Page 34 of The Rebel (Covington Prep: The Girls We Love #7)
JADE
Trina Wheeler was sitting in the kitchen with Mom when I arrived home. I guessed she called her for moral support. Probably if Valencia’s mother was around, she would have been here.
Mom stood up and hugged me, but we didn’t say anything. She smelled of perfume and was wearing a soft cream sweater and a tan skirt with buttons down the front, like she was dressed for work.
Her palm patted my back and I took that as a sign that she was okay, that we were okay.
I offered to be with her when Gramma and Pops arrived but Mom wanted to speak to them on her own. She thanked Trina for coming over and said they’d talk later. Valencia went off to feed Volley and work on her art.
I waited in the den, putting on my headphones and pumping the music loud. Lifting weights would keep me distracted. Though I had no idea if I’d be working out for two minutes or two hours, two sets or twenty two.
And I didn’t know if I’d leave the room to find a bigger heartbreak or a happy family reunion.
Mom’s parents had died before I was born. She’d lost her father when she was a child and her mom a month after she married Dad. Gramma and Pops had always featured in our lives. Whatever had caused the rift surely could be repaired. Words said in grief could be retracted and forgiven.
Or so I believed.
But perhaps I was naive—hoping for a fairytale ending that might never happen.
I was pounding on the treadmill, thumping heavy metal blaring in my ears when the door opened. I did a split jump off of the running deck onto the sides of the machine and pressed the stop button. I pulled off my headphones as it took a few seconds for the belt to come to a complete halt.
I feared the worse. Mom stood there on her own, her lips tightly pressed, her eyes red and puffy. She stretched out her arms and, sweaty as I was, I fell into them, my heart racing, not from the cardio but from the thought that I’d failed.
“I’m sorry,” I said, “I shouldn’t have. I only wanted to make things right.”
Mom sniffled against my t-shirt, her lungs drawing in oxygen in long, wavering breaths. I held her close, regretting the extra pain I’d put her through. Perhaps there were some things that couldn’t be fixed, some bridges that couldn’t be mended, words that could never be forgotten.
“Your Dad would be so proud of you.” Mom shuddered against my chest, tears rolling down her cheeks. “Family was everything to him.”
Only then did I understand that I hadn’t failed...Mom and Gramma and Pops had reconciled. I pulled back and asked, “It’s all good?”
Mom nodded, dabbing at her face with a tissue that was already soaked. She sat down on the weight bench and I switched off my music app on my phone, put my headphones on the shelf and sat next to her.
“Where’s Gramma and Pops?” I asked.
“They’ve gone to check in at the hotel,” she said. “They want to take us out to dinner. I’ll go and get Ollie shortly.”
“I can do that,” I offered.
Mom smiled. She picked up my hand and clasped it. “Thank you. Thank you for being my rock, for your loyalty, for seeing sense when I couldn’t.”
My throat caught, like a lump was lodged in it, hoping she would tell me everything.
She sniffed and wiped her nose. “You know, it seems so petty now,” she said with a half laugh.
“Dad had everything worked out, everything planned and when Elise and Graham wanted to make changes, I got so mad at them. Alex knew what he wanted and it was up to me to grant his final wishes. But when Elise and Graham wanted to do this and do that, I shut them down. They wanted to dress Dad in a suit and the shoes they bought him, but Dad had specified his Man City jersey and jeans.”
I pondered it for a moment. “What shoes did they buy him?”
“You know, his Christmas shoes, the two-toned ones.”
“His Thousand Dollar Shoes? Gramma and Pops bought them?”
Mom nodded. “But Dad loved his good old Converse and that’s why I dressed him in them. They couldn’t understand that.”
I laughed. “I always thought Dad had bought those shoes, and I couldn’t believe he’d spent a thousand dollars on them!”
Mom laughed too. “He saw them online and said he wished he had a pair like that. And Elise went and ordered them for him. Dad would never spend that much on a pair of shoes!”
“But he did like them. He raved about how comfy they were.”
“Yes, he did, but he was outraged by the price of them!”
“They got mad about that?” I asked, boggled at how a pair of shoes could cause a family feud.
Mom closed her eyes for a moment. “That was the start. Then they wanted to pay for the funeral.”
I frowned. “That doesn’t sound like a bad thing.”
“No, not necessarily, but your father and I had already planned it out, the costs, the service. And they wanted to do this, add that...I said no. And I might have called them pompous snobs...and other things.” She flinched at her words.
“And things just compounded from there. They said I wouldn’t be able to support you boys on my own.
