Pete pushed to his feet and paced. His hands fisted, and the muscles in his jaw bunched. “What does it make him, Jenna? She died. She’s not coming back. So you deal with that, right? You say to yourself, Okay, the woman I loved died, but I can’t die right along with her. It sucks, and yes, his life is enormously different. Empty, without her in it. But he’s killing himself, and that would have killed my mother if she were alive to see it.”
Jenna was struck by his words—and his anger. They were so similar to her own, toward her mother. She just needs to get over it and move on. She realized how unfair those words were. She pushed the thought away so she could focus on Pete.
“Pete, I think it makes him a man who loved a woman so deeply that when she died, she took too much of him with her.” She rose to her feet and reached for his hand. His fingers were tense, but she held tight. “She was the glue that held him together. People don’t just become alcoholics. He was probably drinking all along, but her presence kept him in check.”
“Yeah. No kidding.” He pulled his hand away, and Jenna flinched at his spite. He turned back quickly, his eyes heavy with sorrow. “I’m sorry. That was a rotten thing to say. I know you’re right, Jenna. I get it. He was always a drinker, but this…The way he’s throwing in the towel is just not like him. He’s always been the guy who made things happen. The one who made me and my brothers stand up and be men. You know, face your faults and your fears and overcome them. His famous words to us were, Men don’t run from hard times. They conquer them.” Pete set his hands on his hips and looked over at the bay.
“Wait a minute. Pete, do you think he’s doing this on purpose? Do you blame him for this?”
He narrowed his eyes. Then his gaze softened and he reached for her hand. “I’m sorry, Jenna. I didn’t mean to take you down with me. I know he’s not doing this on purpose. But that doesn’t make it any easier to accept, and it doesn’t make his calls any easier to deal with.”
Jenna closed the distance between them and reached up to touch his cheeks. She felt the tightness in his jaw and wanted to ease that tension and take away the sadness in his eyes. She wondered if her friends saw the same sadness and tension when she spoke of her mom.
“Pete, I know you feel like you can, or you should, handle this alone, but I’m going through something with my mom right now, and I’ve been trying to deal with it on my own. It’s hard. It’s really hard. Listening to you talk about your dad made me realize that I was wrong. I don’t need to try to deal with my mom by myself or deal with her by keeping my distance. I need to be closer to her and let her grieve for her marriage in whatever way she needs to, with my support.” She moved closer to him.
“I don’t know if you want me to be there or not, but I want to be here for you. What your father is going through isn’t a reflection on you. It’s a reflection of how much he loved your mom. So what if her death weakened him? He’s already raised you and your siblings. He’s done his job. He’s allowed to fall apart.”
“He’s killing himself,” Pete hissed out.
“Right, which is why you can’t feel guilty about getting him the help he needs. He’s allowed to fall apart, as I was saying, but he can’t be allowed to kill himself in the process. I think you should talk to him more. Make him understand where you’re coming from.”
Pete turned away. His shoulders rounded forward and he put his hands on his hips again. “I’ve talked so much that now when I open my mouth he has a rebuttal out before I even finish. Besides, he’s right about the store. If word gets out, it’ll affect his business, and none of us wants to run it.”
Jenna wrapped her arms around him from behind and pressed her cheek to his back. He covered her hand with his own and exhaled; then he turned in her arms. She loved being close to him, and the more they shared, the closer they became. It pained her to know he’d been carrying this burden alone for so long.
He brushed her hair from her shoulders and ran his thumb over her cheek. “I’m a selfish jerk, aren’t I?”
Jenna was gaining a better understanding of what was really going on, and it was hitting home. If they posed an intervention, it would clearly come down to Pete running the store, since he lived the closest and had the most flexibility in his job. He had his own businesses to think about. She felt bad for his family, and at the same time, Jenna realized how selfish she had been not to give up her vacation time for her mother, when her mother obviously needed her. How could she fault Pete, if she couldn’t fault herself?
“We’re all selfish, Pete. But after going through these last few weeks with my mom, and listening to what you’re going through, I think it’s safe to say that we expect our parents to set aside their own needs and be there for us, maybe even rescue us, for the first eighteen years of our lives. They put that energy into raising us well and teaching us responsibility and empathy for a reason, right? All those years of caring for us, putting up with our teenage stuff, our ignorance, and putting the rest of their lives on hold, it’s got to count for something. I think for some of us—me with my mom and maybe you with your dad—we have to learn to be just as selfless as our parents were. Maybe now it’s our turn to rescue them.”
Chapter Thirteen
JENNA STAYED WITH Pete for the rest of the day. She went with him to take care of a small boat repair at the marina, and then they had lunch at the Wellfleet Pier. It had been the most enjoyable day that he could remember in a very long time. Gone was the nervous energy that used to trail Jenna like a shadow around him and the uncertainty of his thoughts of their compatibility. He realized that even if she had remained nervous around him, it wouldn’t have hampered his feelings for her one iota. He loved being with Jenna, and even her need to line up the silverware at the café and organize his workbench in the barn didn’t bother him. It endeared her to him even more.