CHAPTER EIGHT
Emma:
So? How did it go?
Izzy:
Yeah, don’t keep us in suspense
April bit her lip as she read the texts waiting for her the next morning. In the end, she settled on a partial truth.
April:
He’s an ass. I lasted like a half-hour before I left.
What had happened afterward, in the car … Well, she’d decided it was best left well alone. If she ignored it, then she could pretend she hadn’t had some kind of temporary insanity that had led to her making out with Luke Pointer and, worse, that it had been … good.
As she headed downstairs, she reasoned that everything that had happened with Tyler had just gotten to her. She’d needed to let off some steam and it made sense to do that with someone who wouldn’t expect strings attached. Strings she just didn’t have the capacity for right then.
She’d opted to ditch morning coffee with the girls that day, still too out of sorts from her actions last night. Plus, it would be easier not to think about it if her friends weren’t grilling her for details.
“Hey, honey,” her mom chirped as April walked into the kitchen. “There’s fresh coffee in the pot.”
“Thank you.”
“I was thinking I might start going through Martin’s workroom today, if you want to help?”
Maybe she should have gone out for coffee instead. “Yeah, sure.” There was only so long she could put this off, and her mom needed her.
After they’d had breakfast and she’d had the chance to get changed into the cute two-piece pink workout gear she’d found in town the other day, April followed her mom toward the third door along on the upstairs landing.
Up until then, she’d been trying not to even look at the door, let alone go inside.
“Cute set,” Kathy said, and April knew her mom was just trying to distract her, and probably herself, as she pushed open the door and the faint smell of her dad’s aftershave drifted out. Her mom sucked in a breath, breathing out slowly before taking the first step inside.
The space had always been what her dad had called organized chaos.
Papers were shuffled into larger piles that had no rhyme or reason she could immediately see, at least three empty mugs were scattered about the desk, each with dried coffee around the inner rim, and on the far side of the desk that wrapped around the walls there were miniatures waiting to be painted.
Everything was exactly as he’d left it, like he would walk back in any second, collect up the mugs, and proceed to do the walk of shame down to the kitchen to clean them.
Her mom touched the handle of the blue mug closest to them and her smile made the corners of her eyes wrinkle. “I wondered where this one went.”
“You haven’t been in here since?”
She shook her head. “You might have noticed, but I only make it up the stairs to use the bathroom these days.”
Surprised she was addressing it, April moved closer. “You’ve been sleeping on the couch for six months?”
Kathy bit her lip before giving a curt nod. “Your brother doesn’t know. I just can’t … It’s not the same without your dad. Sleeping in that bed, surrounded by his things … I see him when I close my eyes, just always out of reach.”
April hadn’t known it was that bad. Of course, she knew her mom was grieving, that they all missed her dad, but her mom had lost her partner, her other half.
April had never experienced that kind of love.
“I know you said no when we spoke about it at the beginning of the year, Mom, but if you’ve changed your mind and want to sell the house, that’s OK.
Whatever you want, you know Noah and I will support you. ”
Her mom nodded, eyes damp. “Thank you, I know. Let’s just start with this room and see how we go?”
“Sure.” She could understand that. Step by step.
They worked in companionable silence for a while, sorting through the books stacked haphazardly in the small space and trying to make sense of the various papers stored in a system that only made sense to her dad.
“So you went on a date last night?”
Where her mom had got that info from, April didn’t know. But she couldn’t say she was happy about it. “Oh, no. I met up with Luke—he wanted to talk about the bar.”
Kathy hummed, face screwed up as she attempted to read the illegible writing on a piece of scrap paper. “I thought you and your brother already sorted that out.”
“We did,” she reassured her quickly. “Luke just didn’t get the memo.”
Her mom nodded. “Ah, OK. That makes more sense than him nagging you. He’s a good boy.”
April resisted the urge to roll her eyes. Luke Pointer was something, all right.
A good kisser, a traitorous little voice whispered in her head and she sternly told it to shut up. There were much more important qualities to Luke to consider, like his arrogance, his insufferable need to be right all the time, and—
God, his lips were soft.
“Oh, look,” April said, reaching at random for something on the desk to distract herself from the treacherous thoughts running through her mind.
It had been a while since she’d scratched a particular itch, so it was just her hormones running rampant at the first hint of intimacy—even if it was with the most annoying man on earth.
Kathy glanced up at what April was holding and her brows knotted. “Ah, yes, one of your dad’s better ideas, believe it or not.”
April ran her eyes over the paper to finally take in what she’d picked up.
It was a design for a beer glass, with small arrows coming out of the sketch to indicate different features—like a color-changing logo on the front that turned black when your beer was sufficiently cold.
Her dad had had a billion ideas, most of them nonsense, but she had to admire his ability to keep dreaming and creating.
“Did you enjoy your dinner at least? The Garden Table is supposed to be good.”
