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“What’s wrong with your car?”
“Oh, nothing.” She pulls away and swats at my arm. “Needed an oil change is all.”
“I could’ve done it.”
“Nonsense. You need your strong hands for catching.”
I kiss the top of her head.
“Tell Uncle Carl to come carve the turkey. We’ll be eating in ten minutes.”
“Will do.”
I go out into the living room, hiking my thumb over my shoulder. “You’re needed, Uncle Carl.”
“My turn, huh?” He rubs his palms together, then gets up, clapping me on the shoulder when he passes.
I answer a string of questions about football and my classes that last until the beginning of dinner. Luckily, the conversation moves on after that, but I’m left to think about Charley. It pains me to think that she’s so embarrassed of her house. Or accepting help. It’s not her fault her house got like that. How can she take care of her dad, the house, college,andherself? It’s impossible. She has to see that.
Mom bumps me with her shoulder. “You’re quiet. What’s going on?”
“Nothing.” I give her a smile, but even as I’m doing it, I know she’ll see right through it.
“Come on, Cade. I birthed you, raised you, and love you. I know when something is up.”
“I had a fight with Charley, and…I don’t know. I think it might be over.”
Mom frowns. “Oh. I’m sorry. With the way you talked about her, I thought she was a keeper.”
“She is… I don’t think she feels the same way about me though.”
Mom puts her arm around me. “Then she doesn’t deserve you.”
“You have to say that because you’re my mom.”
After I say it, I know that’s not technically true. As evidenced by Charley’s dad, not everyone gets the luxury of a nice family. Ones who will do anything for them. Ones who will stick up for them. If I came here and told my mom it was all my fault, she’d probably tell me it wasn’t.
Charley’s retreated so much alongside her dad that she doesn’t know what it’s like to have people care about her. It scares the crap out of her.
I pushed her way too far, too fast. I ran away with myself. I treated her like I would people I’d known for years. The people I love…
But it doesn’t matter now. I probably lost her for good. She’ll never forgive me for invading her space. She thinks we were all sitting around laughing and judging her, but it was as far from that as possible.
She won’t see that it was all done by people who care about her. That’s what people do when they want someone to succeed. They help wherever possible.
Charley
“What are we doing?”
Grandma makes the turn into the cemetery. The metal arch is seared into my memory from some past date when I couldbarely see out the window, too short to get a good enough view, but I could spot the rusting wrought iron; the huge, aged trees; and the tall grave markers like monuments shooting up into the sky.
“I come here when I’m sad,” Grandma says, her wrinkled hands gripping the steering wheel.
“I’m not sad. I’m…mad,” I say, for lack of a better word.
Grandma listened when I unloaded on her after asking her to come pick me up. Her eyes rounded in surprise when she saw the house, but then she saw me, patted my shoulder and gave me a hug.
“Humor me,” she states.