“Mom.”
And Jenna knew he was right. She needed to back off and let him walk the girl home if that was what he wanted to do. It was early, and there’d be a lot of cars and people out despite the darkness. She sighed, letting go. She tried very hard to let go.
“Okay,” Jenna said. The girl, Tabitha, still looked sullen and stiff, her eyes fixed on the floor as though Jenna’s shoes were fascinating. But Jenna couldn’t shake the sense she’d seen the girl before. And recently. Maybe she’d been a patient at Family Medicine. Jenna couldn’t ask about that, couldn’t run the risk of violating the girl’s privacy. Walking in on her dry-humping her son was enough humiliation for one night. And if the girl had the guts to come back, to stick around after that inauspicious beginning, then Jenna would admire her. “Well, I’m sure your mom appreciates the fact that you have someone to walk you home in the dark.”
Jared’s eyes rolled to the ceiling and back, as if Jenna had just offered the queen or the pope a hit from a joint.
Tabitha raised her head a little, her cold green eyes meeting Jenna’s. “My mother . . . ,” she said, her voice flat.
“You mother? Is something . . . ?” Jenna lifted her hand to her mouth. “Oh, honey, I’m sorry. Did she pass away?”
If there’d been a hole to crawl in, Jenna would have jumped in with both feet. And pulled the top shut behind her. First catching them in the bedroom and then that comment. It made cursing at Becky seem like a minor miscue. She’d made the ridiculous mistake of assuming that everyone else’s life was better than hers, that she could be a single mom but Tabitha’s family was perfectly intact.
“Not that,” the girl said. She held Jenna’s gaze. “It’s kind of an unusual situation, I guess. I live with my dad. Here. My mom . . . moved away. She’s—she’s had some problems.”
Jenna waited. The girl seemed on the brink of adding something else, but she stopped herself. Jenna decided not to prod. She’d already trodden uncomfortable ground. She didn’t need to pry into her parents’ marital troubles.
“I see,” Jenna said, trying to sound neutral.
“We’re going, Mom.” Jared reached out and gently guided Tabitha toward the door. “Tabitha’s late.”
The two of them walked side by side, but Tabitha turned back and looked at Jenna again. “I’m sorry about your friend,” she said, her voice still flat and cool. “It’s messed up when these things happen. When people just disappear.”
And then they were gone.
CHAPTER SIX
They walked side by side through the dark, close but not holding hands. Jared wanted to reach out, to fold Tabitha’s hand into his, but she walked with her head down, her eyes fixed on the ground as though she was afraid she might trip. And they never held hands in public. She didn’t want someone to see and tell her dad. So Jared didn’t push it.
And Tabitha did this at times, slipped away into someplace in her mind and acted as if the rest of the world, including him, didn’t exist. Jared wanted to chalk it up to the embarrassment of his mom walking in, and then her slip of the tongue about Tabitha’s mom, but he suspected something more. He’d seen her withdraw that way on an almost daily basis, and whenever he’d ask what was wrong, she’d simply say, “I’m fine.”
“I’m sorry about my mom,” he said. “She really is pretty mellow, but sometimes she says stuff. It’s kind of like if there’s an embarrassing situation, she feels the need to acknowledge it or talk about it more instead of just letting it go away.”
Tabitha kept walking, eyes down. In the street beside them, cars zipped by, the headlights catching their figures in the glow and making Jared squint. He couldn’t wait to get his license, to no longer have to be dependent on walking across town in the cold or rain. Or taking rides from his mom or his friends’ parents.
“She was probably a little shocked to see a girl in my room,” he said. “It’s never really happened. I mean, I’ve been with girls and stuff, just not in my room.”
Tabitha looked up, turning to face him. But she still didn’t say anything.
“Is that okay? Should I have not said that?”
“No, you’re lucky,” she said.
“Lucky?” He didn’t understand what she meant. Lucky? Because he hadn’t had a lot of girls in his room? “You mean because I have a mom looking out for me?” he asked.
She didn’t answer right away, but then she said, “Yes, that.”
“Will your dad be pissed that you’re late? I know you’re supposed to be home before it gets dark.”