Chapter 9
NINE
COLBY
Ernesto understood our tradition, but D’Angelo’s has a new manager. My mom’s favorite meal in the entire world was a bowl of D’Angelo’s spaghetti with meat sauce and extra potent garlic bread. Ernesto always had our to-go order ready with all the little extras, because he knew where we were going.
He retired last year, though. And Brian, who is rather corporate, doesn’t understand why we need so many napkins.
Rather than explain we like to eat dinner and toast my mom at her grave to celebrate Mother’s Day, my dad simply says we’re going on a picnic.
Brian thinks it’s sweet. He doesn’t even seem aware that it’s Mother’s Day.
“I sure hope Brian’s mom doesn’t expect a card or a phone call today,” I mutter under my breath to my dad as Brian heads to the back of the restaurant to fill a to-go carton with extra parmesan.
I slide into the passenger seat of my dad’s truck with the hot tin of pasta resting on my lap. It smells delicious, and the garlic scent will soon permeate every inch of the cab, I’m certain.
“We’re coming, Meg,” my dad says, shifting into reverse and backing onto the street from my mom’s favorite roadside restaurant.
We’re at Seven Oaks in less than twenty minutes.
My dad winds through the cemetery to the northern section where my mom rests, passing a few parked cars along the way.
It’s a popular day to visit this place. I’ve always felt a kinship with the shared melancholy I recognize in the faint smiles reflected back at me.
I communicate with strangers through nods and soft eyes.
We never speak out loud to one another. We just know.
My dad pulls the plaid blanket from the back of his truck, then he and I hike up the grassy hill to the shade from the oldest Oak on the property.
I picked her resting place. She didn’t have any plans, and my parents never discussed their wishes should they pass.
Some people might say that was irresponsible, but they were young.
My mom had just turned forty. She would be fifty-three if she were here today, and she would have loved to tease my father for hitting fifty-five first. She always said she couldn’t wait for him to make them eligible for the luxury senior community on the outskirts of town. She fancied joining the golf club.
With the blanket spread out next to the small concrete tombstone that reads MOTHER, WIFE, LOVE, my dad and I take our seats and open the food containers for our feast.
“I bet you can smell us up here, Meg,” my dad says as he unravels the tinfoil from the garlic toast.
“Wow,” I say, wafting my hand at it. “But also, gimme.”
I stretch out an open palm and curl my fingers a few times until my dad plops a piece of bread in my hand. I bite into the crunchy toast, and the bitter saltiness makes my tastebuds water instantly.
“God, that’s good. And toxic,” I laugh, cupping my mouth to diffuse the instant bad breath.
“Did I ever tell you about the first time I took your mom to D’Angelo’s? Before we were married?” My dad scoops half the pasta into the lid and hands it to me, along with a fork-spoon-napkin packet and the container of cheese.
“A little. It was half the size it is now, right? And the menu consisted of four things; I remember you telling me.” I sprinkle parmesan on my pasta, then hand the container to my dad.
“Yep, and two of those things were the bread and spaghetti. Your mom was afraid I was going to try to kiss her on the first date, so she asked Ernesto to make her toast extra garlicky,” my dad recalls, a grin on his face as he takes a bite of his piece of toast. He pulls out one of our water bottles from his mini cooler and twists off the cap, taking a big gulp and swishing it around his mouth.
“I didn’t know that,” I say, a tender smile settling on my lips. I imagine my mom being nervous on a date with my dad. He was always bold and confident. She was the quiet type, soft and introverted.
“Did it work?” I quirk a brow.
My dad chuckles, his gaze focused on the end of his fork as he swirls a bite of spaghetti onto it.
“Colby, your mother could have eaten worms, and I would have wanted to kiss her. But I could tell she was nervous, so when I dropped her off at your grandparents’ house, I simply kissed her cheek and bid her goodnight.
” My dad pops his spoonful of pasta in his mouth and grins as he chews with tight lips and stares at me.
“I feel like you’re not telling me everything,” I say, a brow lifted in suspicion.
My dad’s head waggles as he goes in for another bite.
