“I just wanted to look good for your parents.”
Rubbing my palm against my stubbled jaw, I spoke without looking at her. “I know, baby. I’m just … a little stressed.”
“If you don’t want me to meet your parents—”
“It’s not that, Avery. It’s my mom. She’s going to make this weekend hell.”
“I can handle one weekend.” She touched my leg. “Nothing she can do will ever change the way I feel about you. You know that, right?”
I recoiled from Avery’s sympathetic frown. Her feeling sorry for me was the last thing I wanted. I didn’t want her settling for the pathetic paramedic with a sad story instead of choosing Italian leather and a house in Alapocas. Even if she didn’t want to admit it, that fantasy sparkled in her eyes every time she looked at Doc Rose.
“Josh,” she prompted.
“I may have … downplayed Mom’s drinking problem. Last time I saw her, she could barely function.”
“Oh …” She fell silent.
“It’s okay, Avery. You didn’t know. I didn’t tell you how bad it was. I haven’t told anyone,” I said, sighing.
“Josh—”
“It’s not a big deal, Avery. I should have told you. It’s just a tough topic.”
“But it is … a big deal,” she said. “If you want to talk more about it, you can trust me.” She blinked her big green eyes, hopeful.
From the beginning, my past had been off limits. To Avery, talking things out made everything better. “Trust has nothing to do with it. I just don’t want to keep reliving it.”
She opened her mouth to speak, but saw me readjusting my grip on the steering wheel. I started the car and headed to the on-ramp of I-95.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to push.”
“I know you want to help, baby, but there isn’t much to say.”
“You’re stressed. I just thought that maybe talking about your mom would make you less worried about seeing her.”
Stepping on the gas, I hurried to get up to speed with the other drivers. I drifted in and out of the passing lane as my memory was assaulted by visions of my childhood.
“She never recovered from losing Kayla. Their marriage suffered because of it. Nothing was the same after that. It was bad, and then it got worse. A lot worse. She turned to vodka, and he turned to other women.”
Avery’s fingers pressed into my leg. “That’s awful.”
I tossed those words around in my mind. Awful. Was it? She had checked out of our lives years ago. Not only had she withdrawn from me when we lost Kayla, but she had completely ignored my father. He was hurting too, and she had forced him to grieve alone. I didn’t blame him for seeking companionship from other women. He had suffered as much as she had, but he had been forgotten.
“He never blamed me. Not once.”
“Because you were a little boy, Josh.”
“They should have gotten a divorce a lot sooner than they did,” I said, picking at the steering wheel.
“Maybe they were afraid to lose anyone else.”
I glanced over at her, seeing a familiar, old hurt in her eyes. “Dad was finally able to make peace with the fact that his family could never be the same. That’s when he bought our first Mopar, a sixty-eight Dart GTS in Rallye Red with a 383 Magnum. We worked on it together every free moment we had. She was beautiful. When she was finished, Dad sold it and bought a sixty-nine Frost Green Road Runner with a big-block. We found comfort in restoring old cars. It was cheap therapy. I don’t know what I would have done without my dad.”
“Do you have to see your mom every time you visit your dad?”
“No, I guess not, but I feel like I should. She makes it harder than it has to be. She blames me, with every drink, every glare, every breath. Probably why I don’t come home as often as Dad would like.”
Avery covered her mouth and shook her head. “I am an asshole. I should have talked to you more before insisting we come here.”
I offered a small grin. “You were right, though. You need to know what you’re dealing with before you shack up with me.”
“That’s not why,” she said, shaking her head. “I just thought maybe … if I met them, somehow things would get better. That’s stupid, I know.” She became more flustered with every word.
I looked over at her, her cheeks pink, her eyes glossed over. I was complaining about having parents when she didn’t have any.
“Jesus, Avery. I’m the asshole.” I took her hand in mine, pulling it to my lips and pressing a kiss to her fingers.
“No, I get it.”
“You … you wanna …”
“Talk about it?” she asked with a knowing look. She raised an eyebrow. Damn it if she wasn’t rubbing off on me.
I shook my head and squeezed her hand. “I’m just nervous. You know that, right? I’m honestly not purposefully being a dick to you. If I didn’t think it was important, I wouldn’t be so worried.”
“You’re supposed to be trusting me,” she said, squeezing back.
I glanced over at her and then let my shoulders relax. “Okay. Let’s do this.”
She beamed, and I pressed my foot on the gas.
“I wasn’t sure you were really coming,” Mom said as we stepped inside the living room. I could tell she was as nervous as I was, and the smell of bourbon wafting in the air around her didn’t escape me.
The paint, carpet, and furniture still looked the way it had when I lived there.