Page 125 of Naughty Dreams
Tal had tried to stand away from them, part of it being a respectful “I’m not trying to overstep,” but a lot of it the wary “I’m not going to trust that this is real” or “I’m pretending I don’t want to belong so you can’t reject me.” They weren’t putting upwith that. His tentative smile balanced the cynical twist of his mouth.
DJ rose and padded over to the pics. “I don’t know how to fill myself up again,” he said.
“It’s like a rain barrel.” Marjorie spoke from the doorway. “Some days won’t bring anything, or just a few drops. Then there’s the glorious storm days. You keep living, and the rain will come. But you put the rain barrel in a dark place where it can’t get rain, and it will stay empty. The water left inside it will get stagnant and grow mold.”
DJ studied the pictures without turning. “Remember the time Steve challenged you to come up with ‘motherly metaphors’ for every situation he could think up?”
“I do.” A smile was in her voice. It had always sounded like a mix of musical tones to him. A squeak or bird trill on the higher notes, her laughter a deeper bass.
“We were all laughing at the funny ones, then he said, ‘I’m a total fuckup. How could any mother love me?’”
“What did I say?” Now her voice was thick.
“‘Disappointment has nothing to do with love.’ We disappoint one another all the time, because we all stumble and fail, especially in our relationships. But love endures even that.”
He closed his hand around the ichthys, the platinum fish shape pressing into his palm. “You pointed out how often the disciples failed Jesus, and yet he never stopped loving them. You said if he could do that, then we should do the same. We carried those lessons with us, you know. It helped us with Tal, more times than I can count.”
He turned and looked at her. She was in her fifties, but to him, she was timeless. Dark brown skin and heavy-lidded, thickly lashed, very round brown eyes. Her lips were straight but had a soft set to them.
Right now she had her hair in a bun with a fuzzy fringe of natural edges around her lined and oval face. When they were growing up, she’d sometimes worn her hair in a short mane of corkscrew curls, but the bun had become her go-to, easy-care look.
She wore an ankle-length jagged teal and black striped skirt over her slip-on Skechers, plus an oversized football sweatshirt he knew had belonged to Pete. They’d all had a handful of clothes here, for when they were able to drop in.
“I’m sure we three disappointed you a million times.” DJ’s voice was thick, too.
“Only because that’s part of growing up, not because you were bad boys. I’m so proud of all of you.”
She stepped closer. “DJ, it’s horrible what happened, but there’s not a thing you could have done to anticipate that, no matter what you think.”
Just because it was the truth didn’t make it easy to accept. But as he looked at her, he didn’t see his own grief. He saw hers, and knew what was needed.
What she needed.
When he cupped her face, the surprise was almost instantly swallowed by a flood of grief, showing him how much she’d been enduring, with silent pain and endless strength.
It shamed him, but he was strong, too. With a murmur, he drew her close, holding her in arms capable of bearing her sorrow. The sobs crashed over her, and he moved them to sit on the edge of the bed.
He would never again wish he’d been on that plane with his brothers. If he had been, she wouldn’t have had one of them left to hold onto. As she cried against his chest, he felt the humbling honor of her stepping away from the boy she’d raised, to lean on the man he’d become.
He kept holding her until she got it out. When she was ready to slow down, he plucked two tissues out of the box on the nightstand and offered them to her.
They sat silently for a little bit, and when she had her composure, she gave him a teary half smile. “Thank you, DJ. My church friends have supported and cared for me so well but…I needed this.”
“Me too. Thanks for letting me offer, especially after I was such a dick…a selfish jerk.”
“No.” She shook her head. “The last thing you are is selfish. You came right when you were supposed to. So that’s all we’ll say about it. All right?”
It would take him time to let go of it, but she didn’t need to worry about that. He took the cue to move them back to less emotional waters. “Is Roy patrolling the grounds like a proper guard dog? He likes his meat raw, by the way.”
She gave him a chiding look. “You never could resist poking authority figures. He drank his coffee on the porch, then went to work on his laptop in my office. I told him he had the morning off. I wanted you to myself.”
She clasped his hand, her fingers warm and smooth. “Come eat some breakfast. You need some feeding up. We’ll just relax while you’re here. We’ll remember them, and laugh and cry and be quiet together when we need to be, all right?”
Her voice shook a little again, and he slid his arm back around her. “All right.”
She gave a little nod, and firmed her chin. “Come help me bake your favorite cookies. You can use those strong hands of yours to mix the dough.”
Throughout that day and most of the next, DJ spent time with Marjorie and helped her around the house. As she’d predicted, they cried together, talked and laughed. Marjorie had lost her sons, and DJ had lost his brothers. So they remembered, and drew strength from one another.
