Something Like This (Secrets) (17 page)

“Yeah, he kind of is. We’re going to keep him,” Reece said, with a proud big brother grin.

“I would hope so,” I said.

“You’re kind of adorable, too.”

“Are you going to keep me?”

He kissed me on the nose. “Forever.”

“So, this is Jadie,” his mom—I assumed it was his mom—said as she burst into the foyer.

She was dressed in a somewhat tight-fitting blue collared dress, a white cardigan synched at the waist with a purple belt. Her hair was pulled back in a perfect bun, her ears decorated with large silver hoop earrings, and on her lips she wore a serious, deep shade of red lipstick. She was striking and intimidating.

“It’s very nice to meet you, Mrs. Carter. You have a lovely house,” I said.

She hugged me. “Wow, Reece was right about you. My goodness, look at you. You’re stunning. Call me, Mary.”

I cleared my throat. “Thank you, you’re kind.” No one had ever said I was stunning. I had been called cute and even pretty, and once a guy I’d just given a blow job told me I could be above-average pretty if I lost five or ten pounds. But never had anyone called me stunning.

“I told you she was going to blow you away,” Reece said to his mom.

“I’m so happy you’re here. Come, come,” she said, grabbing my hand. “I want to get to know you.”

“Don’t scare her away,” Reece said, walking behind us to the kitchen.

“Oh, you, I promise I won’t ask her too many questions. Go and see what Connor is up to and let us girls get to know each other.”

Reece gave me a look which I knew meant,
you okay?

I winked at him.

When his mom turned her back to grab a bottle of wine from the kitchen counter, he blew me a kiss.

I pretended to catch it and held it to my heart.

“All right, I’ll leave you ladies alone while I go find the little banana,” he said.

His mom turned around, a glass of wine in each hand and said, “He’s been wearing that thing all afternoon. Can you try and convince him to take it off for dinner? I tried everything, even promising he could have two desserts.” She rolled her eyes. “I give up.”

“I’ll try, but no promises,” Reece said.

Once he was gone, the butterflies swarmed my stomach. I was all alone with his mom and she had questions for me.
All right, Aunt Conchita, I’m keeping a smile on my face. Your advice better work.

She offered me one of the glasses. “I also have red wine, if you prefer.”

“Thank you,” I said, taking the glass, “White is great.”

She set her glass on the counter and opened the oven door. “Let me check on the chicken real quick. Connor is a picky eater, but that kid loves my roasted chicken, so suffice it to say we eat a lot of chicken in this house.” She closed the door and reclaimed her wine glass. “We have a few minutes. Let’s sit in the family room and talk.”

Walking into the family room, the first thing I noticed were the picture frames on the bookshelves. My eye gravitated to one person. The one person whom Reece never spoke about. His father. The man in all the pictures had to be Reece’s father.

Mary caught me staring at the shelves. “Reece was such a cute baby. Connor, too. But, Reece came into the world with eyes wide open ready to conquer it. He rarely cried, but then again, I was one of those first-time mamas who jumped at the sound of a whimper. The minute Reece came into my life I stopped caring about anything else. Same with Connor. It’s all about my boys,” she sipped her wine. “Sit, and tell me about yourself. You’ve stolen his heart, you know.”

I sat in one of the club chairs; she sat in the other one. A round coffee table separated us.

I crossed my legs and then uncrossed them and then crossed them once again.

She noticed. “Relax, I’m really not that scary, despite what my big brother says. He thinks I’m bossy. The truth is I only boss him around because he lets me. He always has. How do you like working for him?” Suddenly, she grabbed her stomach. “Pain comes and goes. It doesn’t help that I refuse to stop moving.” She hunched over a little bit.

“Do you want me to get Reece?”

“God no, he’ll just freak out and want to take me to the hospital. I’m not sure if you know this about him yet, but that boy is a worrywart. Always has been, but even more so since my... anyway, when he was little I used to go in his room to check on him before going to bed and he’d be sound asleep, but the minute I entered his room, he’d open his eyes and want to start talking. And not just about anything. Oh, no, he wanted to talk about what caused wars, whether or not I knew when the world was going to end, what my thoughts were on aliens, did I believe in them and if I did, did I think we had a chance to destroy them if they ever attacked us,” she took a sip of her wine, “I’m not kidding you, he was all of eight or nine and these were the kinds of things he wanted to talk about.”

