Page 12 of Taking It To Overtime

Spags is sitting at my parent’s breakfast bar, his hands folded neatly on the granite top. He’s still in his suit and with his feet hooked over the rung of his stool, and his mouth tipped into a more sedate version of his standard smile. He looks every inch of the teenager he is. It’s like déjà vu, seeing him here in my space and feeling like I’m that kid again too, back in high school, with my whole life ahead of me.

My mom helps ground me in the present. Gone is the bob of dark hair and in its place is a short crop of silver gray. Her wrists are thinner, the skin looser, with a few extra spots. My mom slides a giant glass of lemonade towards him and he takes it with a calm thank you. I’m tempted to ask where the real Jack is hiding, but that would be mean.

“Thank you for letting my stay with you, Mrs. Oakes.” Jack says, and the temptation is back full force.

My mom pats the back of his hand and smiles. “We’re happy to have you, honey, but please call me Vivian.”

I lean down to kiss my mom’s cheek and she smiles. She smells the way I always remember—like Chanel No 5 and pine trees—but her skin is thinner. A few wrinkles I don’t remember paying attention to before. It has to be Vera; seeing her again and slipping straight back into old habits. That must be why I feel like my past and present are colliding, swirling, mixing.

“I’m surprised you’re here.”

I freeze, a gallon of milk clutched in my fist and my head in the open fridge door. Me. Her actual son. I’m the one she’s surprised to see?

“I assumed you’d be with Vera.”

Vera?

Why would she assume that? Unless she knew Vera was coming to visit? But decided not to tell me. Is this some sort of plot to shove us back together? The thought tears through me with alarming speed. I shut it down.

“She had us drop her off in a small town on the way here,” Spags says. “She needed to pick up a gift.”

“For her dad, I bet.” My mom nods like none of this is surprising for her. “His birthday is this week.”

“She mentioned something along those lines.” Jack smiles and sips his drink as if this is a normal conversation.

I can’t imagine a situation in which Mom wouldn’t tell me Vera was going to be in town. Unless she visits often and I didn’t know. I don’t make many trips to Kimmelwick during the season, that’s true. My parents travel for all the games local to them, or come see me in Quarry Creek. I don’t remember any reports of Vera being photographed or spotted here in central New York, but then again, the town doesn’t advertise when Icome to visit. They could close ranks around her, too. I hope they do, if she wants that.

But maybe, just maybe, I could have been seeing her during my visits. Is that something I would have wanted?

Jack excuses himself to the bathroom and I try to tune back into the present a bit more.

“You could have brought her by to say hello,” my mother says, as if there was any prior planning involved with driving her back from the airport. As if this entire morning hasn’t been one cosmic joke the universe is playing on me. “I miss that girl.”

Me too.

“I didn’t know she was going to be here,” I say.

“She surprised you too?” My mom presses her hand to her upper chest in a move Iknowmeans she’s getting ideas.

“She’s here for her dad’s birthday.” Aka, not me. I don’t know who needs to hear it more. My mother, who clearly has misread the situation, or me and my traitorous thoughts.

“You don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to,” my mom says, and my brain feels like a rock tumbler trying to keep up with what she’s implying. “But we all know how much Vera always meant to you, and how easy it would be to slip back into that again. You two always just fit. Like it was fate. She was meant to be…”

Mine.

Mom turns away, swiping a paper towel over the granite counter and sliding a cutting board into the sink. She’s trying too hard to appear nonchalant, putting too much effort into avoiding my eyes.

I make a non-committal noise, frowning.

“There’s no pressure here. You’re an adult.” Mom wrings her hands together, our furrowed brows matching. “But I’d be lying if I said Dad and I—Cecelia and I—didn’t hope you’d find your way back to each other.”

The kitchen phone rings and my mom grabs for it like a lifeline, saying hi to my dad and turning her back to me.

Mom is seriously jumping the gun here. Or she’s as delusional as I am. It’s possible that it’s genetic, my inability to get over this one freckled girl. A reason I still search her name out in headlines. A reason I think of her before every game and then lie to myself about it.

“Psst.”

I turn at the sound and find Spags hiding out in the doorway to the kitchen. His blue eyes are open wide, his hair disheveled as if he dragged his hands through it. He’s tipping his chin at me, clutching his phone in his hand, and I can’t imagine why he’s acting so secretive, but it’s possible he’s just plugged the toilet and doesn’t want to ask my mom for the plunger. Something dumb like that.

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