Page 68 of Life

The only problem is I want to re-enter my life. Teach my clients. Dance on stage, perhaps. Visit Kat when I feel like it. She’s supposed to be going home today, and I’ve had to make Batman promise to take me in the next couple days. Heaven forbid I go on my own. He says he’s not taking any chances with my safety. And as much as I’m learning to love him for it, it’s also making me have a violent need to take a broom to his giant television screen. Why? Because it’s all I’ve seen day after day. Night after night. The walls of his home.

Well, I’ve had it. Just as I grab my phone and start to plot an escape plan, Eli bundles down the stairs.

“Uh hey, I’ve got to ask you about something important. Can you sit down?” Eli points to the couch.

I walk over and sit down. “What?Por favor, dime que has encontrado algo?”

He sits down on the table across from me instead of next to me. After a few weeks with him, this does not bode well for the conversation he wants to have. I’ve quickly picked up on his body language. If he’s about to tell me something that will piss me off, he stands a good ten feet away. I’ve been known to toss cell phones, remote controls, throw pillows—that type of thing. Obviously with good reason. Then, if he wants to go over the case, he’ll sit by my side and face me with a leg up, or request that I meet him in the Batcave command center.

This response—the sitting in front of me so he can hold my hands—means he needs to break something to me, and he wants to be close. Close enough to hold my hands and look into my eyes to gauge the reaction to whatever it is he’s going to impart.

“No, we haven’t found anything. Your ex is still playing the choirboy card.” He grasps my hands. “I need to go to Thomas’s house. Start going through his things, determine what to keep and donate. My parents have been hounding me to go there. They want to meet us there today.”

I swallow the giant rock scratching its way down my throat. “Us?”

He nods. “Yeah, babe. I told them about us. Also shared part of the letter where Thomas told me to take care of you. Apparently, they got one too. In that letter, he mentions that they should wrap you in their love.”

I grip his hands so tight my knuckles turn white. “What if they think I’m a slut or a bad person? I mean, barely a month ago we buried their son, my ex-boyfriend, and now I’m already with you. If it sounds bad to me, how’s it going to sound to them?”

Eli caresses the side of my face with his hand. “We won’t know until we face it, now will we? Day to day. One thing at a time. We cannot control what other people think or do. We can only control how we react to them and whether or not we’re going to let it control us. I, for one, am prepared to fight for us. Are you?”

I close my eyes and nod. “Yeah, it’s just so hard with them. They took me in and made me part of their family. And now…”

“Now what? Nothing for them has changed. You’re still the woman standing by one of their sons. A future daughter-in-law. Just because it’s me and not Thomas makes no difference in the grand scheme of things.”

“Daughter-in-law,Dios mio,no.” I push back, but Eli keeps ahold.

“Relax, Spicy. You’re like a stick of dynamite ready to go off at any moment. Chill. I’m not talking marriage at the moment. And we’re not going to fret over seeing my parents. It’s going to be fine.”

I nod. “If you say so.”

“I do say so. Is there any other reason I should be worried about you going to Thomas’s?”

Mierda. I got caught up in the fact his parents were going to be there, I forgot we’d be entering Tommy’s home. Without him in it. A place he would never return to again. And I have stuff there. Some clothes, toiletries. Not much by any stretch, but enough to show a woman had been there somewhat regularly.

“No. Let’s go.” I lock hands with Eli and follow him out to the truck.

The second Iplace a single foot on the concrete step of Tommy’s home the door swings open and a woman in her early fifties rushes out. Before I can even say a word, Marion Redding’s arms and her floral scent embrace me.

“Maria, my dear, thank goodness you came.” She hugs me tight, rocking me from side to side.

I hold her with the same energy. This woman has been a rock for me since the moment I started dating Tommy. She opened her arms and her home many times for us in the early months of our relationship. Not having had my mother, I’ve always enjoyed and looked forward to her company. Since losing Tommy, I hadn’t realized how much I appreciated her presence in my life until this moment.

“Dear, you’ve lost weight. And you were already so thin.” She tsks the way a real mother would, worrying over her child.

I chuckle. “You say the sweetest things, Mama Redding.”

“Ask my boy. I only ever speak the truth.”

When she finally lets me go, I have to wipe the few tears that made their way out. Yes, I totally missed her.

“And what about your Papa Redding? Come here, beautiful.” Jeremy Redding tugs me into his arms for a quick bear hug and a kiss to the temple. “How you holding up?”

“Like a cat. I always land on my feet.”

He grins. “Damn straight.”

Marion smacks her husband’s arm. “Come on in. I’ve got a lasagna heating in the oven. We have a lot to discuss.” Her words are direct but not unkind.

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