32. Brynn #2
“But your mother sees you dating an older man right now. You’re still young and vibrant, but he is chasing middle-aged. And with your mom and the way her brain works? I’m sure she’s already calculating the years you’ve got with him before he dies, and you’re in the same position as her.”
Her revelation stole the wind from my lungs. How was it that Dani could drop the heaviest of balls right into someone’s world without even fucking blinking?
I turned it over for a second. Dani wasn’t wrong, she never was, not about the things that mattered.
But even as the theory settled in, I felt the edges of it not quite fitting.
It wasn’t the only thing. Mom had worked in professional hockey her entire adult life.
She knew the league. She knew what it looked like when a man was passing through a city rather than planting himself in it, and she’d said as much to me before my date — plainly, without flinching — in a way that had nothing to do with mortality math and everything to do with experience.
She was scared of losing me to him in a different way than Dani was describing.
Both things were true, probably. That was the thing about Mom — she never just feared one thing at a time.
“You’re a goddamn genius, you know that?” I asked as I slipped out of bed.
“I do my best,” she said with pride.
That’s when I heard Mom’s car pull up into the driveway. I rushed to the window and peeled back the curtain. And when I saw her struggling to get all of the groceries out of the trunk of the car all at once, my words turned quick.
“Talk Sunday?” I asked.
“Four o’clock on the dot. Love you.”
“Love you, too,” I said as I went to hang up the phone.
“And Bry?”
I placed the phone back to my ear after taking her off speaker. “Yeah?”
“Just because she’s scared doesn’t mean you have to be. I’m serious when I tell you that you sound happier. Don’t let your mother take that from you.”
“I won’t,” I promised. “Talk Sunday.”
“Talk Sunday.”
I hung up the phone and rushed out of my bedroom to help Mom with the groceries.
By the time I caught up to her, she had already hefted things through the front door.
I skipped over to her side and slid some bags off her left arm, which already looked pinched from the way the plastic sat against her skin.
She nodded her thanks, but didn’t quite look me in the eye, and I hated that.
I hated the silence. I hated how we both shut down and became functioning mutes whenever we had shit on our mind.
I cleared my throat as I put up the pantry items. “I’m sorry, Mom.”
She slipped behind me to grab the milk. “Are you happy?”
The question caught me off-guard. I expected my apology to prompt a discussion. Maybe one where Mom’s voice was a bit more curt than usual. You know how moms can be sometimes. But instead, she hit me with a question that I didn’t hesitate to answer.
“Yes,” I said as I turned to face her. I mindlessly reached for the chips to put in the pantry. “He’s an absolute gentleman, and a joy to be around. I love just sitting and talking with him.”
“Love?” she asked as she turned toward me.
The refrigerator door eased itself closed behind her as I shrugged. “I could see it going that way.”
Mom set a box of pasta on the counter and didn’t say anything for a second. I watched her smooth her hand over the top of it like she needed something to do with her hands. When she finally looked at me, her face was careful in that way it got when she was choosing words.
“I know what you were trying to do,” she said quietly. “When he first got here.”
My stomach dropped straight to the floor. “Mom —”
She shook her head once, not unkindly. “I’m not mad at you. I want you to know that. You were trying to take care of me, the same way you always do.” She paused. “But you don’t have to do that, Brynn. That’s not your job.”
I opened my mouth and closed it again. I had no idea what I expected her to say, but it wasn’t that. My throat went tight. “I just didn’t want you to be alone forever.”
Mom crossed the kitchen and pulled me into a hug before I even saw her move.
I pressed my face into her shoulder and blinked hard a few times.
She smelled like her soap and the cold air from outside and underneath all of it, still faintly like the perfume Dad used to buy her every Christmas without fail.
“I know,” she said into my hair. “I know that’s why you did it. And I love you for it, even when it drives me up the wall.”
I laughed a little, wet and embarrassing. “He wasn’t even interested. I want you to know that. I wasn’t lying about that part.”
She pulled back just far enough to look at my face, and one corner of her mouth moved. Not quite a smile. But something. “No,” she said, “I don’t imagine he was.”
I wiped my face with the back of my hand, feeling about twelve years old. “I’m sorry I tried to manage your life.”
She tucked my hair back from my face with both hands the way she’d done since I was small. “I’m sorry I made you feel like you needed to.” She held my face for a second, just looking at me. “Now. Tell me he’s a good man.”
“He’s a good man,” I said without hesitating for half a second.
She nodded once, like that settled something for her.
Then she let me go and went back to the groceries, and that was that.
The way it always was with Mom. No drawn-out speeches.
No carrying on. Just the thing that needed to be said, said, and then the two of us putting the cans away like normal people.
And that’s when I saw it. The confirmation of Dani’s theory.
My mother’s face paled. I watched her sway for a second in her heels before she redirected herself to another grocery bag.
Her shoulders were tense. Her voice was clipped.
Mom was so terrified of the dating world that she was even scared of me dating.
But before I could address it, a knock came at the door, prompting me to check the time on the microwave, only to see that it was a quarter to five.
But before I could even begin to think about panicking, Mom flicked her wrist. “Go get ready. I’ll entertain the company.”
And even though I didn’t want to stick Colton with the awkward company of my mother, I didn’t have a choice. I let time get away from me, and if I didn’t hurry, we’d be late for the pregame festivities.
“Thanks, Mom,” I said as I walked over to her and pressed a kiss to her cheek. “And I’m serious. I’m sorry.”
She patted me on my cheek. “I know. I love you. Now, go get ready. And wear something warm, you know that rink is always colder during games.”
And she sure as hell didn’t have to tell me twice as I scampered off down the hallway.