Listening to Mary talk about Reece warmed my heart. It was obvious that she adored him and would do anything for him.

“He tell you about his novel?” she asked.

“He did. I think it sounds wonderful and fascinating.”

“So you lean toward the dark side, too, then.”

She had no idea.

“As soon as I read it, I knew my brother had to see it. Have you read it?”

“Not yet.”

Reece, like Grace, hadn’t offered.

“You absolutely must read it. Oh goodness, listen to me going on about my son’s book. Let’s talk about you.”

“Do you feel better?” I asked. No way, I was going to sit here with her and not tell Reece she was in pain. What if something happened to her?

“I’m fine. I’ll be fine. Now, how do you like working for my brother?”

“I love it. He let me review some manuscripts.”

“Then he must see something in you because my brother doesn’t let just anyone work for him, let alone review manuscripts. He’s stubborn and weird. I love him, he’s my big brother and he’s always been there for me, but he’s not easy to deal with.”

I wanted to tell her all about the day he sent me to pick up New York editors at the train station and then basically wigged out and changed his mind, but doing so wouldn’t have been very nice. I hadn’t even told Reece.

“Where did you go to school?”

“I went to a community college. I never transferred to a four-year school.”

I never transferred because I couldn’t afford it, and I couldn’t risk taking out a loan seeing as far as I was concerned, I would never be able to pay it back.

“Great. I’m a big fan of community colleges. Smaller campuses, smaller classes means students focus more on their studies.”

I wanted to hug her. No judgment, no rolling of the eyes or condescending tone. Yes, Reece had a good mother and I was jealous.

“Are you hoping to become a literary agent or editor?”

I was hoping to become anything that meant I didn’t have to clean people’s houses or take care of their children ever again.

“I haven’t decided yet.” I glanced at the pictures on the shelves. It was like they were circling me, taunting me, they wanted me to pay attention to them.

“The man in the pictures is Reece’s father.”

“He never talks about him.”

“That’s because he’s still hurting. He doesn’t talk to me about him, either.”

“What happened to him?”

“He died.”

“When?”

“Five months ago.”

A punch to my stomach knocked the breath out of me.

I wanted to find Reece and take him in my arms. I felt sick. Why hadn’t Reece told me? Here I was whining about my homeless father while Reece, my poor Reece, was mourning his father. Mine was alive and I could see him any time I wanted. Reece didn’t have that option anymore.

I remembered when he’d said to me, “If you knew your father would be gone tomorrow and that you would never see him again, what would you do? Would you be okay with not seeing him anymore?”

I wanted to vomit. I had been so consumed with my own grief I never stopped to think that maybe Reece also had pain. In my selfishness, I never asked about him. I could only see my sadness and my demons, my pain.

“Please don’t cry,” Mary said. “If you do, I’m going to start crying and then Reece will find us crying and, Connor, he won’t understand what’s going on.”

Another revelation came to me. That’s why Reece and his mom spoiled Connor. He was a three-year-old baby who’d lost his father. And oh, my God, that’s also why Mary, despite still being in pain from her surgery, didn’t want Reece to know. She was protecting him.

I was so busy hiding behind my smile I hadn’t noticed the grieving smiles around me. Connor, Reece, and Mary all hiding behind fake smiles just like me.

“How did he die?” I had to know.

“Car accident. We were all having dinner together. Reece was visiting and he was telling us all about his book. Jake, my husband, adored Reece. The sun rose and set with his firstborn. He was so proud of him. He supported his writing even when, for a time, I didn’t,” she paused, “I wanted him to get a real job. We spent a lot of money sending him to college. He went to Harvard, like his father. But, unlike his father, he had no interest in becoming a lawyer. So, he graduated and spent a year in Europe doing God knows what, finding himself, I guess. And when he returned, he announced he was going to be a writer and that was that. Jake embraced it and became his biggest supporter.” She rubbed her eyes.

“You don’t have to go on. I shouldn’t have asked.”

“Do you love my son?”

Her question hit me hard.

“Yes.”

