AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I frowned down at her. “You’re setting me up with Clara? That’s what this is? And you are encouraging me to...” I wiggled my eyebrows back. This was a bad idea.
Mom sighed and slouched. “Oh Sylvester, I just hate seeing you alone...and poor Clara over there, losing both her parents so fast, and that awful man running out on her and Katie...”
“Running out?” I asked, my blood starting to heat in misplaced anger.
“Well, I mean, I don’t know the whole story. But he’s not around, and she won’t talk about him.”
“Good.”
Ma squinted at me. “What?”
“Nothing. No, not good. I just mean, he sounds like a turd.” I was glad he wasn’t around. But was that selfish? Wouldn’t it be better for Katie to have her dad?
“Language.” Mom swatted my arm.
“Ouch. That’s not even a bad word, Ma.”
“So I’m saying you dress up nicely and you show her a good time.”
“That’s what I’m known for.” More eyebrow wiggling.
Mom hit me again, harder.
“Ow.”
I took three more pieces of bacon off the platter as Mom busied herself around the kitchen, and just as I was about to head back upstairs, she stopped me. “Sly?”
“Yeah?”
“You were a big help today.”
“It’s no problem.”
“I was just wondering... you have a couple months off, don’t you?”
I turned slowly to look at my mother, who was wearing the expression that had convinced me to do one million chores today. “Yeah,” I answered, my voice wary.
“Well, wouldn’t it be nice if you could spend them here? With us?”
“Here?”
“Yes. At home.”
I looked around the place I’d grown up suddenly considering it very differently. Not as my parents’ house that I visited once in a blue moon. But as a place I’d once lived. Could I live here again? Even for a couple months? “Ummm,” I drew the word out as thoughts of school flicked through my mind. This summer was supposed to be about school.
“We could even clean out that little apartment over the garage for you. I know you’re too big to want to sleep in your old bedroom.” Mom dropped my gaze, wringing her hands in front of her. “It might just be nice, with your dad slowing down, you know...”
“Is Dad okay?” Little pricks of my constant worry about Dad’s health flared into full-blown concern.
“He is, yes, of course he is. He’s just older, and I don’t think that fence is something he can do alone. And the boxes in the garage, and... it would just be nice to have you around.”
“Sure, Mom,” I said, even though staying here all summer had definitely not been part of the plan.
She stepped close and leaned up on her toes to kiss my cheek as she patted my arm. “Really? That’s wonderful. Thank you, honey.”
I felt a little sideswiped as I stepped away from her, but a tiny bloom of excitement spread through me too. Clara and I would be neighbors again. For the summer.
I headed back upstairs to finish reading a scintillating book about analytic techniques in the age of artificial intelligence, and told myself I would not be thinking about Clara and whether she was sad.
