Page 61 of Between Now and Forever
He sits down, breaking contact. Then he scoots back and stands up.
“Have a good night, Jay,” he says.
“You too, Carter.”
He picks up his ball in the driveway and dribbles it to the sidewalk.
I shut out him, the ball, and as many thoughts about his mother as I can manage and go into the house.
“But Dylan was a jerk face to her, and then she lost a middle name or something. I don’t know. Apparently, that’s bad. And then she said she just wanted a hug.”
I need to remind myself—continuously—that Gabrielle is not alone. She has her children. Friends. And eventually she’ll have some guy wrapping his arms around her, giving her hugs, and helping her not do life alone.
And I’ll be . . . here.
As much as that pisses me off, it’s the way it should be.
The way it has to be.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
GABRIELLE
Can you not put everything you see into the cart, please?” I ask my two children.
“But, Mom,”Carter says, making my name into a sentence.“I need these.”
I snatch the box out of his hand. “You do not need liquefied sugar with red food coloring and a sour sprinkle.” I put it back on the shelf. “There are so many reasons why that’s not happening.”
The grocery store in Logan is comfortably busy. There are enough people inside to keep the doors open, but there aren’t so many people that I want to start ramming carts with my own. Most people shop at the big-box store across town. I prefer the mom-and-pop establishment that has homemade soaps and trail mix.
“How was school?” I ask Dylan. He hasn’t really spoken to me since I picked him up an hour ago. Most of his communication has been via grunts and head nods. It’s so fun for me. “Did you have a good day?”
He grunts.
“How about this,” I say, picking up a box of instant oatmeal. “One grunt for yes and two for no.”
He glares at me.
“Or use English,” I say. “It’s up to you.”
“Sometimes I really don’t like you,” he says.
“Yeah, well, at least you said it in English.”
He rolls his eyes and refuses to look at me.
Carter grabs my arm and rests his head against my bicep. “I had a good day, Mom. I made a free throw during gym class. Everybody clapped.”
“That’s great, Carter.”
“And I made the prettiest flower during art. I know Mrs. Templesman thought so. I could see it on her face.” He tugs on me until I look down at him. “You know that face you make when you tell someone their baby is cute, but you really don’t mean it?”
I struggle not to laugh.
“The teacher made that face when she looked at everyone’s flower but mine.” He beams. “I’ll bring it home to you once she takes it off the wall in the hallway.”
“I can’t wait.”
