Chapter Thirty-Two #2
“Be careful ,” she said. “That courthouse floor is slippery. And the roads downtown are so crowded and dangerous. All those one-way streets.”
He hugged her and kissed her cheek before holding the door open for me.
“It was nice seeing you again, Lynn,” I said, carrying the basket out.
“You come back anytime,” she said to me. “Be careful!” she shouted at Macon again.
“I will,” he said.
We didn’t speak again until her house was out of view.
He had just shown me something intimate and painful and real.
I felt certain that nobody else had been granted access to this part of his life since Dani.
Even though I wasn’t entirely sure what I had witnessed, I understood that it was a window into his difficulties and responsibilities.
He had made himself vulnerable to me for perhaps the first time ever, and I held the weight of that trust as if it were sacred.
“There are a few more things in here that you should probably look at,” I said quietly about the basket on my lap. I sifted through it again.
Macon released a heavy sigh. “I’m sure there are.”
“So… I’m guessing she always has that many boxes lying around?”
“I break them down and recycle them whenever I’m there.
Since she hardly leaves the house, she has everything delivered.
I’ve told her a hundred times to let me know what she needs so I can pick it up, but she already feels bad about how much I do for her, so she doesn’t like to ask.
And stuff like that”—he gestured to the basket—“stresses her out, so she pretends it doesn’t exist. I asked her to start putting it on the coffee table so I can look through it when I’m there, but I didn’t know she had all that, too.
Apparently, she’s been getting these notices about her property taxes for months.
I don’t know what compelled her to finally open one this morning, but thank God she did, because the county is one day away from putting a lien on her house. ”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t know it had gotten that bad. I mean, I guess I did. But I didn’t know .”
“One day away,” he said again.
“Is she…” There was no delicate way to ask, but I felt like he’d given me permission. “Is she a hoarder?”
“Not in the way you’re thinking of. But if you’re wondering if the rest of her house is that crowded, the answer is yes. Just not with such obvious trash. It’s all stuff that makes her feel safe. Prepared for any emergency.”
“And she doesn’t come to your house anymore?”
“She hasn’t since Dani moved out. All that empty open space freaked her out. She’s weird about empty spaces.”
“Is that why you never filled it? To keep your mom away?”
“What?” He glanced at me sharply. “No.”
“Sorry, I didn’t mean… I don’t know what I meant.” The idea had slipped out before I’d thought it through. Macon was obviously trying his best to take care of Lynn. My insensitive questions reflected more about my relationship to my own parents.
“You know, that’s the third person you’ve tried to blame for the state of my house,” he said. “Dani, Bonnie, my mom. But I’ve been telling you the truth. It wasn’t any of them. It was me.”
I felt so ashamed. “I’m sorry.”
We rode in silence for a minute. He stretched his neck to the side and groaned.
“Maybe you’re not entirely wrong.” His energy shifted from aggravation to nervousness, which made me nervous.
“It’s possible I haven’t been in a rush to fill that space because…
she’ll probably have to move in with me.
Eventually. I’m not sure when, but sometime in the next few years. ”
“Oh.”
He glanced at me again, and I tried to keep my expression neutral. I wasn’t sure how to react. I wasn’t sure why this news had caught me so off guard.
“It’s a lot of work, having to take care of both houses,” he said. “And things like this are going to keep happening. And worse. She needs care, but I don’t want to send her to a home, and I doubt I could afford it anyway, and I’m the only family she has now that Bonnie…”
Macon trailed off. He had visited his aunt a few weeks earlier when she’d left rehab, though I’d only found out about it after the fact.
He said she was doing okay, but he’d sounded more wary than hopeful.
A neighbor had fed Edmond while he was away.
He hadn’t wanted to bother me because I was busy with the store. I wished he would have bothered me.
“Well,” I said, “Lynn is lucky to have a son like you.”
His voice thickened. “It sucks. You’re young, so your parents aren’t there yet. But it sucks.”
You’re young . It jumped out at me—one of my fears about why he might not want to be with me. I didn’t like that it was there on the tip of his tongue.
“She looks good, though,” I ventured.
“My mom has a lifetime of practice pretending that nothing is wrong. Just don’t try to take her on a walk. Or to the doctor. Or to the pharmacy.”
