Page 29 of Freedom's Kiss
Chapter 13
It had taken all of two rounds of Apples to Apples for Olivia to figure everyone out. Anita and George would pick the answer that best matched the green card. Trent and Adam picked the answers that were the most ridiculous comparison, and Amber and Summer tended to choose ones that were only slightly silly.
Olivia eyed the green card lying on the table. Extreme. Definitions listed—exceptional, superlative, radical. She glanced back at the cards in her hands. New Orleans, lightning, Darth Vader, hair transplants, chicken pox, and bumper stickers. She ran her finger along the top of the cards, the edges gouging into the ridges of the pad of her fingertip. Trent was judging this round, which meant she had to go with the most absurd match. The last person to select their pick, she threw down the Darth Vader card. Although now that she thought about it, she should’ve gone with bumper stickers. Darth Vader was pretty extreme with his use of the Dark Side.
Trent picked up all the red cards and flipped them over face up one at a time, reading the answers as he went. “My sixteenth birthday. Hmm…that must be Amber’s card and rather an oxymoron since I do not consider her staying home so she could, and I quote, read a good book, as being anything extreme. Nuclear power plants. Okay, I can see that. Truck stops? Never. Online shopping.” He glanced up and eyed Anita. “Your card, Mom?”
Anita shrugged and smiled.
Trent flipped over the last two cards. “Darth Vader or friction. Well, Darth Vader is rather extreme with his wholeI am your fatherreveal. Friction…” He held the card up higher and read the description at the bottom. “Resistance to the motion of a body in contact with another body…”
Summer’s face flushed pink, the shade darkening as Trent eyed his wife from across the table.
“Oh, this is no contest.Frictionis definitely the most extreme.”
There were so many personal marriage only–appropriate innuendos going on that Olivia shifted in her chair the same time Adam cleared his throat.
Amber leaned over and stage whispered, “Think you can keep it PG, Casanova?”
Cue to exit, and the pressure in her bladder was a handy excuse. Olivia turned to Anita. “May I use your restroom?”
“Of course. Down the hall, second door to the right.”
George collected everyone’s cards as Olivia excused herself and made her way to the other side of the house. She found the powder room easy enough and quickly used the facilities. Exiting the washroom, she paused at the gallery wall of family pictures hanging along the hallway. Amber as a baby with a big bow in her hair. Trent building a sandcastle on the beach. Michael in his navy dress blues. Adam in a graduation cap and gown. Many family pictures with all of them, which had been taken sporadically through their growing-up years.
She meandered through the pictures, smiling at gap-toothed grins and awful fashion choices. A photo on the bottom made her pause. Adam standing beside a shiny Porsche in a suit that probably cost more than a full scholarship to culinary school, hair slicked back with an air of importance about him. If not for his telltale smirk and the twinkle in his impossibly light eyes, she might not have recognized him.
“He’s changed a lot since that picture, hasn’t he?”
Olivia started, then notice Anita at her side. “I was just thinking how different and yet the same he looked.” Adam seemed more comfortable in cargo shorts and an untucked button-up, though she had to admit he cut a fine figure in that tailored suit. She preferred his wavy hair mussed and falling across his forehead, or even curling under his hat, to the oiled look he had going on in the picture. But what about the Porsche? No one she knew would give up a ride like that and trade it in for a Jetta without a good reason.
Anita ran a finger over the wood frame housing the photo, her eyes soft as she took in her son. “It’s more than his looks that have changed. Everything you see there, he sold. The Porsche, the suits, his beachside condo. But atonement can’t be bought, can it?” She stared at the photo as if talking more to the man in the picture than to Olivia. “He was so zealous when he passed the bar. Determined to give a voice to the downtrodden and defend those unjustly accused. To right wrongs and make the world a better place.”
A defender. Protector. She’d been on the receiving end of his determination that evil not claim a victim, though she wasn’t sure what the evil had been or how he thought she’d end up one of its casualties. She wasn’t even sure how she knew. He hadn’t justified his actions at the farmers’ market, but even then, without an explanation, she’d understood that he’d been driven by an innate need to defend someone in perceived danger.
Olivia studied the photo. The man in it seemed so sure of himself, of the world and his place in it. Not so unlike the Adam she knew, but the man now faltered a bit when she was sure the one in the photo wouldn’t have wavered. Adam exuded a confidence in every decision he made, but beneath that exterior she sensed someone weighed down with the knowledge of responsibility. Culpability. Guilt. Regret.
“What happened?” Olivia asked, almost afraid of the answer.
Anita caressed the glass of the frame before lowering her hand. “Sin. Sin happened, and each of us is faced with the consequences of that. Some, it seems, more beaten and bruised by that than others. Which isn’t fair, is it? That beautiful girl…” She shook her head and looked at Olivia, her voice more in the present than the past, as it had been. “Adam…” She shook her head and sniffed as emotions overtook her. “Excuse me. A mama’s heart never stops feeling for her children. Even when her children grow up to be such capable men. But…” She met Olivia’s eyes. “I should let him tell you.”
Anita slipped around her and continued down the hallway, retreating behind one of the closed doors. Olivia let her gaze sweep the collage of photos once more before making her way back to Adam and the rest of his family. The dining room was deserted, the stack of board games absent as well as the pitcher of lemonade they’d nearly finished off and the plate of chocolate chip cookies that only had crumbs remaining. She spotted a lone glass and picked it up to take to the kitchen. Summer stood at the sink, loading the cookie plate into the dishwasher, so Olivia flipped the glass in her hand and set it on the top rack.
“Thanks.” Summer smiled at her.
“Can I help with anything?” Olivia looked at the sink, but it was empty.
Summer turned off the faucet. “Nope. All finished. Everyone else went into the living room to watch a movie or something.” She chewed on her bottom lip, uncertain, then held out her hand. “Can I see your phone?”
Olivia felt her brows dip over her eyes, but she reached into her pocket and pulled out her phone and handed it to Summer.
Summer bent over it, finger tapping on the screen before she cradled it between her palms, her thumbs inputting something. “There.” She handed the phone back.
Olivia peered down at the screen, Summer’s contact information now stored in her digital list.
“I don’t want to be nosey, and Adam is great and everything, but I thought if you ever needed a girlfriend to talk to about whatever it is you’re avoiding tonight by being here…well…now you have my number.”
Olivia blinked against the heat in her eyes. She wasn’t usually this emotional, but everything in her world had gotten so off kilter that she wasn’t really sure when the spinning would stop, and when it did, if she’d still be standing upright.