They wanted to pay for your schooling, for this, for that, for everything.
They didn’t think I was capable of doing it on my own.
” She paused, sucking in another deep breath.
“I couldn’t deal with it, Jade. I really couldn’t.
Okay, you might not be driving a brand new Aston Martin, but I think I’m doing okay by you and Ollie. ”
“I love my truck,” I piped up. My gray Ford Ranger was what I’d wanted, even if I did dream about a Mustang Boss.
Mom smiled, wiping her eyes again. “Maybe I took it too far,” she said with a shrug.
“Maybe I was too stubborn, too proud, maybe I handled it wrong. But Dad and I were together for twenty one years, Jade, and in one swoop they jumped in and undermined my role as a wife and mother. That hurt me. That really hurt me.”
I stopped her right there, my throat tightening because I could clearly see where she was coming from. I knew someone else who had those exact qualities. “No,” I said, “you were right. You stood up for yourself.”
“But I was at fault too. I can see now that I was grieving and I wasn’t in the right head space and I might have been too aggressive, and I shouldn’t have put you and Oliver in the position where you couldn’t see your grandparents.
That was a mistake and I regret it. You two shouldn’t have missed out because of me.
Elise and Graham didn’t deserve that.” She patted my knees.
“I’m truly sorry for that. I know you missed them. ”
“You did what you thought was best for us,” I said.
Mom let out a long sigh. “Adulting is hard, Jade,” she said, tapping my leg again. “And it’s harder without Dad here. I’m trying to do my best, but...”
“You are the best, Mom,” I said, putting my arm around her.
“Love you, honey,” she said, smushing a kiss on my cheek. I jokingly pretended to rub it off. “Arggh,” she groaned, nudging my shoulder. “All I want is for you to have fun, be a kid and enjoy your senior year.”
“You keep saying that,” I said, poking her back. “So you don’t mind that I was a little bit of a rebel and broke your rules?”
“Hmmm, well I guess I’m glad you did.” She hissed in my ear, “But don’t make a habit of it!”
“I’m not grounded?”
“Not grounded,” Mom said with a smirk, “but you can be on dishwasher duty all week. How’s that?”
I rolled my eyes and huffed, “Yeah, as if I don’t already do that.”
Reuniting Mom and my grandparents felt like a great weight had been lifted off of my shoulders, my heart somehow freer. It seemed absolutely ludicrous that such petty and largely insignificant details could lead to a falling out.
Hopefully we could all move ahead together.
Only one small thing bothered me.
“Hey Mom,” I said, “why have you kept some of Dad’s clothes? I remember we cleaned out most of his stuff...but there were those jackets in Valencia’s room?”
Mom’s mouth twisted. “Because of the fighting with Elise and Graham, I held back some of the clothes they’d given him. Some jackets, coats, shirts, things he’d gotten for his birthdays, the Thousand Dollar Shoes—you know in case they demanded them back or something.”
“Huh? Why would Gramma and Pops ask for Dad’s clothes back?”
Mom exhaled in frustration. “They wouldn’t,” she said, “but I guess that’s where my head was at. I thought they might kick up a fuss about his belongings and want them back. So, I kept some. Just in case.”
“His suits? Did they buy them too?”
Mom’s eyes narrowed. I’d just outed myself as being a snoop.
But she shook her head. “No. Can you believe one is his wedding suit? I don’t know, but I couldn’t bring myself to throw it out.
The other one he bought for the Christmas Gala three years ago.
He looked so spectacular in it, I couldn’t get rid of it. ”
“Oh, that’s makes sense,” I said. “Like his Man City shirts.” We hadn’t thrown them out, but I considered them collector’s items. But in essence, it was still his clothing.
Mom nodded. “Yeah. Maybe I’ll get rid of them one day, but for now I’ll just hold on to them. They don’t take up much space.”
“That’s cool,” I said, understanding there was nothing looney or bizarre about it, that holding on to memories was just one way to work through grief.
“Actually,” Mom said all giggly, “you could probably fit Dad’s tux now. A prom suit perhaps?” She jabbed me in the ribs with the silliest expression on her face.
“No,” I said, walking toward the door. “No way. Not ever. Don’t even go there! I might not even go to prom.”
Mom grinned, her hands on her hips. “I can find you a date if you want. I’m sure I can!”
I smiled sarcastically, but I was happy that she was happy and she could joke all she liked. The irony is that I was thinking about prom—but it depended on the answer to one pressing question: Could seniors take juniors to prom?
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