“Sorry,” he mumbles, sounding frighteningly un-Matt like. Despite our weirdness as of late.
Pushing aside my feelings of rejection that are sure to linger for the rest of my life, I sigh and sit up, pulling my knees to my chest. “You don’t want to be home, do you?” It’s not technically a question since the answer is so obvious.
He hesitates, taking a deep breath instead of answering.
“It’s okay to tell me, Matt.”
“No.”
“No what? No you won’t tell me, or no you don’t want to be home?”
“I don’t want to be here. At all.” He says it all in one breath, sounding almost like he’s choking back tears.
I sigh, my eyes filling with tears. His pain is palpable, and I doubt there’s anything I could do even if I were there, since he doesn’t tell me anything. “You’ll be fine. Stay out of the house as much as you can maybe?”
“I plan to.” He’s terse, but doesn’t sound convinced it’s the tone he means to use.
Swinging my legs over the edge of the bed, I pick up my shoes and carry them down the stairs with me. “Don’t worry about what I asked you. We can forget all about that, okay? I want to be your friend more than anything right now, and that’s what matters, okay? Matt?” I prod during his silence.
“Thank you,” he exhales more than says.
I lower my voice to a whisper when I reach the bottom of the stairs. “I’ll text you, okay? And I guess I’ll see you in, like, two weeks?”
“Thank God for small miracles, huh?” He chuckles, and it sounds genuine enough. “Bye K. Sawyer.”
And all is right with the world.
“Bye, you.”
The kitchen still smells of roasted chicken and red potatoes, but dinner was hours ago. Roland and his father “went into town”—an expression that will likely crack me up until the day I die—to get some groceries needed for breakfast, leaving Nora and I to talk over tea. Even though I’ve only been in this house for a few hours, I can promise you that Nora is the kind of homemaker that would not let breakfast groceries go un-purchased until the night before. I know a set up when I smell it. And, for this one at least, I’m grateful.
Nora slides two freshly baked chocolate chip cookies onto my plate. “I put a drip of almond extract in them. Tell me if they’re awful.”
No eggs, my left foot.
Sinking my teeth into the gooey cookies, my eyes roll back in my head. “Oh my— you need to send me back to school with some of these. I don’t care if I have to work overtime to pay for a new, bigger wardrobe.”
She wipes her hands on her World’s Best Grandma apron, unties it, and slings it over the back of her chair before sitting down and tasting one herself. “Not bad,” she says, smiling as she turns the cookie over in her hand, studying it.
“Thank you for having me on such short notice. I don’t know what Roland told you, but I didn’t really think the whole thing through. Normally I think twice then open my mouth, but—”
“Dean Baker is an oaf. Too big for his britches if you ask me.” She says it with the confidence of a person who’s heard plenty of stories.
Still, I laugh. “If you’ve ever seen him in person, you’d know just how accurate that pants description is.” I try to stifle the chuckle, but it’s already escaped. “Sorry.”
Nora sighs, seemingly in relief, then laughs herself. “He does look a bit like those toys you can knock over and they pop back up, doesn’t he? What are those called?”
“Weebles? Right?”
She slaps the edge of the table, clutching her barely-soft stomach. “Yes! Weebles! Tristan used to play with those.”
“Tristan,” I say slowly, trying to piece the family tree together in my head. “That’s Julia’s oldest son, right?”
Nora offers a sweet, wistful smile. “Yes. Julia is three years younger than Roland. She’s married to Carl, and they have Tristan, who is ten, Olivia—Livy—who is six, and Braden is three.”
I point to the fridge where a picture displays a toothy, blond family huddling around a beach sunset. “That’s them, right?”
Without looking, Nora nods. “They went to Hawaii last year.”
“Geoff is the other brother,” I prompt, needing more of a refresher there.
“Geoff is the baby.” Nora laughs quietly. “He’s thirty-two. His wife, Lindsay, is lovely.”
I want to ask why there was no mention of Carl’s redeeming qualities as a child-in-law, but sit on that one.
“Their children,” she continues, “are Marley—a girl who’s five—and one-year-old twins. Eloise and Jacob.”
“Wait.” I hold up my hand, and Nora bites her lip as if she anticipates what I’m about to say. “They have a child named Jacob and one named Marley? How will they ever survive a Christmas season when they get older?” For some reason, I know I can let my hair down around Nora, so I skip social restraint in favor of asking how she feels about grandchildren seemingly named after A Christmas Carol characters.
She clears her throat, making a show of trying to maintain composure. With a chuckle, she sighs. “We don’t talk about the names. What is it?” Nora tilts her head to the side. She caught me staring into space.