Page 41 of A Baby for the Firefighter
Once we’d made it up the stairs, I opened the first door to the right. “This is where you’re going to sleep.”
“Oh.” She looked inside. It was Jake’s old room. I could offer her this or Eli’s old room. Both felt wrong, but I felt that Jake wouldn’t mind as much, and there wasn’t much of his left in here. Only a few drawings still hung on the walls of what was now my guest room. She studied them curiously. “Are these…?”
“Yeah, this was Jake’s room.” When he’d moved out, I’d asked him why he wasn’t taking his drawings, and he’d said that I should have them, so I’d kept them up.
“Oh,” my mom said again, and I couldn’t quite tell what she thought of this. “They’re nice drawings. Very bright and colorful.”
I nodded. “He’s a bright and colorful boy.”And you’d know that if you hadn’t kicked up such a fuss about his existence.
Yeah, I wasn’t going to forgive her tonight, but at least, I managed not to voice those thoughts. She could probably read them on my face anyway, because she grew very quiet.
“Let’s head back down,” I said. “Coffee should be ready.” It was all I had to say to her at this point, and I still had to call my brother too.
* * *
Ipickedup the phone while Dean was chatting with my mother over coffee. I couldn’t tell you how glad I was that he was there and taking her off my back for a few minutes. Going up to my room, I dialed Eli’s number.
He picked up the phone after only a few rings. “Griff? Are you back home now?”
“Yeah, we got here a little while ago.”
“Did you have Dean pick you up? I’m sorry I left so quickly, but… I just couldn’t stay without saying something mean, and I didn’t want to do that, considering the situation.”
“No, I get it. It’s fine. I called Dean and he came and… uh… Now I kind of have our mother staying with me.”
“You what?” There was obvious surprise in his voice, but I couldn’t tell whether there was also a hint of anger or not.
“She doesn’t have anywhere else to stay.”
“You know hotels and motels are a thing that exist, right?” Now he sounded more exasperated than anything.
“I know that. But I have all this space that I’m not using, and she’s our mother.”
“Yeah, but she didn’t seem to care much where I was going to be staying when…” Eli trailed off but I knew what he meant, of course.
“I get that,” I said softly. “But I’m not like our parents and I can’t be like that.”
Eli remained silent for a few seconds. “I know,” he said then. “You’re way better than them.”
“You’re not mad at me?” I asked tentatively.
“Of course I’m not mad at you.” He said it like I was stupid to be entertaining such thoughts. “But thank you for warning me.”
“Yeah, I didn’t want you to come over and suddenly run into her.”
Eli laughed softly. “Yeah, that wouldn’t have been fun. You’re a good person, Griff. Don’t let anyone tell you anything else.”
“Thank you,” I said, relieved that my brother wasn’t seeing my need to help as some sort of weakness and that he wasn’t going to hold it against me. We’d been through a lot together, and I couldn’t imagine not having him around anymore. I’d probably worried needlessly.
“Are you okay, though?” Eli asked next. “Not just with what happened but with having her around as well.”
That was a difficult question. Was I okay? Not really, but I wasn’t so bad off that my brother needed to worry about me. “I’ll be fine,” I said. “I can handle her. It’s not forever.”
“Can you handle what happened to Dad too? I don’t like the thought of you taking this all on by yourself. At least I have Matt.”
“I have Dean,” I said before I could stop myself, comparing my boyfriend with my brother’s husband. Not quite the same thing, I knew, but… having him around did help a lot.
“Yeah?” I could hear the smile in Eli’s voice. “Is he staying with you?”
