Page 89 of The Tattered Gloves
“What?” He turned to me, a look of surprise blanketing his features.
“I know I haven’t met your father, but from what you’ve told me, he doesn’t seem like the type to freely hand over that store, especially to my aunt, given their history,” I added.
He sighed. “It’s true. He blames Addy for my mother leaving.”
“Is it true?” I asked. “She once told me she was the reason your mother left. Is your father right to blame her?”
“No, and yes,” he answered. “It’s complicated. Do you know how my mother and father met?”
I shook my head, watching him grab several books from the floor. He started to stack them on the display shelf, and I followed his lead, beginning to do the same.
“My mom was working at a diner,” he began.
“The same one as Addy, right?”
“Yep. My mom was working in between her classes at the local community college. I think she wanted to be a nurse or something. But then my dad came in, flirting with her every chance he had, and swept her off her feet — or so she used to say. The rest was history.”
“That sounds romantic,” I remarked.
He nodded. “Sophie thought so, too. Growing up, we thought we were lucky. Seeing so many of our friends’ parents get divorced, yet ours were still so much in love. But the older we got, the less in love they became. Or maybe they hadn’t really ever been in love in the first place,” he said.
“My mom had done the right thing, you know? Found a good guy, got married, had kids — all the things you’re supposed to do in life. But she was young. Really young. I think she reached a point when she just kind of snapped.”
“Snapped?”
“I would hear her yelling about all the things she regretted, and then she’d list everything she wished she’d done… before us.”
“So, she left?” I asked, gripping the loose fabric of my sweater between my fingers as I leaned against the counter.
He nodded. “My dad got wind that it was Addy’s suggestion, and he went nuts. Addy never meant to hurt us,” he said. “She was just as heartbroken by all of this as we were.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I didn’t either for a long time,” he said. “For months, I would cry myself to sleep, feeling betrayed by the two women in my life who mattered most. One day, I finally had enough and decided I needed answers. Rather than hoping on the bus after school, I ran all the way to Addy’s house, demanding an explanation.”
“What did she say?” I asked, unsure of if I wanted to know.
“That she was sorry… that she never meant for any of this to happen. She’d hoped that, by suggesting my mother leave town for a while, it would help her remember everything she had waiting for her at home. But she never came back. The woman we both loved was long gone. Or maybe she was never there to begin with.”
“Have you ever heard from her since?”
He nodded. “She sent a card not too long ago. It said she was well and living in California somewhere. My dad drank himself into a stupor that night, and I panicked the next morning when he wouldn’t wake up. Sophie had spent the night somewhere, and I was all alone, yelling at him to wake up.”
“What did you do?” I asked.
“I called Allison. Made us both late for school, but we managed to wake him. She might be tiny, but that girl can be scary when she wants to be. She had my dad up and hydrated in record time.”
“And then you charmed your way out of being late?” I said, remembering that day well.
He smiled faintly. “I had a note.”
“What did you give him, Sam? In exchange for Addy’s storefront?” I asked again, thinking of my aunt next door.
“Time,” he confessed.
“What do you mean?”
“He’s moved our timeline up. If the bookstore isn’t showing growth or promise of growth in a month, he’ll close it.”
