Page 40 of Say Something
I frowned and poked at my fries. “She doesn’t hate me?” I found myself asking. Maybe I hadn’t meant for the words to come out. Or maybe I had. But I’d always wondered. Dean didn’t have a problem with me, but that was Dean. I hurt his brother, not his son. The term Mama Bear was coined specifically for Mrs. T. I wasn’t going to lie, I was afraid of the woman. I was afraid of her as a teenage girl dating her son, as a woman married to that same son, and now as her son’s ex-wife. I was also surprised I hadn’t run into her or Mr. Thompson in town yet. Or maybe I was lucky…
“Hate you? She could never hate you, Jess. Mom loves you. She misses you.”
I blinked.
“Don’t look so surprised. She always adored you. You were like the daughter she never had.”
“But she has a daughter.”
“Yeah, well Darcy doesn’t count. She drives my parents crazy.”
“Still?” I asked, remembering his little sister as a wild child. She’d wanted out of our one-stoplight town more than I had. As much time as I’d spent with the Thompsons, I hadn’t spent a lot of time with Darcy. She was never around. Always taking off to here or there with this guy or that guy. She probably single-handedly kept the Smithfield County Sheriff’s Office in business in Oak River the year she ran away from home six times.
“Yeah. She lives in California now. That’s where Mom and Dad have been. They took a few weeks off and headed out to visit her. I think this trip is a trial run of Dad’s retirement. See if they can put up with each other,” he laughs.
I smiled, remembering the easy banter between Mr. and Mrs. Thompson. I did miss them, I was a part of their family for a long time. Knowing she didn’t hate me...didn’t blame me...it was like a weight had been lifted, one I didn’t even realize I was carrying. I guess maybe I’d thought they were avoiding me this week, too, so it was a relief to hear they were actually just out of town.
“I’d love to see your mom. I’ll make it a point to stop by this week.”
“She’d like that,” he said, finishing off the last of his burger. He looked at his watch. “I’ve got to get going, I have practice in a few.”
“Isn’t it the off season?” I asked, trying to ignore the way the muscles in his arms flexed as he cleaned up his trash.
“It’s never the off season, Jessie,” he said. Repeating what he always used to say when we were kids. Football players worked as hard, if not harder, in the off season than they did during the season. Couldn’t get soft now, could they?
“Thanks for lunch,” I said. “And the company.”
“Anytime, Jess.” He winked as he walked out the door.
Gone just as quickly as he’d appeared.
If I didn’t have half a burger, some fries, and a cactus in front of me, I’d almost claim he had been just a figment of my imagination.
