Page 82 of Tell Me You Love Me

“You take care of me the way Tommy takes care of Chris.”

“You think?”

His lips wrinkle into sweet lines. “He said after you left, Tommy took care of him most of all. He said the world was really loud, and everything felt hard, and he said Tommy was the loudest of them all. But when Chris needed help, Tommy was able to find the quiet again. Then they opened the gym and got to beat people up without going to jail.”

I snort, even as fresh tears slide onto my cheeks. “That tracks. Trust them Watkins boys to find a way to legalize Tommy’s temper.”

“I think…” He inhales, filling his chest and expanding his stomach. Then he exhales again and holds my eyes. “I think… I’m glad you picked me, even though it was scary. And I still feel sad that you couldn’t pick Tommy.”

“Honey—”

“I can feel both. And you said Ishouldfeel my feelings. It makes me sad when you’re sad. But I’m also glad you picked me.” His sweet jaw quivers. “I wouldn’t want someone else to be my mom.”

“Thank you, baby.” I lean closer and press a kiss on his wrist. “I wouldn’t give you up for anything.”Evidently. Not even Tommy Watkins.“We should go inside, don’t you think? It’s, like, eight-oh-nine now.”

He snickers and drags his hand from mine, collecting his things and scooting along the seat to open his door. So I turn and climb out my side, that familiar ache, my constant companion, plaguing the base of my stomach, but as my son comes around to stand on my left and drapes his arm across my back, I find the peace he brings simply by existing.

He does for me what I do forhim.

We find quiet in the chaos, and comfort in the uncomfortable.

“Do you want extra dessert?” I close the door and comb my fingers through his hair, hip-bumping him to the side and grinning when he glances up. “We could be a bit sneaky and take ice cream up to bed. Grandma Bitsy doesn’t have to know.”

He giggles as we cross the lawn and traverse the porch steps, shaking his head when I pull the wire door open. “She would know. She knowseverythingthat happens inside her house.”

“Noteverything.” I slide a key into the wooden door, twisting until the locks tumble open and the lights from inside spill out onto the porch. “I used to do all sorts of crazy stuff when I was only a little bit older than you are now. She had no clue.”

His eyes glitter with mischief. “What kind of stuff?”

“The kind that I’m absolutely not telling you about until you’re already twenty-one.” I push the door open and step inside, only to catch sight of my mom’s too-thin body splayed on the floor.

My breath explodes, and my heart squeezes. “Mom!?”

I dash across the kitchen and skid to my knees, grabbing her shoulder and pulling her my way. “Mom?” A line of blood trickles from her brow. “Hey! Wake up.”

“Mommy?”

“Call an ambulance, honey.” I toss my phone and place two fingers against my mom’s neck, right where they taught us in school. She’s too cold. Too gray. Too sick. “Mom? Wake up.”

ROUND TWENTY-FOUR

TOMMY

I tap my knuckles on Bitsy’s hospital room door while nurses wander by at my back, and the Plainview Gossip Vines continue to do that thing they do.

Phones ring, old people pass messages from one set of ears to the next, and my heart aches knowing that news of Bitsy’s hospital stint reaches me via the grapevines rather than the one person I’d rather hear from.

Carefully nudging the door open, I poke my head into the shadowed room and find Bitsy’s too-small, too-frail body dwarfed by a bed larger than her by double. She’s barely sixty, but I swear she looks eighty. They have her hooked up to wires and machines, an IV hanging above her bed, and plastic tubes that trail down to feed liquid into her veins.

Seeing her weak and dying, compared to the strong and vicious I spent nearly thirty years knowing, makes my throat burn. It makes my heart stutter and my lips dry, so I lick them and cast my eyes further toward a silent Franky, sitting in a visitor’s chair with an old-school Gameboy held between his hands and his feet comfortably tucked on the chair, his knees pointing toward the ceiling.

Then I look at Alana. The bags under her eyes and the pale coloring on her cheeks. Hair tied in a messy ponytail, and fatigue etched into her every feature.

She’s exhausted, and instead of calling me last night and asking for support, she decided to handle the ambulance and EMT on her own. Sheescorted her mother here, alone. And spent the night sitting beside her bed, alone.

“Hey.” She attempts to smile. That’s who she is, isn’t it? Pretending everything is okay when it’s really not. But when I stay put, she dips her chin. “You can come in. It’s alright.”

Swallowing, I drag my hat off and step into the room, then I move to the side and wait for Chris to follow.

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