Page 69 of The Good Guy on My Porch

Oscar was on the porch, Buddy next to him, but he didn’t smile when I started down the walk. He stood and met me halfway. “What happened with your meeting?” he asked. “When I didn’t hear from you, I texted. When I still didn’t hear from you, I figured it was bad news.”

I’d gotten his texts, but I hadn’t known what to tell him, hadn’t known how to explain through text message that I’d been given a wonderful opportunity I wasn’t going to take. “I’m so sorry. It’s been a crazy day.”

“Is everything okay?”

I slipped my fingers through his and walked us to the porch. “It’s nothing. Just a librarians’ conference. They want me to give a speech.”

“That’s great.” His expression filled with pride. “Congratulations. When is it? Where is it? Can non-librarians attend?”

I laughed. It was so good to see him, to get away from my day. “I’m not going. It’s no big deal.”

His smile fell. “No big deal? What’s the conference?”

I wanted to lie to him, but I couldn’t. Not anymore, not about something he was bound to find out anyway with the way this town gossiped. “It’s the ALA. They have a conference every year.”

“The ALA? As in the American Library Association? What do they want you to talk about?”

“Just about what I’ve been doing with outreach here, programs I’ve instituted, what’s worked and what hasn’t.”

“That’s amazing,” he said. “How are you not more excited about this?”

“You saw what happened when I got up to sing karaoke. Public speaking isn’t my thing.” Maybe I could lie just a little. Though it wasn’t really a lie, more of an omission, because it wasn’t fear that was keeping me from the conference.

“But you’d be talking about your passion, about what you do every day, it would be totally different from karaoke.”

He was right and sadness tightened my throat. I’d always wanted to go to an ALA conference, they always had great talks and presentations. And the idea of talking about what I did, of helping other libraries implement similar programs, sounded amazing. “It’s in New Orleans,” I said. “I—”

“New Orleans? You would love that city, the art, the music, the huge old homes. Not to mention the beignets and gumbo.”

“You’ve been?” I asked, glad for the subject change.

He grinned. “Not yet. I should go with you. I could probably find someone to cover for me at the spa and we could see the city together. Make a vacation out of it.”

My heart sank. I’d been crazy to think I could have Oscar, even for a short time. “I could never leave my mother for that long.”

“You’re not going to go because of your mother?”

“I told you, she’s ill. I can’t leave her.”

“How long is the conference?”

“It doesn’t matter,” I said. “I can’t even leave her for a day. What if she needs me and I can’t get to her? Physically, she’s very weak. I can’t risk something happening to her.”

And then I saw it, the look I’d seen on the faces of so many other people I’d cared about. The disbelief and the dawning horror as he realized what continuing to date me would really mean, how constrained we’d be. There’d be no vacations to Caribbean beaches, no trips to meet his family, no trips anywhere outside of Catalpa creek. “Couldn’t your aunt help her if she needed something?”

“She needs me. It’s me she’s terrified of losing. If my aunt goes to her when she’s upset, she’ll assume I’m dead. I can’t leave.”

He studied me, his jaw working. “What if I help? Or if you explain to her exactly where you’d be?”

“I’ve promised her I’ll never leave town again. If I told her I wasn’t going to be in Catalpa Creek, even just for a day, she’d have a meltdown.”

He looked absolutely stunned. “You’ll never leave Catalpa Creek? Not even for a day? How could you make a promise like that?”

Damn this hurt. “The last time I left her, she almost died. I won’t leave her again. It’s the least I owe her. I get that you don’t understand that, or like it, but it’s what I have to do.”

“And you’re just going to accept that?” he asked, disbelief and pity in his expression. Damn, but I hated pity. “You’re going to miss out on life because your mother is overly dependent on you?”

Anger washed through me and I welcomed it. Anger was better than pain, better than sadness. “She’s not dependent on me, Oscar. She’s ill.”

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