Page 108 of How to Kiss a Hawthorne Brother
I nearly gasp when I read his message.
He’s alive! A living, thinking human! And he’s noticed my attempts to add a bit of levity to his day.
Still, I sense a need to manage my expectations.
One pun does not a friendship make. In fact, “friendly banter” is written nowhere in my job description. Marley would even discourage me from engaging in such a thing, though she’s reiterated multiple times it’s up to me to set boundaries according to my own comfort level. And my comfort level is a lot closer to “friends with everyone” than “professional and impersonal.”
I stand up and stretch, happy to be out of my chair after so many hours in it.
I look around my cluttered living room. I probably ought to spend a few hours cleaning the house once I get Jack from the bus, especially since he’s got soccer practice tonight, and there won’t be time later.
Our place has more than enough space for the two of us, but by general standards, it’s tiny—tiny enough that it ought to be easier to keep clean. But cleaning is one of those things that used to feel simple but now seems like an enormously complicated task.
The list of those things was a lot longer at first. Getting out of bed. Doing basic things like brushing my teeth or making myself a cup of coffee. Forget showering or going to the grocery store. Ihonestly don’t even know how we ate the first few months right after Trevor died.
Things are easier now.Mostthings, anyway. But it’s also been long enough that I’m finally sorting through the layers of complicated emotions I still haul around with me every day. Things like how much Trevor cared about the house (and Jack and me) always looking neat and tidy and at “our best.”
I never slacked off before. I half wonder if that’s why I’m more lenient about things now.
Because I can be.
Guilt, sharp and familiar, wells up, pushing against my lungs, making my chest feel tight. Trevor’s gone, and I’m relieved I don’t have to keep the house as clean?
I brush the thought into the corner with the dust bunnies and look for my shoes. It’s nearly time to walk to the bus stop to meet Jack. I’d rather do that than sweep the floors anyway.
Jack is all smiles and sticky hands when he climbs off the bus. He’s holding a giant sheet of posterboard in one hand and a ring pop in the other, the sticky juices dripping down his hand and staining his skin blue. His lips have the same blue tint. Somehow, it only makes him cuter.
“Ughh, Mom. You’re squeezing me too tight,” he says when I scoop him into my arms.
I drop him back to the sidewalk and tug on his backpack until it slips from his shoulders. It’s only a hundred yards or so to the house, but the thing almost weighs as much as he does. I throw it over my shoulder and nudge Jack toward home.
“What’s on the poster?” I ask, and he unfolds it to show me as we walk.
“Our family,” he says. He points to the figure on the far left. “That’s you. And this is me beside you.”
“It looks so great, Jack. What’s that up there?” I point to an airplane-looking thing above the trees.
“That’s Daddy. He’s in his jet. Watching us from heaven.”
My heart squeezes. (Will it ever stop?)Jack was too little to remember his dad, but he’s heard the story enough times to know how he died. And that he was heroically serving his country when he did.
“So, if that’s Daddy up in the jet, who is this down here?” I point to the other figure standing on the opposite side of Jack.
“That’s my new dad.”
Oh. Oh wow.
I clear my throat. “Your new dad, huh?”
“Yeah. My friend Chloe at school says her parents got a divorce, and her mom moved out, but then her dad brought home a new mom. Now she has two. Her real mom and then another kind. A stairmom.”
I press my lips together to stifle a giggle. “I think you mean stepmom, baby.”
“Oh, right. Stepmom. Am I getting one though? A new dad? Would he be my stairdad? I mean, stepdad?”
We reach our tiny front porch, and I turn and sit on the step. Jack moves to the front yard and starts combing a patch of grass for four-leaf clovers. It’s late enough in the season I don’t think he’s going to find any. The grass has mostly stopped growing—I doubt we’ll even need to cut it again before spring—but I’m grateful he’s occupied anyway so I can have a minute to gather my thoughts.
“Chloe said her dad found her stepmom at the bar,” Jack says. He’s stretched out on his belly, his legs kicked out behind him, his face close to the browning grass. “What’s a bar? Is it like a people store?”