“I may have come back to her window a minute after midnight and asked for a kiss. I told her a new day meant a second date. And well . . .”
“Let me guess, she gave in to your charms?” My mother was smitten with my dad, even after years of marriage.
“Ha! Not even close,” my dad says with a hard laugh. “She tossed a cup of water at me and told me to get off of Grandpa’s lawn before he caught me out there.”
I laugh at the visual he paints, and I’m sure it’s accurate. My grandparents love my father, but I know for a fact my mom was always a daddy’s girl. Just like I am.
“You must have done something to change her mind eventually,” I say, continuing to slurp up noodles while my dad stares off with a dreamy look on his face.
“Five dates later, she let me kiss her. And I kissed her every damn day after.
Even when the two of us were finishing up college, I drove to her school to see her after baseball practices or games.
And when I traveled with the team, she drove out to see me play. She was my other half. And I was hers.
His gaze drifts to the headstone, and I set my pasta down and sink into the warmth of my mom’s memory. I miss her. But more than that, I miss seeing my parents together, simply being them. They were magical.
The soft rumble of a car engine pulls my attention to my right, and when a white sedan slows to a stop behind my dad’s truck, I sit up a bit taller to get a good look at the new arrival.
The yellow flowers nearly cover his face, but the curled ends of Jayden’s hair that flare out to the sides make him instantly recognizable.
My heart beats wildly, and my body rushes with a suffocating coat of warmth.
I struggle to fill my lungs as I scramble to my feet, dusting crumbs from my hands and brushing them away from the front of my Mavericks’ T-shirt.
“Jayden’s here,” I say, alerting my dad.
“Oh . . . he actually came.” My dad moves his food aside so he can crawl to his knees and slowly stand.
He’s not as nimble as he once was. He was a catcher in college, and he spent many years afterward catching for his young athletes or sitting on one knee to toss balls to me or Jayden while we hit.
His joints are toast, yet he presses on.
Jayden stops about halfway between our pickup and me, his handful of flowers lowering to his side. His travel bag is slung over his opposite shoulder, and for some reason, the sight of it sends a flutter of tingles through my chest. He’s staying with me until we get home.
“Come on over,” I say, nudging my head toward my father.
“Want some dinner?” My dad offers.
“I ate at the hospital with my mom, but thanks,” Jayden says as he takes slow steps closer to us. His gaze drifts to our makeshift picnic—and likely my mom’s tombstone—before his attention comes back to me.
“Is it all right that I showed up?” He hands me a cluster of wildflowers, dirt still caked to some of the roots.
I take them from him, and my fingers graze along his during our exchange.
His pinky finger lingers behind, as if clinging to the brief touch.
Or maybe I was the one who lingered, leaving my hand near him for a tiny, extra moment.
“Of course it is. She would love that you are here,” I say, and I mean it. My mom loved Jayden so much. She always worried about him following his brother’s bad habits. Everyone did. We still do.
“Thank you for these,” I say, handing the flowers to my dad. He places them next to my mom’s stone.
“I wouldn’t smell them. I had to pick them from the highway shoulder. I’m pretty sure they’re weeds,” Jayden says through a sheepish grin.
“She’d like that even more,” I say. Mom didn’t like us making a fuss or spending more than necessary on things, even on her.
“Have a seat,” my dad says, working his way back to a seated position, holding his ankles to keep his legs folded up.
He should probably consider a knee replacement, but he won’t do it.
Much like my mom, he doesn’t like to spend money on things he deems unnecessary.
I’d argue that walking is sort of a must-have, but he’d tell me he can crawl.
“Meg sure would have dug your game today, Jayden. She believed in you,” my dad says. “Almost as much as I do. Remember that, when you sign for the big bucks, would ya?”
My dad coughs out a raspy laugh, and Jayden smiles as he and I sit down on the blanket with my father.
“How could I ever forget the man who made me run forties for an hour straight because I missed a fly ball in center that cost us a playoff run? When I was twelve!” Jayden’s eyes bulge out, but he laughs through the retelling, and my dad waves him off.
“Eh, building character. And you should have caught that ball. You took a bad route.”