“You haven’t gone yet?” April avoided the question while shuffling through more papers with various and increasingly zany ideas jotted down. Maybe they could keep them and make a scrapbook, or frame some for the shop …
“I haven’t really had much reason to go out.”
April frowned. “You can go out to eat by yourself, you know. You don’t need a reason. But we could go for lunch or dinner, maybe? Just me and you?”
“Really?” Kathy’s eyes warmed, a sheen making the blue look brighter for a moment. “That would be lovely.”
“Truth be told,” April said slowly, feeling like she should offer up a sliver of vulnerability too, seeing as her mom had just done so, “I didn’t get to experience the food with Luke. We didn’t stay long.”
Kathy hummed in response, thumbing through a notebook and smiling at something she found there.
“That’s a shame.” She held out the book for April to see and her breath caught as she took in the sketch.
It was her and Noah. They couldn’t have been more than thirteen and fifteen respectively.
The artwork was rough, but recognizable, the shading capturing the scowl on her teenage face and Noah’s outstretched tongue as he goaded her.
“Are there more?” she said softly and Kathy flipped the page, revealing more sketches—some bigger than others. A hand holding a cup of tea, or clutching a magnolia blossom, freckles across a small nose, one of her mom in bed asleep. “They’re beautiful.”
“He always did see the world in a different way than most people.” Kathy smiled, her fingertips running gently over her own face on the page. “I miss that.”
“Sleeping?” April teased, trying to keep the mood light and the sadness from creeping back into her mom’s eyes.
“Him,” she replied simply.
April turned the page and found more sketches, this time of birds and plants, one in particular catching her eye. “Violas.” Her dad had gone so far as to shade in the petals with a colored pencil. “My favorite.”
Kathy peered down at the paper and smiled as she tapped another illustration, this time of a lily. “And mine.”
An idea stirred and she bit her lip. “Do you think I could take these? I think maybe it would be nice to frame them, have them in the flower store.”
The brightness reappeared on her mom’s face. “That sounds like a wonderful idea. A fitting tribute.”
They continued clearing piles, sorting them into things to keep or donate, though a healthy amount also went in the trash.
It felt strange to be the ones making these decisions.
Clearly her dad had thought these things were all important enough to keep, but he wasn’t there anymore to use them.
But organizing his office was necessary, even if it felt callous.
She thought back to her own spring clean of her childhood bedroom. Maybe her dad wasn’t the only one who held on to things unnecessarily.
“What’re you smiling about?” Kathy nudged April playfully.
“Just how alike me and Dad are. Were. Whatever. I went through my room the other day to try and clear things out a little, but I don’t think I made that much progress with my stuff, aside from the clothes—and that’s only because a lot of them didn’t fit me anymore.”
“Find some good stuff?”
April laughed. “Yeah, actually. But probably trash to anyone else. Although, I did find the photo of me and Luke after we were announced as co-valedictorians.”
Her mom chuckled, leaning against the now-clear desk as she watched April closely. “Nothing changes with you two, eh? Still going head to head even now, what with the shop. Noah told me you were very against Luke taking the bar. I assume you told him to get lost when he brought it up at dinner?”
“Well, yeah. It’s mine,” she said instantly and then corrected herself. “Ours.” She shrugged. “Old habits, I guess.” She just had to hope that recent developments didn’t become new habits. Her claim of temporary insanity wouldn’t hold up if she let Luke Pointer’s mouth touch hers again.
She shivered. Must be the disgust. It definitely wasn’t a reaction to thinking about that kiss.
Again. She’d already spent far too long last night dissecting every moment of it and all she’d been able to conclude was that everything with her dad and then Tyler had clearly made her snap and do things she would never normally do.
Case in point: box dye in a gas station and kissing Luke Pointer.
Kathy sucked in a breath and April looked up in alarm, finding a dampness to her mom’s cheeks that hadn’t been there a second ago.
“What is it?” She moved closer, wrapping an arm around her mom’s shoulders and following her line of sight to a photograph that had fallen down behind the back of a box her dad had been using.
It was cold in her hands, but through the fine layer of dust she could easily make out her dad’s face.
It was the first time she’d allowed herself to look at his photo since he’d died and a lump sat in her throat, growing larger as she carefully brushed away the dust.
“I took this one. It was his first day in the bar.” Kathy smiled, blinking away her tears as April pored over the photo. “You made the right decision in taking it on. It should stay in the family. Martin would be proud.”
April swallowed twice and her voice still sounded husky when she spoke. “Thank you, Mom.” They stared at the picture for a little longer before April forced herself to take a deep breath. “Hey, I think we’ve done pretty well for one day. What do you say we treat ourselves?”
Kathy grinned. “I’m listening.”
“Cake and the salon?” April held open the door and ushered her mom through it. “I think I’m ready to be blonde again.”
“I’ve heard they have more fun.”
April rolled her eyes. “God knows we need it.”