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“I do.”
“Do you remember—”
“When your grandpa took us there?” I finished for him.
His lip quirked adorably at the corner. “Piled me, you, Sherry, Rose, Austin, and Rhone in the minivan.”
“I can’t believe he took all of us by himself.”
“He did it as a favor for my mom.” The words trickled off as if he wasn’t done, but when silence spread between us, my eyebrow rose, and I glanced at him.
“Your mom wasn’t in a good place, and my mom wanted to help, but she also didn’t want to bring us along and cause more stress. Dad was at the winery, so Grandpa gathered us up, dropped Mom off, and picked you and Austin up.”
Mom suffered from bouts of depression, and sometimes it would get so bad, she wouldn’t clean the house for weeks. Dad had done his best to stay on top of things, but with working long hours, it was hard. As the years went on, and she found a combination of meds that worked, things got much better. I barely even remembered those dark days.
I thought back to that day though, fighting the veil my memory draped over that time, trying to hide the truth, and little pieces came back to me.
How Nero had asked me if I was okay when Sherry had gone to the bathroom. He’d squeezed my hand when I told him my mom was sad and that made me sad. After, he’d acted goofy while trying to make me laugh. The smile that had formed on his face every time he succeeded will be forever in my mind.
I was ten, but the weight of the world had felt as if it had been sitting on my shoulders. I didn’t know why. I guess I couldn’t understand it completely. But I knew, that day at the museum with my best friend and her goofy, cute older brother, that weight had lifted.
“We left and came home to a clean house,” I said. “I remember all our coats hanging on the rack. The shoes were lined up in perfect pairs. The glistening kitchen tile and fresh lined vacuumed carpets… I remember the scent of PineSol.” I closed my eyes, the memories washing over me, tears pricking at my eyes. “Mom… she was showered. I remember thinking how pretty she looked with her hair blow dried and blush on her cheeks.”
Her eyes still had a distant look in them, like Mom was in there, but she was being held prisoner by her own mind. She could see me, but part of her was locked away. That look still haunted me. As a kid, I knew it all too well. As soon as the life started to fade from her irises, I would jump into bubbly mode. Maybe if I was adorable and funny enough, she wouldn’t disappear on me again. I’d help her be happy.
I know now it had nothing to do with me, but going into bubbly mode or cracking a joke at the most inopportune times was forever my default setting.
“She got better a short time later.” Only for a year to pass and for her to slip into the dark again. It happened four more times that I can remember. Each time felt worse than the last. She’d finally gotten better. Years had passed without a single episode, only to lose her to sepsis after a routine surgery.
“Your mom was awesome, Lanes.”
“I know.” And she was. It was why I easily forgotten those dark times because the other side of that, the bright side, she shined so much light that it blocked out all the dark.
She was a powerhouse of a woman who made my dad very happy and loved Austin and me with every ounce of her being. She taught me how to bake cupcakes on my fourth birthday. Taught me how to stack a cake on my sixth. She showed me the art of buttercream flowers when I was nine. And when I was twelve, I declared we would open our own cake shop one day.
I made good on that promise. It killed me she never got to see it come to fruition. She would have loved working with the customers and coming up with outlandish ideas for us to figure out. She would have definitely bitten off more than we could chew, but we’d manage to get it done. We always did with everything else in life.
Nero wrapped a comforting arm around me, holding me close to him. His lips pressed into the side of my head, and I closed my eyes as his sympathetic touch mixed with the raw emotions of losing my mom. Something I don’t think I would ever get over.
“How about we go get drunk?” he said.
“Yes, please.”
We headed for the door without skipping a beat, but I stopped before we made it.
“What’s wrong?” Nero asked, concern darkening his gaze.
“I didn’t shower today.” The words shot out of me like my life depended on it. “I have greasy hair and I wouldn’t be surprised if I have cake pieces trapped in my bra.”
His lips pressed together, the corners going wide and upward. His body jolted as he held in a laugh. He cleared his throat. “Have you seen the tub?”
I shook my head. I had been too mesmerized by the view; I hadn’t even looked at the bathroom.
“Go check it out. You’ll want to be in there for a while.”
My shoulders slumped. “I’m going to get clean and then just put my icing stained clothes back on.”
“Leave that to me.”
