Then after dessert, Tom pulled out the photos.
There were loads of them.
I knew he went out of his way. Some of the photos were really old, from back in the days when my Mom was in high school. He must have been up in his attic for hours.
I wanted to try to pretend the pictures didn’t fascinate me but I couldn’t.
I remembered my Mom as sweet and loving but also quiet and subdued. The photos showed a different Mom, laughing and smiling and full of life. I couldn’t help but pour over them and even laughed when the others told stories. Lee, Indy, Hank and Ally didn’t remember my Mom but they had funny (and slightly crazy) stories to tell about their lives while they sifted through other photos. Tom, however, did remember my Mom and he had funny (and slightly crazy) stories to share about her, Katherine and Kitty Sue.
There was one photo I stared at for longer than the rest. It was of the “whole family” (as Tom called them) but, for some reason, my grandmother was in it too.
My grandfather had died before Mom married my father. My father’s parents were, as he described for as long as I could remember, “dead to me”. However I knew when they both died within a year of each other when I was a freshman at Denver University. My Mom’s Mom died when I was three.
I had no memory of my grandmother but the photo showed her holding me, my Mom’s arm around her, Kitty Sue and Katherine close to them, Tom and Malcolm close to their wives, kids scattered around their legs.
My grandmother and Mom had their foreheads together, faces tilted down, smiles huge as they looked at me.
Tom noticed my attention to the picture; he leaned toward me and whispered, “You can keep that one.”
I should have said no, it wasn’t polite to take it but I didn’t say no. I looked at him, knowing my eyes were moist and nodded. Then I slipped it in my purse the first chance I got.
Not much later, the women went to the kitchen to do the dishes and I heard male laughter in the dining room as I heard female laughter all around me in the kitchen.
Dinner, the trips down memory lane, the laughter… it was nice.
But it was scary.
It was scary because I could get used to it.
*
“So, how are things going with you two?” Ally asked, eyes on me.
“Who?” I asked back.
“Who?” Ally repeated on a grin. “You and Hector, you idiot.”
Me and Hector.
Oh my.
How to explain? Impossible!
So, I shrugged.
“Come on, give,” Ally pressed.
“I’d give,” Roxie whispered to me. “She’s relentless.”
I put my hip to the counter on the other side of Ally and sighed. “They’re… good,” I tried.
“Good?” Indy asked.
“Yes,” I replied.
“That’s boring,” Ally muttered.
“Maybe Sadie needs boring,” Roxie said to Ally.
“No one needs boring,” Ally retorted.
“Maybe Sadie does,” Roxie defended my need for boring.
Ally’s eyes came back to me. “Do you need boring?”
I looked at her a second then shared, “I have to admit, I could use some boring. But when I say things are good, I didn’t mean they were boring.”
“What did you mean?” Indy asked and they all leaned forward.
I briefly debated my options.
I could go Ice Princess and tell them nothing (which they were probably not going to accept, nobody was paying the least attention to my Ice Princess anymore). I could tell them everything (which would take all night). I could tell them what was going to happen when Hector and I got back to his place (which might be embarrassing). Or I could tell them about the tattoo.
I told them about the tattoo. When I was done, they all stared at me.
Then Roxie breathed, “Oh… my… God.”
“I’ve just decided Lee needs a tattoo,” Indy declared.
“No!” I burst out. “If you say something to Lee then it might get back to Hector.”
Ally jumped down from the counter, put her arm around my waist and started to guide me to the dining room while Indy and Roxie followed.
“Learn fast, sister,” Ally said. “Nothing stays a secret in this clan for long. And that tat is way too good to stay a secret.”
Well, wasn’t that just great.
We entered the dining room and I went back to my seat by Hector.
After dinner, during the photo orgy, he’d done the scooting my chair close to his move. Now he was lounging with his arm along the back of my empty chair. I had no choice but to sit in it with his arm still there.
The minute I did, it curled around my shoulders and he got in close.
“Ready to go?” he asked softly in my ear.
No. No, I was not ready to go. No, I was not ready to go to his house and have him put his mouth between my legs.
Well maybe I was ready to go and do that since it was almost all I thought about all day (except, of course, my fucking father and also the photos but it was mostly all I thought about).