Chapter 4
Four
Wes
“Oh, thank god you’re home,” Marni said a few days later when I strolled in after an eighteen-hour shift and a coffee with Mira in the hospital cafeteria.
I tensed instantly. Marni was standing at the kitchen doorway, her hand on her hip, scowling at her father. Jesse, who I still wasn’t happy with either, was standing behind her wearing a bewildered expression. I probably should have skipped the coffee with Mira by the looks of the two of them.
“Where are you going?” I asked, suddenly realizing it was after eight and she had her coat on to leave.
“Oh, great! Now you sound like him.” The him had a distinctly hostile tone.
“By him do you mean your father?” I corrected, patiently. “You’re grieving and angry, and that’s understandable. But being disrespectful and rude isn’t an acceptable way of dealing with it.” I put my leather messenger bag on the bench by the door and walked to the kitchen.
“Well, he isn’t respecting that I’m not five. I don’t need an 8 o’clock curfew.”
“Apologize and we can all talk about it like we’re not five.” That made her lips press into a thin line and her eyes narrow into slits. She looked like her mother when she did it, and it was a bit of a kick to the chest. I think Jesse saw it too because his eyes shuttered.
“Marni, I know you’re not five, but I also know you need boundaries. The same way I did when I was your age. The same way every thirteen-year-old does,” Jesse said, grabbing the milk jug out of the fridge.
“I’m not like you,” Marni said in a shaky voice.
“No, you’re not.”
Jesse’s words came out harshly and I winced, but he didn’t notice.
Marni’s jaw tightened. “All kids aren’t me either.”
“What’s this about for real?” I asked, noting she seemed to be picking a fight about something I don’t think she really cared about.
“I needed to go for a walk. Blow off steam. And this guy”—she paused to glare at her dad—"thinks it’s too late for me to go out for a walk alone.” She grabbed a book off the counter and tossed it at me. I caught it but I don’t think she meant for me to be able to.
“Marni,” I warned. Looking down I saw the title. How to Survive Raising a Teenager.
I could practically hear her thinking, maybe raising a teenager was what killed my mom.
“Marni,” I repeated, my voice lowering in empathy.
“Have you considered your father wasn’t thinking about you when he said eight o’clock was too late to go out?
And that maybe he was thinking about who else is out there?
” I held up the book. “And this isn’t what you think.
” I closed my eyes, shaking my head at my friend’s stupidity.
“I didn’t ask for this,” she blurted, her expression angry, but her eyes glassy. “I don’t want to be your burden. I didn’t ask to be born. But here I am, a walking talking reminder to use a god damned condom!” She stormed off, and I tossed the book at Jesse’s head before following.
“What?” He yelped, throwing up his hands to block it. “What did I do?”
“A friggin’ self-help book?” I shook my head again and went to find Marni in the backyard. The snick of the door closing alerted her I was there. “He’s clueless. Learned everything he knows from a book, Marn. It’s only natural he’d assume he could get parenting tips from one too.”
She looked at me, her eyes red rimmed and leaking tears now. “But he could just talk to me.”
“Sweetie, you can talk to him too. It works both ways.”
“Yeah, well he’s not easy to talk to,” she said sounding pouty.
“And you are?”
She sniffed indignantly. “I miss my mom. I knew how to deal with her.” Wrapping her arms around her middle, she sank onto the family-sized hammock Jesse had strung between two trees in the backyard.
“We all miss her.” I looked over my shoulder through the glass doors at Jesse standing inside, scrubbing his face with his hands.
“I’ve ruined your life. I made you move here to this shitty place, and now I’ve ruined his too.” She motioned to the door with her head and sniffled again. “You didn’t ask for me.” She scowled. “And I didn’t ask for a jerk father who has the emotional maturity of a twelve-year-old boy.”
“Can we tamp down the swearing, please, Marn? This isn’t a shitty place.
It’s pretty awesome.” I waved an arm at the mountains in the distance.
“And don’t assume you’ve ruined anyone’s life either.
Mine was pretty crummy when I left. And would have been worse without you.
” I walked over and sat beside her, careful not to tip the hammock.
“The dumbass inside had a pretty meaningless existence before you too, you know. You’re the best thing that’s happened to us. ”
“Yeah?” she asked in the most sullen voice I’d ever heard.
“Yeah. And your dad has the emotional maturity of a seventeen-year-old at least.” I nudged her with my elbow and even though she meant to hide it, I saw her smirk.
“That’s kind of sad, Uncle Wes.”
“What? That I’m best friends with a man who’s basically only seventeen?”
“No, that both of you had shittier lives without me.”
