Page 38 of Against the Current

Trisha stepped closer to Jackie. “I want to make myself clear.”

Jackie couldn’t breathe.

“I know you, Jackie. I’ve known you for years. And I know what Willa did tonight embarrassed you to no end,” Trisha said.

Jackie’s voice wavered. “It did not. I love her.”

“You don’t really know her yet,” Trisha reminded her.

“That isn’t my fault.”

Trisha hesitated as though she hadn’t expected that response. “Don’t invite your friends around if you don’t want Willa to embarrass you.”

Jackie tried to stand up for herself. “I want to spend time with them. I want to encourage them.”

“Kids can feel what you’re feeling,” Trisha said. “They’re just as empathetic as we are.”

Jackie filled her lungs. She felt on the verge of tears.

As Trisha walked away, tracing the path that her children had taken, Joel stepped up to hug Jackie. He kissed her hair.

Under Jackie’s breath, she said, “She’s right, Josh. She’s right.”

Josh shook his head. “You love those kids.”

“But I was embarrassed.”

“It’s a learning curve,” he reminded her. “We’re all figuring this out as we go along.”

Chapter Fourteen

October 2010

With renewed love and a sense of peace (despite the stolen car in the line of trees), Ryan and Trisha left “the Reed Estate” and headed back to their apartment. Rhonda chased them as they drove off, hollering, “Wait, Trisha! Wait a second, honey!” She banged her wooden spoon on the porch swing in frustration. The fear in her eyes made Ryan think she knew about the car.

When he suggested this to Trisha, Trisha said, “She knows, all right. There’s no way she doesn’t. Maybe she even ordered my brothers to do it herself.”

“To protect you,” Ryan said.

“To get back at your family,” Trisha affirmed. “And yeah, sure. Protect me. Whatever that means.”

Ryan dropped his head against the headrest and watched the gorgeous landscape stream past his window. The car smelled of Trisha again, and he felt as though he was floating. He’d missed her.

He said, “I can’t believe how much I missed you.”

Trisha punched him in the arm. “You better have missed me.”

“Ow!”

“Don’t be a wimp, Lewis,” she said.

“Your last name is Lewis, too.”

“At least it isn’t Sutton,” Trisha scoffed.

He was beginning to understand why that was so.

Back at the apartment, Trisha and Ryan cozied up in bed for the rest of the day, avoiding the many phone calls from both sides of their family. When Ryan got up to order a pizza, he read over his mother’s and grandmother’s frantic text messages, which alternated between demanding where he had gone and reminding him that there were so many fish in the sea, he could start over. He could be free from “this pain.” Ryan didn’t read the messages to Trisha, but it was as though she could read his mind.

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