Page 34 of This Love
I pushed through the swinging door to the kitchen.
I also knew from my notes that Tucker was a good one. And he’d been very patient, moving back in with his Gram to only visit each day to try to get me back into my old life.
But sometimes I wasn’t sure I wanted to.
My tattoos warned me that my life was not always safe. I glanced at the one on my wrist for the thousandth time.
Trust only this handwriting.
Chapter 13
Tucker
I was still pretty much in hell.
I sat on Gram’s flowered sofa, waiting for her to get dressed so we could head to Big Harry’s Diner to see Ava, if only for an hour while we ate.
Before she started working, I got to see her every day. But now that I was back at Jiffy Lube, and she was at Harry’s, I didn’t always get a chance to go over to our blue house when she was there.
I wasn’t making much headway. Our time together felt like two classmates studying the same material, not two people who almost got married finding their way back to each other.
Gram came out of her bedroom in a bright yellow dress with red flowers. Her gray curls looked like they hadn’t been colored in yet compared to the outfit.
“Ava liked this one,” Gram said. “Did you choose wisely? We should do everything we can to help your cause.”
“Yeah.” I was actually wearing the same thing I’d worn when I’d met her eight years ago, my dad’s bowling shirt.
Gram’s face softened as she looked over the green and white shirt. “I remember the day your father bought those shirts. Did you know he asked me what to do back then when he only seemed to connect with your little brother?”
I didn’t. “What did he say?”
She sat next to me, resting her big gray purse on her lap. “He noticed you didn’t want to throw the ball around like Stephen did, and you preferred to play video games.”
“I remember.”
“And he asked me what he should do.”
“What did you tell him?”
“First, I told him to talk to your mother! Nobody wants a meddling mother-in-law.” She said it with such energy that I had to laugh.
“But you had the answer, I take it.”
“She got your dad to play some games with you. And that was good. But Stephen wasn’t good at those. He needed something all three of you could do.”
“So, you suggested bowling.”
“I did. Your grandfather and I were in a league back in our day. Of course, bowling in the late sixties often meant doing it either drunk or high.”
“Gram!”
She patted my knee. “Oh, you sweet children of today, assuming the old people were always dull. Are you ready?”
I nodded. As we headed for the door, I spotted the last family portrait I’d taken with Mom and Dad and Stephen. I was twelve, Stephen ten. Dad stood tall and athletic. Mom was spindly, like me, but with a big smile in red lipstick.
The accident couldn’t have been too long after we’d taken that. In the photo, I was wearing the same red shirt I’d had on that terrible day when they’d covered my family in plastic.
I could still see the whir of the colored lights. The sheen of rain coming down.
