Page 21 of No Place Like Home
I closed my eyes to get a rein on her bullshit. “What? We can’t just be friends?”
“Of course you can, if that’s all there was. But come on, Row. I know you. I know you both. That’s not all there is.”
This wassonot the time. I didn’t want to talk about this, so I said, “I thought you had an important wedding job for me. Now’s a great time to fill me in.”
Wedding talk. I knew Kora couldn’t resist, and thankfully I was right. The subject of Summer and me was over—for now.
Chapter 11
Rowan
“Mom, you home?” I yelled as I walked through the back door of my childhood house and was greeted with a delicious, garlicky smell wafting through the air. A salad had been prepped and sat on the counter in the same white ceramic bowl painted with vegetables that my mother had always used for salad. I grabbed a green pepper off the top as I looked around the kitchen.
The last time I was home, for my father’s funeral, my parents had been in the middle of redoing the kitchen. Jamison told me Mom stopped the work after Dad’s death, but Jamison made sure to get it finished. It looked great now. The cabinets, walls, and appliances had all been updated, and Mom had made sure the large space was open enough to seat our family of five, plus friends and extended family.
In the quest to find my mother, I walked through the kitchen, the formal dining room, then the foyer that no one used because they all came in the back door—and stopped dead in my tracks when I got to the living room, where I finally found her.
She was bent over, her palms on the floor, her knees at an almost ninety-degree angle to compensate for what appeared to be a lack of flexibility. Her butt was in the air—sort of—and her breathing sounded labored.
“Mom, what the hell are you doing?” I glanced at the television where the thin, hot woman was in a much better-looking position. Her strong ass was up for the world to view—and enjoy—with straight knees and palms flat on the floor. She looked long, strong, and elegant, with a body that went on for miles.
Yep, Mom was struggling.
“Downward dog,” she said, her voice strangled as she hung her head upside-down. “It’s a yoga position. Gotta keep up my sexy figure.” She slowly stood with an almost inaudibleooff, and stretched her hands high in the air. “Almost done. Getting ready to cool down.” At that, she laid on the floor—well, more like plopped with an added grunt—then placed her feet together. “Dinner will be ready soon. Can you take the lasagna out of the oven and set the table?” She glanced at the television and attempted to copy the woman by laying on the floor, her hands over her head.
My mother. Gotta love her. “Sure, Momma. Just the two of us?”
“Nope, four.”
“Four? Who else is coming? Jamison and Lilly?” They would have made it five, since they also had Darcie, Jamison’s five-year-old daughter—no, make that six, with Lilly’s five-year-old also.
“Nope. Summer and Terry.”
“Terry?”
“Kai’s father. He’s just a friend—don’t get your boxers in a twist. We have dinner every Thursday night and go to bingo after. I invited Summer, because, well, I felt sorry for her. Bless her heart—shelooked dazed today at the salon and wasn’t her typical self. She never once gave me shit about anything I said to her. It was weird and disturbing.” She closed her eyes and continued breathing. “Now, shhh. I’ve gotta get into Shanti.”
Okay, whatever that meant.
She folded her hands over her chest and her breathing became deep. I left her and set the table. Luckily, things were approximately in the same place as they were when I was home last, so it wasn’t hard to find anything.
Just as I finished setting the table and laying out parmesan, salad dressing, and the side dishes, Terry entered the kitchen.
“Rowan, right?” He held out his hand in greeting.
“Yes, sir.” I had only met him briefly at the pub the other night. I studied his face as I shook his hand. He was thin and balding, and his skin wrinkled around bloodshot blue eyes, which were similar in color but not as shockingly crystal-gray, blue as Kai’s. I couldn’t picture Kai looking like this as an old man, so he must have taken after his mother.
“Terry, so glad Nico gave you the night off so you could join us,” my mother said as she entered the kitchen. She carried the lasagna to the table, along with a knife and spatula. “Terry, go ahead and sit down in your usual place at the end. Rowan, sit by the windows.” My mother placed salad on her plate and passed the bowl to me. “Salad first, then I’ll cut into the lasagna.”
“What if I don’t want salad?” I asked as I took the bowl from her.
She glared and pursed her lips.
I chuckled to myself. “Mom, you should be well-relaxed after finding your, um, Shitee—or whatever that was. Why do you look aggravated?”
“It’sShan-tee,” she snapped, stressing each syllable one at a time. “Get it right.” She rolled her eyes. “I am perfectly relaxed, thanks to the yoga, but you need your vegetables, so eat a salad and don’t argue.”
I put my hand up, “Got ya, Mom. Salad it is.” Terry chuckled as I passed him the bowl. “Grab salad, Terry.”
