Chapter 31 #2
We all laugh, but she’s actually right. I’d promised my mother and grandparents that we’d get dinner after Pops’ appointment, even though the shop is still open for another hour and a half.
I was planning to have dinner with Sasha tonight anyway, so my evening appointment schedule was lighter than usual.
I apply a thin layer of ointment to the fresh ink on Pops’ leg and wrap it, repeating the basic care instructions I’ve already told him.
“I might be old, but I’m not senile,” he grumbles, pulling his pant leg down and swinging his legs off the chair.
“Whatever you say, old man. Let me clean up quick, then we’ll head out.”
“Hey, want to watch me pierce a bellybutton?” Eddie calls out. Sasha looks a bit queasy at the idea and shakes her head, probably thinking about the time she let her friend pierce hers when they were teenagers. I’d heard the story once or twice over the years.
Gran surprises me by taking Eddie up on his offer, and Pops goes where Gran goes, so the two of them cross the room to watch Eddie work.
My mother hovers by my work station, looking uncomfortable now that it’s just the two of us.
“This is a great place you’ve got here,” she says, gesturing around to the shop. “You’ve really done well for yourself.”
“Nah, it’s mostly Sean.” I shrug, brushing her comments off while I spray and wipe down my chair. “I’m just along for the ride.”
“I mean it,” my mom says softly. She lifts her hand like she’s going to reach out to me, then thinks better of it and lets her arm fall back down at her side.
“I’m proud of you. I’m sorry you didn’t hear that more when you were growing up.
But I’m really proud of the man you’ve become, despite it all.
” She clears her throat and looks down at the floor. “Despite me.”
This is too heavy of a conversation to be having in the middle of a tattoo shop with Sean three feet away, pretending not to listen. At least his client is still asleep.
Though I’d prefer the floor to open up and swallow me whole right now, I make sure to look my mom in the eye when I say, “Thanks, Sasha.” I don’t miss the way she winces almost imperceptibly, just the slightest scrunching of her eyes at the corners.
I’ve been calling her Sasha for longer than I ever called her Mom, but apparently, the use of her first name still hurts after all these years.
Unfortunately, I don’t know that I’ll ever be comfortable giving her old title back. It was one of the first boundaries I ever set where my mother was concerned.
“I appreciate that,” I add, hoping to soften the blow just a bit. She gives me a small nod before wandering off to check out the artwork on our walls and flip through the binder full of designs.
“You good?” Sean asks, his voice low and laced with concern.
He doesn’t look up from the Celtic symbol he’s working on, and I’m thankful for it.
I’m feeling a bit too seen at the moment, and the urge to snap back with an asshole remark is strong.
Years of therapy haven’t completely erased my base nature, that urge to lash out when things get a little too real.
But at least it helps me to take a step back and think before I say something I’ll regret.
I’m a work in progress and I probably always will be, but fuck, I’m trying.
“All good,” I tell Sean. I stand, tossing my used paper towels, gloves and discarded plastic wrap in the trash.
“You want to talk about it?”
“Not even a little bit,” I tell him honestly. “Just some shit from the past that’s better off left there.”
A few minutes later, my station’s been cleaned and sanitized, the used needle has been disposed of in our sharps container in the back of the shop, and my grandmother has been absolutely delighted watching a 14-gauge needle poke through some poor girl’s bellybutton.
“She barely even flinched!” Gran exclaims as we head out onto the sidewalk. I gesture for her to head left, toward the restaurant. “Absolutely incredible.”
My mom visibly shudders.
“Maybe I’d like to get something pierced,” Gran muses. She grins over her shoulder at us. “What do you think, Henry? Maybe I – oh!”
Gran stumbles backward to avoid colliding headfirst with someone. “I’m so sorry, dear,” she apologizes. “I wasn’t watching where I was going.”
“It’s no problem at all,” a familiar voice says.
One that has my heart plummeting down somewhere in the vicinity of my knees.
I look over Gran’s head and see Elsie, smiling kindly at my grandmother and tucking a stray lock of hair behind her ear.
It’s woven back into a braid today, with little white flower clips – daisies, I think – placed throughout it.
As if feeling the weight of my stare on her, Elsie looks up, her mouth dropping open in surprise before settling into an easy smile.
“Declan. Hi.”
“Hey, Elsie.” I hadn’t noticed the time as we were leaving, or been paying any attention to what was going on next door, for once. If I’d known it was closing time for The Floral Chic, I would have stalled to avoid this exact interaction that we’re having now.
“Elsie?” my mother and grandmother repeat in unison. I inwardly groan, already knowing where this is headed.
I thought I wanted the floor to open up and swallow me whole before, but I was wrong. Now would actually be a good time for that crater to appear.
“We’ve heard so much about you,” Gran says, sliding her arm though Elsie’s like they’re old friends, instead of two complete strangers who quite literally just ran into each other.
“Really?” Elsie looks over at me, and I can tell by the shit-eating grin on her face that she knows exactly how uncomfortable this entire exchange is making me. It eases some of my nerves.
“Elsie, this is my mother, Sasha, and my grandparents, Joyce and Henry. Everyone, this is Elsie.”
Hellos and handshakes are exchanged while I watch, wondering how I’m going to extract myself from this situation with minimal damage. I’m about to make an excuse for our exit when someone blurts out, “Would you like to join us for dinner?”
My head whips toward my mother, the shock plain on my face. I’d expect a question like that from Gran, but not her.
“Oh, I…” Elsie’s voice trails off, and she looks at me. I can read the question in her eyes as clearly as if she’d spoken it aloud: Do you want me to?
I don’t. Not because I don’t want to spend time with Elsie – god, that’s all I ever want.
But not tonight. Not with my present company. Not when I haven’t told her anything about my past or how these three people fit into it.
The last thing I want is a witness to my fucked up family dynamic, but what choice do I have? With those big, beautiful hazel eyes looking up at me, I do the only thing I can.
I hold my hand out in invitation, and my entire body heaves a sigh of relief when she slips her hand into mine. Despite my dread for this dinner, having her so close settles something inside me.
Elsie smiles up at me then, and she might as well be reaching her fist right inside my chest, squeezing the organ that’s lain dormant for so long. The steady thump, thump, thump of its cadence catches me off guard.
Growing up the way I did, I wasn’t sure if what was left of this heart of mine would ever work quite right. But she’s proven my worries to be in vain.
My heart still works, though it doesn’t feel much like mine anymore. Elsie carries it right in the palm of her hand, in the space where her skin meets mine and our fingers link together, and I don’t even think she knows it.
It didn’t take much. They were little things, really. A glance into those kind hazel eyes. The brush of her skin against mine. Our shared breaths on a rainy afternoon, our bodies tangled in such a way that we lost track of where I ended and she began.
That first, unexpected kiss, up on tiptoes with a delicate hand on my chest, the first time I knew for sure that I wasn’t in this thing alone.
If this cold, jaded heart of mine still works, it’s only because she showed up and brought it back to life. Taught it how to beat again. Showed it that good people exist in the world, and introduced it to a kind of sweetness I never thought was in the cards for a guy like me.
No, it didn’t take much. I glance down at her –
Thump. Thump. Thump.
My heart is beating, alright.
It beats for her.
Only her.