“We both know it wouldn’t work,” she says. “You’ve got big things to accomplish, Will Hollister. And I’m the one who decided to be a mom.”
Her words cut, and the taste is bad.
“You weren’t alone in that,” I say, standing and following her to the sink with my cup. She laughs lightly, turning into me and taking my cup with one hand, patting my chest twice with the other.
“Sure am now,” she says.
I step in beside her, taking my cup back from her hand and rinsing it before lifting up a few of the other things piling up in the sink. She wraps her hands around mine and mouths “stop.”
“At least let me do the damn dishes, Tanya,” I sigh.
She shakes her head no, cuts the water, and hands me a towel to dry my hands with.
“I have to do this on my own, Will. You won’t be here all of the time to pick up the slack when I get tired…”
I start to protest, but she holds up a hand.
“And I don’t want you to be. I want to know I can claw my way out of holes on my own. And it’s nice to get the practice in while you’re just a phone call away,” she says.
I hold her gaze, daring her to budge, but I know she won’t.
“Okay,” I finally say, tossing the dishtowel on the only open counter space nearby and pulling her in for a hug. Despite how exhausted I know she is, she never once broke down in front of me. The only thing that makes her cry is pride in watching her son achieve something.
“Go make that team, Will,” she says against my chest, her hands patting around me. “And when Dylan learns to talk, he’ll bring his gold-medal winning uncle in for show and tell one day.”
I roll my eyes at her and laugh, backing toward the kitchen door to leave through the carport.
“I’ll settle for a participation ribbon,” I say.
“Dylan would be just as proud,” she says.
I nod, because she’s right. He would. He’s probably the best Hollister who ever lived.
I am walking the path of a series of bad ideas. If there is a wrong call to make, I seem to be powerless against taking it. It’s a sign of how unready I am—yet another thought that I’m conveniently ignoring. I can hear the voices of every counselor I’ve had over the last four years all collectively screaming at me to stop, not to swim in temptations, not to add weight to my already drowning soul.
It was eight thirty by the time I got back from helping Tanya, and my uncle was sleeping in the old, beat-up lounge chair in front of the television—some History Channel show about the first modern irrigation ducts built in the West on loud enough to hear the occasional muttered word. I was lulling myself into ignoring that itch deep inside, trying to focus on the regular pattern of his breathing, when a photo flashed on the screen of a line of girls, all standing in a canal, the skirts of their dresses tied up around their thighs as they bent forward to wash their families’ clothing. The one in the middle—she looked like Maddy.
Or maybe she didn’t at all. Perhaps I was just waiting for the slightest resemblance to put the rest of the pieces already in my imagination into place. I could have closed my eyes just then and I would have seen her. She was everywhere…waiting.
Visiting Tanya and Dylan didn’t make me want Maddy any less. If anything, it made me want her more. It made me resent my brother more—for leaving me with his lies. Maddy looks at me and still sees him, she sees the man we all kept on a pedestal. So many times, I’ve wanted to tell her the truth about who he really was, what he did. But that would only crush her. And maybe she wouldn’t even be able to look at me at all then, and that…I can’t go back to that. I missed her too much.
I can keep the secret. But I can’t avoid getting close to the fire. Temptation and I have always been codependent.
I dig through the suitcase I’m living out of and find my long-sleeved black shirt. I put on the antique watch Duncan gave me for my birthday and look long and hard at the man in the mirror. I shave quickly and look at him again. I recognize him sometimes, and parts were familiar tonight. There’s enough of the good Will to push the lesser man out the door and down stairs to the front lobby—where I sit now, my back against the doors leading to the pool, my elbows on my knees, and my eyes intent on the front door and lights from the car pulling into the parking lot.
The window I have to escape is small, and it grows shorter every passing second. My legs stretch and my muscles remind me that they’re strong enough to stand, to run before Maddy gets her key in the door. My ears hear the lock twist. I don’t move, and when she steps inside, the look on her face breaks everything left that was strong inside of me. She was hoping I would be here.
“Hey,” she says, her voice a raspy whisper.