I chuckled. Wrapping my arm around her shoulder, I tipped us back quickly so we were lying in the hammock. She yelped at the swift movement and whimpered until she was sure the swing wasn’t going to dump us.
“Maybe you guys need to get a life,” she said quietly while the hammock swayed.
I looked down at her in my arms and her expression turned thoughtful.
“I mean, he’s stuck with me, but you don’t have to give up a chance at happiness for us.” Gathering a breath, she forced her eyes to find mine. “We’re going to be okay.”
I kissed her forehead, sticking my leg over the side to give us a little push. “Yeah, yeah. Brat. But I want to be here.” I gave one of her long dark curls a tug and she smiled sweetly.
“You can do both, you know.”
My brows rose. “Both?”
“Yeah, be here and have a life. Go out on dates and stuff.”
I narrowed my eyes on her. “You’re way too smart, you know.”
She shrugged. “Obviously, Uncle Wes,” she said, and then rolling her eyes, added, “Both my parents are doctors.”
Her eyes met mine again, and this time pain flickered in them at her slip. It was a pain I felt too. Her mother was a doctor.
“Eye rolling is like nails on a chalkboard to me.”
“I know.”
I harrumphed.
“Fine. I’m sorry.”
“Thank you.”
For several minutes we just looked at the sky, listened to the crickets and rocked, absorbing each other’s pain.
“Okay, so let’s recap before your dad gets jealous that we’re out here cuddled up while he’s in there still wondering what he did wrong.
” I held up a finger. “One. Gotta communicate. Two. He doesn’t know what you don’t tell him.
And neither do I. And three. Honey, he’s ripe for the training.
” Now I rolled my eyes. “He’s desperate enough to resort to self-help books.
” I smirked and a little grin appeared on her face.
“You’re right, eye rolling is annoying.”
I bit back my smirk. “Told you.”
“Okay. Okay. But, Uncle Wes, you forgot number four.” She held four fingers up. “You need a life. Or at least a few dates.”
Cocking my head to the side, I narrowed my eyes on her. “Fine. You got anyone in mind?”
Her eyes shifted to look through the windowpane at her father. “My dad mentioned you have a crush on someone at work. Says you don’t know he knows.”
My eyes darted to Jesse who was making something in the kitchen. “He did, did he?” As soon as she said it, I saw the image of Mira in my mind’s eye.
“Yup, and I think you should go for it.”
“We’ve been having lunch in the cafeteria lately, but that’s all it is and all it can be.”
“Why?”
“We’ve got a past.”
“So. Were you a douche?”
I held up a finger in warning. “No, but we’re different people now.”
“Lunch in the cafeteria isn’t a date, Uncle Wes.”
“You’re right but it’s the only way I can make sure she remembers to eat without coming across heavy handed.”
“But you are heavy handed. I doubt that’s new to her.”
I scoffed. “Am not.”
She snorted. “Is that why you broke up?”
“No, she liked me bossy.”
“Well, then show her you’re still that guy, don’t pretend you’re someone else.”
Damn. She made sense.
“Who is she?”
“I met her a few years ago when I stayed with your dad after a medical conference. She’s a sweet woman who comes to the ER with her mother a lot. Her mom’s been admitted so she’s at the hospital all the time right now.”
“Her mother’s sick?”
I nodded, looking at her cautiously. “Cancer.”
She swallowed hard. “Is it terminal?”
“It is.”
She took my hand, folding her smaller one into mine. “Uncle Wes?”
“Hm?”
“Maybe she needs you as much as I do and doesn’t know how to ask.” She sighed.
I grunted thoughtfully for a moment. “I’m starving.
Can you please go apologize to your dad so we can go out to dinner?
” I lifted my head to see what Jesse was doing.
“I don’t know what he’s attempting to cook, but the culinary part of his brain is severely underdeveloped, and I don’t know about you, but my tastebuds are not interested in being his guinea pig anymore. ”
“Let’s go to Saffron!” she said, excitedly sitting up and almost knocking us both out of the hammock. “I’m dying for Indian. I miss all the ethnic food back home.”
“You know your dad is going to complain, right?” I asked, steadying us and helping her out of the swinging contraption.
She winked at me, her sassy smile making my heart melt. Stretching out her arm, she offered me her hand. “Ripe for the training.”
I considered her words about Mira as we walked back inside arm in arm. Maybe it was time I start following my own advice and communicate.
Later, after we’d eaten, when I was alone on the couch and both Jesse and Marni were asleep, I opened my email contacts and scrolled until I found Master Derek from Rawhide Ranch.