“Will you even be able to get her into your house? Won’t she want to stay where she is?”
“Oh, she’ll fight me. But I’ll win. It’s one thing to have my mother move in with me, but I am not moving back in with my mother.”
“Plus,” I said, “your garden.”
A beat, then a small smile. “Plus, my garden.”
“I’m sorry,” I said again.
“How are your parents? You haven’t mentioned them in a while.”
“They’re fine. Doing their thing. Excited about the wedding.”
“I thought maybe they’d come up here and help you with the store.”
I laughed once. “That’s not their style.”
“What do you mean?”
It was always difficult to explain my relationship to my parents to other people.
“They’re good parents.” It was how I always started because it was important.
“They’re supportive. They love me and believe in me.
They’re also just… not the sort of parents who will ever physically be there for me.
It’s not like you and your mom. I rarely see them.
We don’t talk often. When I stopped answering their texts during everything that happened”—I waved in the general direction of the first half of the year—“they accepted it and didn’t ask me what was going on.
They’re living their own lives, just like Riley and I have always been expected to live ours.
We’ve always been counted on to take care of ourselves. I can’t imagine asking them for help.”
He thought about it for a moment. “That sounds like a lot of pressure.”
I squirmed, having just witnessed the pressure that he was under with Lynn. “It’s really not. It’s nothing like the sort you’re under.”
“It’s just a different kind, that’s all. And it explains why you hate asking for help.”
“What?” I actually laughed again, but it was incredulous. “I’ve been doing nothing but asking people for help. Remember this morning? When I asked for your help? It’s why I’m sitting in your car right now?”
“Yeah, but it pains you to do it. Even though you’re always helping everyone else out. You’re good at giving but not at receiving.”
It stung. Not like he’d said something unkind, but like he’d said something true.
We fell into another silence. By the time we reached the courthouse, I had found five more letters about unpaid property taxes.
I stuffed the bundle into my tote bag, and we hastened into the clean, echoing building.
Macon strode ahead, confident in his destination.
His hair was frizzy from the humidity, which made my chest ache.
As we rode the elevator to the third floor, I smoothed down my braids again.
The frizz was so much cuter on him than on me.
But when the elevator dinged, I looked up to find him watching me in the murky reflection of the steel doors.
They split open, fracturing his gaze, and he quickly looked away, hurrying out and down the hall.
I followed slowly behind him with a pounding heart.
What was this strange relationship we had?
This friendship loaded with stolen glances?
I knew how I felt about him, but I was still confused about how he felt toward me.
He had never made a move. Not one. But perhaps now that he’d let me in with his mom, he was on the verge of letting me in elsewhere.
He was already inside the tax office when I caught up with him. I handed him the letters and took a seat, figuring he’d want privacy. Thankfully, there was only one person ahead of him at the window. I checked my phone and texted the contractor that I’d be there soon.
“Ingrid.” Macon’s voice was low and quiet.
I looked up, expecting him to say something more, but his eyes were unexpectedly gigantic and alive. They darted toward the clerk’s window.
I glanced over and held back a gasp.
Our eyes locked again in delight.
I scrambled to my feet and got in line with him.
“Be good,” he whispered.
“I’m always good,” I whispered back.
When the person in front of us left, we stepped oh-so-casually up to the window of one Mr. Ken Fondness.
A printed sign, worn and curling with age, was taped to the wall beside him: PLEASE REFRAIN FROM MAKING SMALL TALK WITH THE CLERK .
My smile widened into a delirious grin. Ken Fondness was futzing with something on his computer.
“ Hi ,” I said.
Ken Fondness frowned.
Macon cleared his throat, a noise meant for me, and handed over the letters. He explained that he needed to pay his mother’s taxes, and Ken Fondness grew irritated.
“I don’t need this,” he said, gesturing to the mail as if it offended him to even see it. “But since you’re tardy, there’s a form you’ll need to fill out before you can pay.”
“Okay,” Macon said.
“I don’t have it here. I’ll have to retrieve it,” Ken Fondness said as if we were a major inconvenience in his day that ended at noon.
“That’s fine,” Macon said. “I can wait.”