“Pfft!” Jayden spits out a harder laugh, then turns his gaze to me. I raise both palms.
“I’m Switzerland,” I profess. I take a nibble of my bread, biting my tongue for a moment. “But also, I would have caught it.”
Jayden pushes his travel bag into my hip.
“You’re a brat,” he mumbles.
My lips tingle as my smile crawls up into my cheeks. I’ve missed our comfortable banter. I missed him.
My dad takes a few more bites of his pasta, and I pick at mine for a while as the three of us swap stories about when Jayden and I were kids.
We weren’t really troublemakers, but we did like a good mess.
My dad reminisces about the time Jayden and I tried to bake surprises for our parents, and the time we brought Adriel over to my house to help us clean up, and he ended up ripping open the bottom of the flour bag.
“It took me hours to get that shit off the floor,” my dad grumbles.
“Yeah, but it didn’t go to waste!” Jayden interjects, raising his hand as if he’s still one of my dad’s players. “Remember? I added it to the chalk at the little league field, and we used it for the foul lines!”
“Hmm, that’s right,” my dad says, his gaze dropping as the corners of his mouth curl up. “You were always resourceful. You ended up getting straight A’s too, didn’t you?”
“I mean, I wasn’t an honors student, but yeah. I was probably the best student on the team senior year.” Jayden blows on his fingernails and rubs them against his chest, a slight brag.
I don’t mention that a quarter of our senior class ended up dropping out or having to take summer school just to get their diploma. He can have this flex.
“Huh, yeah. You were a real smarty pants,” my dad says as he pushes his last bite of toast into his mouth.
He claps the crumbs from his hands, then settles back on his palms, chewing and eyeing the two of us with an amused look on his face.
Eventually, he points at Jayden, then waggles his finger at me.
“Maybe I should have let you two date back in the day after all,” he says, punctuating his statement with a single laugh before unraveling the plastic D’Angelo’s bag to scoop up our trash.
I blink slowly, replaying his words in my mind, all the while feeling the heat of Jayden’s stare in my periphery. I won’t look at him. I’m too afraid of what I might feel if our eyes lock right now. My dad thought we were trying to date? Did he know about my crush? Oh God, did he see us kiss?
I’m a grown woman. None of this should embarrass me.
Yet, in this scenario, I’m still daddy’s little girl.
I feel fifteen and innocent, and my cheeks burn at the mere thought of my father coming across Jayden and me in a lip lock.
But was it really a lip lock? Was it even as good as I remember it?
I mean, in my mind, I’ve built it into this epic moment that was our chance to be something.
But in reality, that kiss maybe lasted five seconds.
I’m no longer sure there was even tongue involved.
“You ready, Colby?” My dad’s hand is in my face, and I shake my head before glancing up to see him standing and waiting to help me to my feet.
“Uh, oh. Yeah, I guess we should probably get going,” I say, realizing the sun is about to dip below the horizon. I wanted to freshen up at my dad’s house before hopping on the plane.
“Thanks,” I say, taking my dad’s hand. Before I steady my feet, though, Jayden’s hands are at my sides, guiding me up.
The two most influential men in my life are working together to get me on my feet.
It feels surreal. And also, a bit like each is fighting to prove they’re the bigger rock in my life.
I shake my head. I need to get my head on right.
“Would it be possible . . . I mean, would you mind if . . .” Jayden pulls his bag up on his shoulder before he shrugs. His mouth forms a straight line, pulling in tight at one corner.
“You’re family, Jayden. Of course you can come back to the house. And we’ll get you to the airport.”
My dad slings an arm around him, and I linger behind the two of them as they head toward the truck.
I pick up the blanket, shaking dry grass from the fringed edges, then roll it and tuck it under my arm.
I rest my palm on top of the simple headstone that serves as my only place of worship and respite, then press a kiss to the cold concrete.
“Happy Mother’s Day, Mom,” I whisper.
The usual tears don’t prick at the corners of my eyes as I trudge to my dad’s truck, and I wonder if our added guest for this often-difficult day has something to do with that.