over to the closet. Swinging open the door, I stepped inside and scanned the racks. I knew Mom wanted me looking nice and respectable, so I grabbed a pair of khaki pants and a nice blue button down shirt. After I slicked my usually out-of-control dark hair back, I hurried back downstairs and met my mom in the kitchen.
Rolling a silver tube of lipstick across her lips, she nodded in approval at the sight of me. “You always look so handsome in blue,” she mused. “It brings out those beautiful blue eyes.”
“Whatever, Mom,” I grumbled as I eyed the feast on the table. “So, when did you do all this?”
She smiled shyly. “I didn’t. Grammy did.”
I picked up the Pot Roast and nodded. I hadn’t seriously considered Mom had done the cooking. Besides the fact she had some crazy batshit hours, she’d also never quite learned to cook like her mom, the fabulous Southern diva who put Paula Deen to shame.
By the time we finished loading, the back of my mom’s SUV was packed with food. Mom closed the hatch and threw me a glance. “Ready?”
I wanted to say, “Ready? Are you freakin’ crazy? There’s nothing on earth I want to do less than going to Jake’s house!”
But instead, I gave Mom a weak smile. “Yeah, let’s go.”
***