His chin jerked back.
“We had each other, and in the beginning Addie and I only knew she was safer without him so we were in a better place because she was too. When we figured out there was more to have, we’d already learned it didn’t mean anything, so we stayed happy because we had each other. And then she died, and honest to God, Johnny, that was the first time after we left him that I was ever unhappy.”
His eyes dropped down, he shoved my wine aside and he pulled my hand to him.
I was wearing my mother’s charm bracelet again.
“It’s cheap,” I whispered.
He didn’t look up.
“Those charms Addie and I bought her every birthday using some of the money we’d horde that our Gramma would send us for our birthdays. I got the bracelet when we lost her. Addie has the two charms that say ‘World’s Greatest Mom’ and ‘#1 Mom.’ I got her her own bracelet when she had Brooks and gave it to her with them on it.”
His finger fidgeted with the head of a horse charm.
“She made us dance with her in our living room, and she tried to get every Sunday off to do Sunday night facials she’d make out of honey and oatmeal, and she’d take us out to stare at the stars. She made a game out of doing laundry at the Laundromat, and she hid it really well those times rent was coming due but her paycheck wasn’t and we were running low. She was sunlight and moonshine and honey and song and love. And I had her for a while and then God needed her with Him so I had to let her go.”
His eyes turned to me and the pain in them, the pain for me, dug down deep. Deep inside me.
And settled there.
And I wanted it.
I needed it.
It was buried treasure.
“She was iron,” I whispered. “Iron and steel and granite and everything strong packaged up in feathers and goose down and kitten fur and everything soft. She was the most precious gift I’ve ever received and will be until I have my own babies.”
“Stop talking,” he ordered gruffly.
I closed my mouth.
“I can’t erase that,” he stated and the blood started singing in my veins. “I can’t make that better.”
Oh my God.
“Johnny—”
“We fight wars over dirt and oil and ego when we should fight wars against men who force women to live that kind of life with their children.”
“We were happy,” I reminded him.
“You could have been happier,” he said to me.
I again closed my mouth.
Johnny didn’t break the silence so I asked, “Are you done getting to know me now?”
“Now?” he bit out. “Yes. Done? Not by a long shot.”
My blood started burning.
“Do you . . . um . . . do you wanna talk about your mom?” I queried cautiously.
“She left when I was five, Toby was three. He doesn’t remember her. I do. She was amazingly beautiful. And she was down to her soul selfish. I haven’t seen her since. My dad never saw her again either. He also never got over her. I hate that for my dad, but her leaving meant Toby and I got Margot, so we had it better than we would have, I figure. And that’s it.”
“That’s very succinct,” I noted carefully.
“So it aptly describes her tenure as a mother,” he returned.
“Honey,” I murmured.
“I don’t miss her and I don’t think not having her made me miss anything. I don’t feel loss. I had Dad and he was a great dad. The best. I had Margot. I had Dave. I had Toby. Toby’s a wild one but it’s not because he missed having a mom or was acting out, wondering why she didn’t give a shit enough to stick around. Dad also didn’t spoil him and Lord knows, Margot didn’t. No one would say it to his face, but we all think it. He got a piece of her. But he also got a lot of Dad, so even though he hasn’t yet found his way, he will.”
“I hope so,” I said softly.
“He will,” he replied.
“Where is he?” I asked.
“Guiding fishing expeditions in the Florida Keys?” he asked, like I could answer him. “Training to be a ranger in Alaska?” he asked another question I couldn’t answer. “Employed as a flight instructor in Phoenix? Who the fuck knows?”
“He can fly planes?”
“Toby can do anything.”
“But can he, well . . . actually fly planes?”
“Yes. And speak German fluently since he had more of Grams, because I was in kindergarten when Mom left and shortly after, full-time school, so he had more time with her and she talked German to him all the time and kept doing it until she died. I would have lost half of what I had if Toby didn’t try to get one over on me by speaking to me in German. Dad spoke it too, since Grams taught him, so he’d call him on his shit as well. Toby was captain of the football team, quarterback, and he got caught banging the homecoming queen in the locker room after the big game. The coach chucked him off the team. The town went nuts. So they ended up suspending him for two games. The only two games Matlock lost that season.” He paused then said, “Golden boy.”
He shook his head and any sting he might have felt about the next he said was taken away with his rueful but also admiring grin.
“No matter how much he’d fuck up, and he was a master at it, he’d come out smelling like roses.”
“Did you play football?”
He nodded his head. “Tight end.”
“But not captain?” I asked warily.
He looked confused. “Well . . . yeah.” Then he grinned again. “And I was dating the homecoming queen and already banging her, so I didn’t have to sneak a go in the locker room.”
I rolled my eyes and reached for my wine.
After I took a sip, he said, “Dad was the shit.”
I put my wineglass back and prompted quietly, “Yes?”
“He wasn’t sunlight and moonshine and kitten fur, sp?tzchen. He was motor oil and beer and NASCAR racing. He didn’t miss a single one of our games. He gave us the talk and told us he’d break our necks if we disrespected a woman. Then he gave us condoms. He also gave us Margot and Dave, and their sons were older than us so he gave us three older brothers and big Thanksgivings and Christmases and Easter dinners. He wept when his father died and sobbed when he lost his mother, but way before that he told us only stupid men hide emotion. There’s strength in being who you are and feeling what you feel and not giving a shit what people think. He said one of the worst things a man could be is inauthentic. He told us never to willfully break a woman’s heart because there’d come a time when a woman would break ours and we’d feel what we’d made her feel and we wouldn’t be able to live with the guilt. He loved us and he showed it. He was proud of us and he showed it.”
He looked to my wrist and slid his forefinger between my skin and my mother’s bracelet, turned his hand and gently curled it around the inside of his first knuckle.
“And I wept when he died and every year on the anniversary, I take some of his ashes to the first place he took Toby and me fishing and I put them in the creek and feed the fishes in the moonlight,” he finished.
“That’s beautiful, Johnny,” I said softly.