Page 41 of I Found You
I switched the call over to Jackson, answering with a gruff “Hello.”
“Jesus, Mae. What’s got your panties in a bunch? I’m the one who’s mad at you.”
“Sorry. I just got off the phone with Kara. She said something I didn’t like. Not your fault though. Wait, why are you mad at me?”
“Because I had to hear from my boss that my sister spent most of the night in the hospital and didn’t call me.”
“Oh, shoot. I’m sorry, Jackson. It wasn’t me in the hospital—it was Jane. I was just at the hospital.”
“Not the point, Mae. You should have called. I would have been there if you needed me to be.”
Despite the crew he ran with, my brother was, deep down, a really decent guy. I hoped that I had some involvement in him turning out that way. He still had a lot of growing up to do and could probably use some new friends and a diploma or GED—it was a work in progress. But as a human, they didn’t get much better than Jackson. Except maybe Wyatt, butI would never tell him that.
Bribing him, I told him, “I know. If you forgive me, then I’ll tell you all about dinner with Josie.”
“You were going to do that anyway,” he huffed. “But I’ll forgive you this time. If something like that happens again though, I want to know about it.”
I agreed to his terms easily. It was a reasonable request, and I couldn’t imagine having to hear the news that Jackson had spent the night in an emergency room from a third-party person. Speaking of which… “Hey, did you call Wyatt your boss? Are you working for him now? I thought he was just letting you use one of his bays and some equipment.”
“Yeah. At first, he was just showing me how to do some things on my Rod Hall, but then he started asking for me to help him with some repairs and shit. I didn’t mind helping him out, but at the end of the week, he threw me some cash. So I guess that means he’s my boss now. It’s kind of an unofficial thing.”
“That’s great, Jackson. You should spend all your time over there. It’ll keep you busy and out of trouble. And I’m sure it’s better than late-night shifts at the gas station.”
“You think he can handle us Silvas all day and all night?”
I knew what he meant, but the way it sounded made me blush. Had Wyatt told him that he spent the night last night? “I’m a Graham,” I responded lamely.
“In name only, Mae. Now, tell me about Mom. What was she like?”
He was trying to sound unaffected, like it didn’t really matter what I said. But I knew better. Jackson wanted her to be better, to be around. He barely remembered having an actual mother. I couldn’t be sure how it affected his development, but I wasn’tblind to the fact that it had an impact on who he was today.
“Honestly, Jackson… she was really good. She seemed completely sober and drank iced tea with dinner. She said she’s been clean for ten months, and I want to believe her. She showed me pictures on her phone with her and another woman, maybe in her sixties. She said she was her sponsor. She showed me text messages of them talking about sobriety.”
“No shit. You think she’s going to stick around for a while?”
“I don’t know. She wants to. She seemed really excited about building a relationship with you. I think she was as genuine as she could be. But that doesn’t mean the wind doesn’t change direction tomorrow and it all goes up in smoke,” I warned him. It wasn’t that I wasn’t happy for Josie. I was. But I was also a realist.
“Would you be mad at me if I reached out to her?” Jackson asked. He wasn’t usually so cautious of my feelings, but I think he understood my perspective on this.
“No, I wouldn’t be mad at you. I wouldn’t have been mad at you if you told me to pound sand last week and forged ahead with a relationship with her. But thank you. Thank you for letting me feel the situation out first. It means a lot to me, Jackson.”
“Yeah, well, don’t make it weird.”
I couldn’t help the small laugh that escaped. It could have been because he was a nineteen-year-old guy, or maybe it was just who he was, but overt displays of emotion made him uncomfortable.
I could hear some noises in the background on the other end of the line, but I couldn’t make out what was going on. Jackson was silent for a minute before he spoke again.
“Uh-oh,” he whispered. “One of Wyatt’s brothers justcame storming in. He looks pissed. He’s screaming about something. Wyatt just took him into the office.”
“Which brother?” I asked.
“How the fuck should I know?” Jackson was back to his usual helpful self, clearly.
I chided his language choice and told him to get back to work. Whatever issue was happening in the Wilder world, Wyatt would solve it. And then he would come to my house and do even more to help out. He deserved someone to do something nice for him for a change.
An idea to plan a casual date night that didn’t feel too much like a date night popped into my head. He said he wasn’t interested in me when we were at his dad’s house. It wasn’t like I had forgotten that. It was burned into my memory. But he had done so much to help me, Jackson, and especially Jane. It was just going to be dinner. Something small to show my appreciation.
My first thought was to make lasagna because I knew he liked it, but I didn’t have the right noodles, and taking Jane out of the house was a nonstarter. She still needed all the rest she could get. Improvising with the ingredients I did have, I decided to make a pasta carbonara with bacon for dinner. For dessert, we could have a full ice cream bar with all different toppings. I had a bunch of stuff in stock from an ice cream social I did with my students on the last full day of school. As for the ice cream itself, my freezer was never in short supply. Afterward, we could lie on my back porch and look up at the stars, or we could watch a movie.
