Page 60 of This Love
“Do you think the movie mother is worse than mine?” I relaxed into his embrace.
“I think they’re both pretty awful.” He squeezed my shoulders. “Did you ever tell your dad you saw your mom?”
“No. I didn’t want him to make me move to Houston.”
He drew me close to him again. “I’m glad. You can handle anything. You kicked a knife out of my hand, remember?”
“I do.”
He stroked my hair. “You go through more than anybody I know.”
I curled against his shoulder. “But you. Your mother and father. Your brother.”
“But that’s over. I got through it. You live with your challenges every day.”
He was right. “Tell me about your mother. I want to hear about a good one.”
His body tensed next to mine, and I almost wished I hadn’t asked. But then it relaxed again. “She was a great mom. She was strict, you know. We had to clean up after ourselves. And she was forever telling us not to leave toothpaste in the sink.”
“I do that sometimes,” I said.
“You always have.” He touched the tip of my nose. “It’s cute.”
Something else about old Ava I had retained. “What else?”
“She loved baking things. Cookies. Pies. Cakes. Dad always said she was going to fatten us all up.”
“Did she?”
“Nah. We were busy. Yard work. Dad and Stephen had sports. She did Jazzercise.”
“We haven’t baked anything like that. Just dinners.”
“We could. I could get things for a pie.”
“Did I have a favorite before?”
“Cherry. Always cherry.”
We had cherry pie at Big Harry’s, but I’d never tried it. “I didn’t know that.”
“Once you eat it, you’ll remember.”
“Well, not exactly remember.” I socked his arm.
“Your mouth will remember.”
“Is that better than my heart?”
His face got all serious at that. “The heart is protective. Maybe the mouth has an easier time.”
Did it? I had spit out a thing or two that I hadn’t wanted to eat. I was in the cilantro is soap camp. And tapioca pudding made me gag. Maybe my heart did the same thing, at least at first, when it was being protective. Spit things out. Made me want to get away.
But I was better. I wasn’t scared all the time.
Other than when Mother showed up unexpectedly.
That had been bad. I wondered what she would do if I called her that.
