Page 115 of Flirting with Trouble

“It wasn’t evil. I just waved your diary around and said something like, Dear Diary, I think Jamison is the cutest boy on the island.”

“I was mortified,” Keira says.

“I had no idea you really liked him,” I remind her.

“It was a momentary lapse in judgment,” Keira says sharply.

“What is it with brothers and their need to embarrass their sisters?” Victory says. “I had a sleepover in high school, and Clay and Flynn eavesdropped on us. They found out who my friends and I had crushes on, and then they had their friend call and say he was one of the boys we liked. He asked us to sneak out at midnight to meet him. As soon as we started sneaking out, my brothers called the police and said they thought somebody was breaking in.”

“Oh my goodness,” my mother says.

I chuckle, but the girls scowl at me. Quickly schooling my expression, I say, “You want me to make them pay for that?”

“You and what army?” Bellamy says.

I look at Grant and Fitz, and they say, “No,” making the others laugh.

“Mom,” Keira says. “Show Vic the pictures from when Wells played baseball in high school.”

“He was so cute.” My mom looks at the photo albums on the coffee table and says, “I must have left it upstairs. Wells, honey, would you mind grabbing the photo albums from the shelves in my room?”

“Sure.” I head up to the master suite, and as I reach for the photo albums on the bookshelves, I see my mother’s gardening books and remember what Grant said about the flowers I’d given her. I pull out one of the thickest books and leaf through the pages, but I don’t find any dried flowers. An unexpected pang of disappointment hits, and I pull another gardening book from the shelf and page through it. There are no flowers in that one, either. I look through three more books, and there’s no denying the disappointment I feel.

“Those aren’t albums, son,” my father says from the doorway.

I had no idea he was standing there. “Yeah, I know. Sorry, I was…” I put the books back on the shelf, not wanting to explain myself.

“No need to be sorry.” He walks over and crouches in front of the bookshelves. He pulls a thick book from the bottom shelf. It has several rubber bands wrapped around it. “I think you’re looking for this.”

He hands it to me. Better Homes and Gardens New Garden Book. There are gaps between the pages, which I’m sure are from the flowers.

“It was your grandmother’s gardening book,” my father says. “Every flower you gave her after I moved out is in there, along with the notes you wrote.”

My chest constricts. “How did you know I was looking for this?”

“I didn’t when I came in. Your mom asked me to see if you needed help finding the album. When I saw you holding gardening books, I figured it out.”

I look at the book, bound by old rubber bands like my mother didn’t want to chance losing a single flower or note. I’m not sure why, but I feel like I’m invading my mother’s privacy. “I shouldn’t have looked for it. Grant told me she kept the flowers, and I was just curious.”

“It’s okay to be curious. I’m sorry we put you kids in such a difficult position when you were little.”

“It’s okay. Life happens.”

“Life does happen, and it can throw you for one hell of a loop, but looking back now, we could’ve handled it better. We were just kids ourselves, fumbling through a life we didn’t know how to manage. Something happens when you fall in love, Wells. Your world becomes less about you and more about the other person.”

“Yeah. I found that out.”

“I know. That’s why I’m telling you this. Maybe it’ll help you avoid the mistakes we made. When you have kids, that special person moves to second place because babies are vulnerable and they just need us more. In our case, your mother and I moved to sixth place in each other’s lives. We were so busy trying to become responsible parents, we didn’t see the chasm forming between us until it was too late. I fell in love with your mother when I was nineteen, and by the time I was thirty, we were raising five kids and loving every minute of it. But we were doing it while I was learning how to put aside my artistic dreams to become a businessman I had no interest in being, and your mother was suddenly no longer Margot, but someone’s mom, five times over, and a Silver to boot. I was busy creating an identity while she was losing hers.”

That hits deep, and possibly for the first time ever, I really see my parents not as Mom and Dad, but as a man and a woman who fell in love when they were teenagers and somehow made it through all the pressures of life and family without losing their love for each other.

“Are you telling me this as a warning not to have kids?”

He smiles. “No, son. Kids are worth every second of the joy, and the hell, they bring. Which strangely enough can be intertwined. I’m telling you this as a cautionary tale, so you never lose sight of the person who made you want to bring children into your life in the first place.”

“I can’t imagine that ever happening.” I put the book back and push to my feet.

“Nobody falls in love thinking those all-consuming feelings can ever be nudged aside.” He grabs the photo albums from the top shelf and hands them to me. “If you’re lucky, and you work hard at it, your love will weather any storm. Look at me and your mother. We’ve been together nearly forty years, and we’re still breaking furniture.”