14. I Told Her About You
I Told Her About You
ELLIE
So far, an alarming number of things had not gone according to plan.
Rain, I could deal with. But seeing Sam shirtless, not wanting to move because our son’s cherubic face was pressed up against his bare chest?
My insides were wobbling dangerously. That, on top of wearing his sweatshirt—which was so soft and fuzzy and worst of all, smelled so good? I was not doing well.
“You might as well eat, since I’ve got him,” Sam said.
I nodded, feeling suddenly clueless. Like I had to be reminded how to function. I reached down under the stroller, pulling out the takeout bag.
Sam reclined as best he could against the hard back of the wooden bench. “They’re both club sandwiches. I hope that’s okay.”
“Of course. Best in town.” I felt immediately ridiculous for saying that, but that’s what was posted on the wall down at Betsey’s. It wasn’t a lie. The sandwiches were truly delicious.
Sam gave a little laugh and said, “Reminds me of this empanada shop I went to in this tiny town in Guatemala. It had a huge sign out front that said ‘best empanadas in town’.”
“Were they?”
“No. They were horrific. They tasted like gristle wrapped in wet paper. But that place was the only restaurant in town.”
I laughed, finally beginning to relax again. “So technically, it was true.”
“Exactly. When the options are limited it’s easy to be number one.” Sam shifted, holding Henry’s back gently as he did. “Same reason I go to the library at toddler story time. I can read way better than all those guys.”
I laughed once more. “You’re ridiculous.”
“So I’ve been told.”
Sam was so good at putting me at ease. The only problem was the more at ease I got, the more I liked him. And liking him made everything harder and more complicated.
I took a bite of the club sandwich, and luckily, for a brief moment all I felt was salty crunchy tangy deliciousness. “So good,” I said.
“Best in town.”
I smiled over my sandwich. But my mind hung on what he’d said.
“So,” I swallowed. “Is that where you were last? Guatemala?”
He still hadn’t told me what happened to him.
Sam shook his head. “Australia.”
I lifted my eyebrows.
“Have you ever been?”
“The farthest from home I’ve been is Miami for a conference a few years ago. And Canada. And here.”
“You were born in California, right?”
By the way he’d carefully stick-handled things back to me, I knew he wasn’t going to talk about this right now. I let the disappointment wash away. I’d discovered one more detail. Australia.
I swallowed my sandwich. “Yep. Sacramento. My brother still lives there.”
“Is he still an asshole?”
I forgot I’d told him about Anthony. How had that even come up back then? “Yeah. I assume. We haven’t talked in a few years.” I hadn’t even told him about Henry, though I knew he knew because of Mom.
“That sucks. I’m sorry.”
The last thing I wanted to talk about was my asshole brother.
But then I reconsidered. Maybe if I did, Sam would feel more comfortable opening up to me.
It worked when I told him about Ron—he looked like he’d really gotten why I wouldn’t get into another relationship.
Unlike my friends, who kept poking at that dead bear.
I cleared my throat and lowered my sandwich to my lap, thinking of my brother. “It does suck. I’ve worked hard to make sure that never happens with my kids. It’s the one thing I’m pretty happy with right now. That Tommy loves Henry so much.”
“They’re amazing together.”
I smiled. They really were.
“So… why do you think he’s like that, when you turned out so nice?”
Am I? Guilt crowded around my thoughts. I hadn’t been totally nice to Sam. But I was trying now.
I picked up my sandwich again and took another bite, considering his question.
I was pretty sure I knew the answer. I sighed.
“Anthony takes after my dad. He was a dick too, though he’s softened up as he’s gotten older.
Actually, it was mostly after Mom divorced him that he got better.
He fucked it up and he knew it. But growing up…
I just remember he resented everything my mom loved. Like the flower farm.”
“Flower farm?”
“Didn’t I tell you I grew up on one?”
Sam shook his head. “I didn’t realize that was a thing. But I guess I never really thought about where flowers came from.”
I smiled. I liked this about Sam. Everything was a direct pipeline from head to mouth, and his thoughts were so pure.
Or at least, not shitty or judgmental. He didn’t ever seem to worry about how he sounded, either, aside from looking deeply embarrassed when asking about breast pumping.
I twisted my mouth so I wouldn’t start cracking up about that again.
I’d loved his goofy questions, though. I loved even more that what you saw with Sam really did appear to be what you got.
“So you grew up on an actual flower farm. Like, skipping through tulips?”
“Peonies and dahlias mostly,” I said. “But yeah, pretty much.”
I told Sam how it was Mom’s lifelong dream.
I was eight when she quit her corporate job and bought it.
At first she commuted there to work. But it was around ninety minutes from where we lived.
That lasted about six months. Then Dad said we might as well move there, since there was an old farmhouse on the property.
I think he just didn’t like that he had to pick up so much of the slack with Mom gone more.
I recrossed my ankles under the bench. “The minute we got there though, all he ever did was complain. Everything was a problem.”
“But it was his idea to move?”
