I kept the grin pinned to my face as the clothes I was carrying, my dog and I turned into the kitchen.
“Morning,” I said to both occupants, neither of whom were hiding that they were still pissed. So I thought it safe to let my fake grin fade and venture, “Is everything okay?”
Maris looked to the floor.
Sam came to me, wrapped his fingers around the back of my head and pulled me in and up to my toes then commenced in laying a hard, short, closed-mouthed kiss on my lips.
He let me go but didn’t move out of my space when he muttered, “Hittin’ the gym. Be back in a couple of hours.”
A couple of hours?
Sam didn’t mess around working out. I knew this because he was never back before an hour was up and usually didn’t return for an hour and a half. The same with when he ran.
But a couple of hours, never.
“Okay,” I whispered then kept trying, asking softly, “You okay?”
“Great,” he lied, moved away, jerked his chin up at his mother and disappeared behind the stairs.
I looked to Maris. “Did I interrupt something?”
She was watching the back of the stairs, the residual anger on her face now mixed liberally with concern.
She wiped it clean, looked at me, gave me a small smile and didn’t lie so much as evade when she answered, “We’re family. We talk a lot. We share a lot. And sometimes we fight though luckily not a lot. It happens, we get over it. My Sammy’s like his Mama. We sometimes rub each other the wrong way but it doesn’t last long. Promise. Now do you want coffee?”
She was trying to change the subject.
And I was still reeling from what I heard, the tone, the words and most especially that it now seemed very clear that Sam was intentionally keeping something from me.
So, cautiously, I replied, “Love some, Maris.” Then I moved toward the utility room but stopped when I came abreast of where she was across the kitchen from me and I said quietly, “But if you ever need to talk,” her eyes came to mine, mine locked on hers, my heart clenched and my mind made a terrifying, split-second decision. Therefore I continued on a whisper, “I love your son. But I know he can be annoying. You want to talk, I’ll listen and while I do, you’ll know nothing you say will change the way I feel about Sam.”
Her lips had parted, her eyes went bright with tears and I decided I was done. I’d been fearless, taken a risk and threw it out there.
Now it was time to get the fuck out of there.
So I dipped my head to the clothes in my arms and asked, “Any darks?”
Maris shook her head.
I nodded and muttered, “Okey dokey.”
Then I got the fuck out of there.
*
I had pushed the footstool aside and pulled the Adirondack chair up to the railing of Sam’s deck so I could rest my feet on it.
Memphis was nosing around on the deck for the first time out without a lot of company to keep her occupied. It was a test. But as Sam said she’d do, she was enjoying the space but staying close. I was keeping an eye on her in case she got a wild hair and wandered.
It was late afternoon and Maris was in the kitchen starting dinner. Luci was helping her. Celeste was at the bar keeping them company. And Sam and Hap had gone to the store to pick up some things Maris needed and more booze.
That morning, after Maris and I chatted for awhile over coffee, breakfast and Hap’s resumed loud snoring, Luci and Celeste showed. They did it with Luci’s flashy, red Corvette stuffed to the gills with beach paraphernalia, as in, stuffed so full her trunk wasn’t shut. Coolers filled with drinks, sandwiches and snacks, bags filled with beach towels and a variety of suntan lotion, chairs and umbrellas.
Maris and I got changed and we carted all of Luci’s stuff down the wooded walkway that led to the beach that Sam and his neighbor shared. Hap, wearing a pair of cutoff jeans as trunks and proving he was indeed made entirely of muscle from jaw to toes, joined us a half an hour later. That was to say, he joined us by arriving then collapsing facedown on a beach towel Luci laid out for him then he again passed out.
Sam joined us an hour after that wearing a loose-fitting tank that to my delight he immediately took off and loose-fitting trunks he left on.
Hap resurfaced, ate four of the sandwiches Luci and Celeste brought and somewhat revived. This included him jogging to Sam’s house and bringing back a football. Sam and Hap played catch while I watched with no small amount of fascination. This was mainly because Sam wasn’t so much playing catch as existing with movement. I found it stunning – throwing, catching, running, reaching, it was all so fluid and graceful, it seemed natural. Not practiced. It wasn’t like a dance. It was like breathing.
Except breathing beautifully.