Chapter 13
Tucker
I was still pretty much in hell.
I sat on Gram’s flowered sofa, waiting for her to get dressed so we could head to Big Harry’s Diner to see Ava, if only for an hour while we ate.
Before she started working, I got to see her every day. But now that I was back at Jiffy Lube, and she was at Harry’s, I didn’t always get a chance to go over to our blue house when she was there.
I wasn’t making much headway. Our time together felt like two classmates studying the same material, not two people who almost got married finding their way back to each other.
Gram came out of her bedroom in a bright yellow dress with red flowers. Her gray curls looked like they hadn’t been colored in yet compared to the outfit.
“Ava liked this one,” Gram said. “Did you choose wisely? We should do everything we can to help your cause.”
“Yeah.” I was actually wearing the same thing I’d worn when I’d met her eight years ago, my dad’s bowling shirt.
Gram’s face softened as she looked over the green and white shirt. “I remember the day your father bought those shirts. Did you know he asked me what to do back then when he only seemed to connect with your little brother?”
I didn’t. “What did he say?”
She sat next to me, resting her big gray purse on her lap. “He noticed you didn’t want to throw the ball around like Stephen did, and you preferred to play video games.”
“I remember.”
“And he asked me what he should do.”
“What did you tell him?”
“First, I told him to talk to your mother! Nobody wants a meddling mother-in-law.” She said it with such energy that I had to laugh.
“But you had the answer, I take it.”
“She got your dad to play some games with you. And that was good. But Stephen wasn’t good at those. He needed something all three of you could do.”
“So, you suggested bowling.”
“I did. Your grandfather and I were in a league back in our day. Of course, bowling in the late sixties often meant doing it either drunk or high.”
“Gram!”
She patted my knee. “Oh, you sweet children of today, assuming the old people were always dull. Are you ready?”
I nodded. As we headed for the door, I spotted the last family portrait I’d taken with Mom and Dad and Stephen. I was twelve, Stephen ten. Dad stood tall and athletic. Mom was spindly, like me, but with a big smile in red lipstick.
The accident couldn’t have been too long after we’d taken that. In the photo, I was wearing the same red shirt I’d had on that terrible day when they’d covered my family in plastic.
I could still see the whir of the colored lights. The sheen of rain coming down.
Gram pulled on the front door. It tended to stick, so I rushed up behind her to help.
“Thank you, Tucker.” We headed out into the sunshine to her old Buick. “I think this will be the day Ava turns things around.”
I wasn’t sure why she felt that today would be any different. But I had to hold on to hope. Life had already taken from me more than I could bear. I would not lose Ava, not now, not ever.
When we arrived at the old diner, Gram took my arm as we stepped onto the curb. “Don’t fret, Tucker. Show her your good side. She’ll come around.”
“It’s been so slow going this time. She only trusts Harry.”
“Thank God for Harry, though. She didn’t run.”
“True. At least she didn’t run.”
I opened the diner’s door to a rush of refrigerated air. Harry liked his restaurant cold. I waited for Gram to go inside, then drew in a deep breath to steel myself.
Seeing Ava was hard to face. Where she’d once lit up when I entered a room, now she put up an emotional wall. I could see it every time, those bricks dropping into place.
Big Harry sat at the bar at the back of the diner. He lifted his hand in greeting. “Ava’s got the booths on the right side today.”
I nodded and headed for an empty one, my hand on Gram’s arm.
Ava was writing an order for a gray-haired couple. There were only a few tables taken. That was why we’d chosen this time to come. It would be easier to talk to her than when the restaurant was busy.
Gram sat on one side of the booth, and I took the other. Ava scribbled her notes, and I waited for her to look up and notice us. I always watched for any shift in her feelings toward me.
Watching her easy conversation with the older couple made my chest pang. No matter how Ava came out of a memory-erasing seizure, there were things about her that never changed.
The way she spun her hair on her finger. How she bent forward when she was trying to listen, her head tilted slightly to the left.
“I’ll get this put in,” Ava said to the other table, straightening as she turned away. She spotted us at our booth, and there it was. Slam. The wall came down.
“I’ll be right back,” she said in our direction, then headed to the kitchen.
Harry watched her go, then said to us, “Rough lunch hour. She’s got her tail over her back.”
Great. It was even harder to connect with her when she was already out of sorts.