“Do you really love him? Because I haven’t seen him this happy since...he only talks about you and when he does, he glows. He’s fallen for you. He loves you. And if you love him back, the way he loves you, you need to make him talk to you about his father.”

“I’ve fallen for him, too. I love him with all my heart, I swear it.”

“During dinner that night, Connor, my baby boy,” she coughed, “he asked for more juice, grape juice, that’s his favorite. Jake got up to get him some, but we were all out. I told him to get him some water instead. But Connor insisted on grape juice and Jake, well, he didn’t want Connor to get upset so he decided to go get some more juice. The store was only a few blocks away. He was only supposed to be gone for fifteen minutes, tops. He never came home. A woman who was distracted by her kids in the backseat took her eyes off the road for a split second, and in that stupid second she slammed into Jake’s car head-on, killing herself and him instantly.”

I was choking up; I couldn’t listen anymore. She was breaking my heart.

“He lost his life trying to get grape juice for his baby boy. And now that little boy still doesn’t understand where his daddy is. He still wakes up in the middle of the night screaming for him, and Reece and I are left trying to fill his place.”

The cooking timer went off.

“The chicken’s ready,” she said, standing.

“Mary,” I said. “I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t be. If you love him, make him talk to you. He’s a sweet kid, but grief can easily sour a heart. And I don’t want that to happen. Not to him. Not to my boy.”

“I promise, I swear I’ll try.”

She nodded.

“Come on, let’s call them and eat.”

I would have to try my hardest during dinner to keep Reece from knowing that I’d heard about his father.

Mary yelled for them and seconds later, Reece came down the stairs, carrying the little boy, still dressed in a banana costume.

“No luck?” Mary asked.

“None whatsoever.” Reece placed Connor in a chair at the table.

“It’s chicken time!” Connor said. “Bananas love chicken.”

I couldn’t help staring at the little sweet, brown-haired boy who was sitting at the table flanked by his mother and his big brother, the two people in his life who wanted nothing more than to protect and love him.

“I want grape juice,” Connor said.

“There’s no more grape juice,” Mary said.

“Yeah, remember, no one makes grape juice anymore. But, we have orange juice,” Reece said.

Connor clapped his hands. “Orange juice, yummy!”

Mary winked at me and went to the fridge for Connor’s juice. And I did what I could to keep from exploding in tears.

Reece sat next to me and squeezed my thigh under the table.

I gave him a kiss on the cheek and whispered, “I love you so much.”

He whispered back, “Not more than I love you.”

––––––––

R
eece and I barely said a word to each other when we got in the car. The moment we both said goodbye to his mom, the air between us changed.

He backed out of the driveway and coldly asked, “Do you want me to take you to your house or do you want to go back to my apartment?”

“What do you want to do?”

Hitting the gas pedal a little too hard, he said, “I asked you first. It doesn’t matter to me. Just tell me what you want to do.”

“Slow down,” I said.

“Did you decide?”

“Take me home.”

We drove for a few minutes in silence.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

“About what?”

“I acted like a jerk.”

“Yes, you did.”

“I said I’m sorry.”

“Okay, I heard you.”

“Do you want to come over to my place?” he asked.

“Do you want me to?”

“Damn it, Jadie, just answer me.”

“I did the first time you asked. I told you to take me home.”

“Fine, if you don’t want to be with me, then fine, I’ll take you home.”

“What’s going on with you?”

He sped up and almost ran a red light.

“Look, you either slow down or I’m getting out.”

He pulled into a side street and parked.

“I’m not going to talk about it,” he said.

“Talk about what?”

“My mom told me she told you about my father. She wants me to talk to you about him. She tried to get me to talk to a psychiatrist. That lasted three days.”

I put my hand on his shoulder, but he moved away.

“Let’s go to your place,” I said.

“Are you sure that’s what you want? You still want to be with me?”

“Is that what this is about? Did you think I was going to run?”

“I lose it when I’m with you. I lose my mind, my heart, everything I am gets lost when I’m with you. I love that. I want to get lost in you, Jadie Santiago. All my life I thought I had everything figured out. I had perfect parents. I lived in a perfect neighborhood and I never wanted for anything. It was all there for me. But then...”