Page 20 of The Cadence
“You’re gone from morning until night, sometimes late night,” I pointed out. “Even with all those meetings, it’s a long time to be away from home.”
“I keep busy.”
“Is that because you’re trying to stay away from me?” I asked, and he hesitated but didn’t answer. “I read that there was a Woodsmen event for players and families, football practice and then a big lunch party.” The local news sites here reported on all the football activities.
“It wasn’t that big.” He hesitated again. “I left after practice and didn’t stay for the lunch.”
“I understand.”
“Do you?” he asked.
“I don’t expect you to treat me like I’m something special to you. Didn’t I just finish saying that it takes time to get used to things? It will take you time to get used to me and to be comfortable with a stranger hanging around your house all the time.”
“You’re not a stranger,” Will said. “We know each other. You’re an employee of my company and you’re also my guest. I was staying away because I felt…”
I waited.
“I felt like I should give you space to get your bearings.”
Not a feeling, but ok. “What does that mean?” I asked.
“I mean that I’ve never wanted people around when I had a problem to tackle,” he answered. “I want to do it without interference. You have to work through the grief and I thought you’d want to be by yourself.”
“No, I don’t want to be sad and alone. I’m not like that,” I told him. “Not at all. I would much rather have you or anyone else there with me.”
“That was what you said in your bedroom after the funeral. You wanted me to be there for you, but I…” He stopped, stuck. I waited, but then he started nodding. “So you’ll get in touch with Miss Mozella and I’ll get her a plane ticket. She can visit for a few days while I’m away with the team on Mackinac Island.”
“No, no, no,” I stated. “There are so many problems with what you just said. First, she’s not getting on a plane. Absolutely not. She hates driving, too, so she’s going to stay where she is. Also, if you told her anything about how I needed her, she would have a hissy fit and I don’t want her to be upset.”
“You just admitted that you want company.”
“I’m not going to force someone,” I answered, “or guilt them into spending time with me. Aren’t you going to be flying off to games all season long? I’ll be alone then, too.”
He didn’t appear to care for that idea.
“I have wanted to be around you more, though,” I admitted. “I should come clean.”
“What?”
“I haven’t been hanging out in your driveway at all hours because I have a lot to do there or because I like the view,” I said. “I was trying to see you, in an underhanded way.”
Will stared at me, and now I spotted another expression that was a clue to what he was feeling. His full lips tightened and his eyebrows crinkled tightly. It could have been anger but I guessed it was frustration, which I had seen before when we were in high school and he’d tutored me.
His words confirmed it. “I don’t know how to fix this,” he announced.
“Why would you have to?” I asked, and then answered myself. “You don’t, because you don’t owe me anything and that’s something I’ve told you a bunch of times before. I think that right now, I’m a little bit contrary. I want to drive around and explore but I don’t want to put miles on your car or hurt it somehow. I needed a new place to live, but I was scared to leave where I was. I’m glad that my grandma isn’t suffering anymore, but I miss her and I wish she were still here with me.”
He passed his napkin again.
“Thank you.” I sniffled then continued. “I want to be around people, but I don’t want to force Miss Mozella, you, or anyone else to be my lap dog. I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“I know that it makes you upset when people don’t fall in line and behave the way you want us to,” I said. “You didn’t like it when you couldn’t get me to figure out a math problem or write a sentence that had all the parts it needed.”
“That’s not true.” He finished his glass of water, which he’d already emptied once. “I wasn’t upset with you at all. I reacted to how I was failing to help you, but now I see how that came across. I must have seemed so punitive and mean. It was a shitty way to treat you.”
“No, I was glad that you were frustrated with me,” I told him. “It meant that you cared. It also meant that you thought that I had the capability of doing better, that you had faith in me. I wasn’t feeling that about myself.”