“Stay the course, Tucker,” Gram said. “It’s worth it.”
She was right. And I never doubted that. I just wished life were easier for us.
Ava emerged from the kitchen, looking resigned to waiting on us.
“Hello, dear,” Gram said. “It’s lovely to see you.”
“And you,” Ava said. “Hello, Tucker.”
My throat constricted. Her hair was twisted up in pinwheels like it had been years ago. She must have seen a picture of herself with them and liked it.
“I like your ‘do.”
Her head tilted. “My do?”
“Hairdo. Sorry. I forget idioms don’t automatically come back.”
She frowned. I’d reminded her of her condition. This never went well. Stupid mistake. I knew better.
“What can I get you today?” she asked.
She was going to stick to all business.
“Well,” Gram said. “What I want is a chicken-fried steak drowning in gravy, but if my doctor finds out, he’ll have a heart attack on my behalf.”
Ava cracked a small smile. “So, a salad, then?”
“I suppose so.”
“How about I mix in some grilled chicken and some fried chicken strips so you are a little bit healthy and a little bit naughty?”
Gram set down her menu. “I like the way you think.”
A pang of jealousy zipped through my chest. It was so easy for Gram to connect with Ava. I always did everything wrong.
“You know what you want?” Ava asked me. I didn’t miss the guardedness in her tone.
“A cheeseburger.”
“Got it.” She collected the menus. “And water?”
We both nodded.
Then, she was gone.
“That went well,” Gram said.
I stared at the scarred wooden tabletop. “Sure, if you were placing an order and not trying to convince her to give you the time of day.”
“You’ll get there.”
Gram was right. But in the last pinwheel hair era, Ava had read all her notes and still rejected me. It had taken months to make inroads then.
But now we had a house together, a situation to figure out. This created added pressure for both of us. I wanted things back to where we had been. She wanted to live her new life.
It was unbearable.
We fell silent as Ava returned with the water. I expected her to dart away again, but she paused.
“I found a couple of shirts that are too big for me. I think you missed them when you packed.”
“Which ones?”
“An AC/DC that says ‘Highway to Hell.’ And a red one with the Shelfmart logo.”
I knew what she was talking about. “You stole the AC/DC one from me because that was the song playing when we met. You liked to wear it to—” I cut myself off before I said, “Bed.” “You liked to wear it. And the Shelfmart one was always yours. They gave you the wrong size when you first worked there.”
“I worked at Shelfmart?”
“Yes, when you escaped your mother.”
This got her attention. “Wait? I had to escape my mother?”
So, she definitely had never finished all the videos or even her own stories written out. If she had, she would have known.
“When you were eighteen. She lied to you after a memory reset and told you that you were sixteen so you wouldn’t run away.”
“More juice behind the ol’ tattoo.” She looked down at her thigh as if she could see Mom is bad through her jeans. “Why don’t I have a tattoo about you?”
“You do.”
“I don’t have the name Tucker anywhere on my body.”
Gram stood up. “If you’ll excuse an old lady with a weak bladder, I’ll be back in a moment.”
Gram was good like that. When she was gone, I turned to Ava. “We got matching ones. We thought it would be enough.”
“My birth date?”
“No, the symbol.” I pulled down the collar of my shirt to reveal the infinity sign with the words, “The heart remembers.”
“Oh,” she said, frowning. She certainly frowned a lot when I was around. “I do have that one.” She let out a long, slow breath. “My dad said I should let you move back in. So has Harry.”
My heart sped up. “Will you?”
“I can’t. I just can’t. You get that, right? I barely know who I am. How am I supposed to add you to the mix?”
I understood. I did. And it wasn’t the first time she’d said this to me.
“I get it. But maybe we could go out? On a date?”
She pressed her lips together, tapping the table with her finger. “Maybe.”
My body washed over with hope. “Okay.” I had to be careful here. “Maybe in a few days? Which night do you have off?”
“Tomorrow.”
I forced the quaver out of my voice as I said, “I’ll come over tomorrow.”
“Fine. Tomorrow. But no more of the home videos. Something else.”
“Totally. Anything you want to do. Maybe a movie. Or a restaurant other than Harry’s?”
“All right.” She took off to check on the other couple.
The words rang in my mind as I waited for Gram to return.
All right.
She’d said, All right. To a date.
For the first time since I’d lost her, I felt hope.