“Yup. Anyway, Anthony seemed to pick up on that. He idolized my dad. So he just kind of took that resentment and ran with it. Picked on me, treated me like shit, honestly. If Mom was around she’d interrupt it, but Dad never would. He was completely checked out.”
Sam looked genuinely upset. “I’m so sorry, Ellie.”
I laughed, maybe a little bitterly. “Yeah. I’ve got stories. Little things, like him tricking me into drinking from a mug he’d poured my mom’s compost water into. And bigger things, like making oinking noises every time I came into the kitchen.”
“The fuck?”
Bitterness curdled the food in my belly.
I looked down at the end of my sandwich.
“He used to laugh at me when I wore shorts and short sleeves, especially once I hit puberty. The whole summer I was thirteen, I just didn’t.
I sweated through long-sleeved clothes and pants.
Mom was so worried I was going to get heatstroke.
But he never did any of his shit around her, so she thought I just had low self-esteem. ”
I felt Sam’s eyes on me, and my stomach clenched with embarrassment. I hadn’t meant to share all that. When I looked at him though, he looked pissed. I’d never seen him look mad before.
His jaw clenched. “I know when people complain about their family you’re not supposed to agree with them. But your brother sounds like a fucking tool.”
I laughed. “Yeah. He was. Still is. I’m fine now, though.” Sort of. “I eat with impunity.” I threw the rest of the sandwich in my mouth, swallowing it down. “It took a lot of therapy to unpack, but now I wear shorts all the time. Fuck him. I love shorts. I love shorts on me.”
“So do I.”
His voice was so appreciative something flipped in my stomach. I didn’t wear shorts for other people, but to know Sam liked them? But I wasn’t supposed to want this from Sam. We’d established that.
He must have seen it on my face, because he said, “I meant that in a supportive friend way. Shorts are good when it’s hot out. Better than pants.”
I couldn’t help smiling. I decided to let myself enjoy the compliment. It was like a nice warm hug after revisiting those shitty memories.
I wanted to tell Sam more, like how even as an adult Anthony didn’t let up.
He called me a ‘stupid slut’ when I got pregnant with Tommy, and now couldn’t understand why I didn’t want to bring my kids anywhere near him.
But I didn’t want this turning into a pity party.
Besides, I really was better now. I was grown, and my brother absolutely was a tool.
“I don’t let Anthony speak to me like that anymore,” I said, wiping my hands on a napkin. “I don’t really speak to him at all. It’s better that way. But I just find it funny how people talk about daddy issues all the time and no one talks about big sibling issues.”
“They should,” Sam said.
I glanced up at him. “How about you? Did you torture your sister?” I meant it to come off as a light joke, but my hand clenched around my napkin.
I really needed to know. Maybe Sam had been a nightmare.
Maybe he had a shadow side, specifically in the place I got hurt.
It would make things a whole lot easier if I knew that about him.
I held my breath, waiting for his response.
Sam thought about it, then said, “Maybe a little.”
My heart tilted sideways.
“There was this one time I flipped the breaker when Cora was playing Ouija with her friends at a sleepover,” he said.
“They were all screaming, and it was funny, until I realized they were actually crying and her friends were asking to go home. I felt so bad I confessed. Then I let them egg me out in the backyard to convince them to stay.”
I laughed, my heart loosening. “Sam, that is not torture.”
“I dunno, Cora still brings it up sometimes. Punches me every time.”
“I bet you looked out for her, didn’t you?”
“I tried. I couldn’t protect her from everything.”
The way he said that, with just a hint of self-loathing, made it sound like he looked at protecting the ones he loved less like a duty and more like an inherent part of his character.
“Are you guys close now?” I asked.
Sam looked over at me. “Well… I told her about you.”
My stomach flipped again. Which part?
But he didn’t elaborate. “I think maybe I can eat now. If you don’t mind passing me the other sandwich.”
He was looking away, but when I pulled out the second sandwich, peeling the wrapping off of it for him so he could manage with one hand, I couldn’t stop thinking about those words. I told her about you.
A hundred questions burned on my tongue. What did you tell her, Sam? Was it just about the baby? Or did you talk to her about me, too? How do you really feel? About me; about this; about us?
Also: Why did you leave me? What happened?
Sam wasn’t looking at me now. He was looking out at the rain, which had slowed to a trickle. I wondered if he wanted to tell me something he couldn’t. Something I’d told him I didn’t want. Something I think might have been a lie I was telling myself in the hopes I’d believe it.
“Sam,” I said softly. “Your sandwich.”
He turned, his eyes on the food.
When he reached for it, our fingers brushed, and I swear I was this close to letting out a sound better fit for a touch somewhere else. But the sparks between us. God, that electricity. It was unnerving.
It was also unwanted, and unfair.
But that was a lie too, wasn’t it? Because when his eyes met mine, I felt my insides melt like a piece of wire attached to the wrong connection.
Like too much heat was coming too fast, and I was liable to short circuit.
And as his pupils broadened the same way they had in the kitchen, I wondered if maybe, despite him fully agreeing to the friend thing, if he was thinking of something similar.