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“I am. I can’t hear myself think in there with the television going all the time.”
I raised an eyebrow, thinking about that. “You could ask him to turn it down.”
Mom sighed and one shoulder lifted and fell, like it would just be too much to ask.
“Did you and Clara have a nice night?”
I’d mentioned that I was taking Clara to the team barbecue, but now I wondered if Mom had sat here quietly and watched Clara leave my place this morning.
“We did,” I said, trying not to give anything away. I didn’t want to embarrass the woman I couldn’t stop thinking about.
“And you were a gentleman, I expect?”
If a gentleman makes a woman come screaming his name at least four times in one night, then I was a perfect gentleman. “Of course.”
“She deserves some happiness,” Mom said, and I had the sense she was talking about more than Clara. Mom was staring off into space, looking more resigned than I’d ever seen her.
“Mom, what’s going on?” There’d been something funny about the way she and Dad had been interacting since I’d gotten home. He was getting away with a lot more than usual. It wasn’t like Mom to play the submissive housewife.
“Mmm?” she shook her head lightly, her lips pursing.
“With Dad. Here.”
She held my gaze for a moment and then dropped her eyes to the table, tracing an invisible line across the surface of the newspaper with her finger.
“There’s obviously something wrong,” I prodded. Now that I was asking, I was connecting all the dots. I hadn’t been sure before, but now I was convinced there was something going on.
She nodded, but didn’t speak.
I waited, my heart freezing inside my chest with every moment she made me wait.
“I guess it’s his heart?” Mom said quietly.
“What do you mean ‘you guess’?”
“Dad had a little heart attack a couple months ago,” she said, still not meeting my eyes, probably because she knew there’d be an inferno there. How could they not tell me?
“What?” My voice was a low whisper.
“Something about the valve in there...but he has a new one now.”
I shook my head. “Dad had heart surgery? And you didn’t tell me?” I stood, needing some kind of outlet for the anger surging through me. I wanted to pound something or someone to let out the sudden burst of adrenaline inside me.
“It was the beginning of playoffs. We didn’t want to worry you. Dad said it would throw you off your game.”
“Did Beckett know?”
Mom didn’t answer.
I paced a circle around the little deck. “So my whole family kept a huge secret from me because you thought I couldn’t handle it. Dad could have died. And what would you have told me then?” I was speaking a little louder than I meant to, but I hadn’t yet made sense of the fury zinging around within me.
“He’s okay, honey. He’s just supposed to take it easy, is all.”
I stared at her. “You didn’t think I could handle this information now? When I’m living here for the summer? When I’ve been forcing him out into the hot sun to work on this fence with me?” Guilt compounded my anger over the way I’d cajoled Dad outside, pushing every macho button I knew he had. I could have killed him!
“I’m sorry, honey.”
I nodded because I didn’t trust myself to speak. And then, when no appropriate words came to me, I turned and headed for the stairs.
