Chapter 36 The Bottom #2
He only wished he hadn’t been stupid enough to involve Jack in this.
He and Eve were adults; their attachment to each other would wane sooner than later.
As Eve said, it had only been a few months.
But he foolishly brought some stranger into his kid’s life, knowing he was taking a risk, and wanting so badly to believe in it, in her, he did so without thinking of the consequences if it didn’t work out.
In the end, he was angrier with himself than with Eve.
He started again, typing a response— I’m sor —but then, again, erased it.
Instead, Jamie put his car in drive and took off aimlessly.
He’d woken up hungry and hungover and got in his car with the intention of finding breakfast. Perhaps a Waffle House cheesesteak melt to work its miraculous healing powers.
But his thoughts had him wandering, and before Jamie knew it, he was on I-40 headed west.
He didn’t know what brought him to his dad’s house; perhaps feeling lost, it made sense to make his way home.
But there was a very specific longing that sat in the pit of his stomach, he realized, as he started up the walkway to his father’s door.
He just wanted a hug. Reassurance that he wasn’t completely fucking up.
As a parent, he often had to feign confidence, pretend he had any clue what he was doing at any given moment.
But he’d run out of the ability to bluff.
He just wanted his dad to tell him everything was okay.
But it was Jamie’s mother who answered the door, looking like she was in the middle of a spa treatment. Her gray hair was wrapped in a towel, her clothes baggy and comfortable, and her face plastered in bright green goop. They were both perplexed by each other’s appearance.
“Is…my dad here?” Jamie asked, feeling like a child as he said it.
“He’s not, but come on in,” Diane said, ushering him in from the thirty-degree day. “He went grocery shopping a little bit ago.”
His dad was one of those types to wander up and down every aisle instead of making a list of necessary items. It always annoyed Jamie and Casey, as it meant his trips to Kroger took actual hours.
“I had no idea you were coming,” Diane said as they both settled in the den.
“Your dad didn’t mention it.” She was hastily clearing the coffee table as she spoke, a small pile of candy wrappers, strawberry Creme Savers, sitting at the edge.
Jamie remembered her always having a stash of them at the top of her dresser when he was a kid.
He didn’t even know they still made them.
“I didn’t tell him I was coming,” Jamie admitted. He felt like he was intruding.
“Oh, well. You’re a nice surprise, then,” Diane said, smiling at him warmly. “As you can see, we’re doing absolutely nothing.”
On his way in the room, Jamie did catch a glimpse of their sixty-inch television, where a commercial boasted a 90 Day Fiancé marathon. Currently on the screen, a young interracial couple was pushing a baby stroller around a bagel shop.
“You ever watch this show?” Diane asked, noticing his regard. When Jamie shook his head, she said, “Some of the characters are absurd, but it’s a very intriguing look at the different ways relationships can work.”
“Sounds interesting,” he replied apathetically.
When he didn’t say anything else, Diane muted the TV and turned to her son with an eager smile. “You have something on your mind.” It was a question, but it sounded more like a knowing statement.
Jamie unthinkingly started to grind his teeth as he decided whether to engage her.
On one hand, she was obviously right. He had a million things on his mind.
But he’d no intention of talking to her about it; he barely liked to acknowledge her existence.
On the other hand, Diane had proven herself most useful when he was on the outs with Eve. Taking his mind off her, at least.
“I don’t know if I wanna say,” he admitted.
“Well now you have to tell me.” She sat cross-legged on the sectional, offering him her undivided attention.
Jamie smiled, amused by how little she was affected by his enmity. “Well…I guess talking to you wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world.”
“Imagine that,” she said with a grin.
“Please don’t say anything like ‘I told you so.’?”
“I wouldn’t dream of it,” she said. “Just let the record show, people are capable of change. Even you.”
He wished that were true. He really wanted it to be. “I don’t know if I’ve changed so much as you’ve worn me down, but…”
Diane laughed. More of a giggle, really. “I’ll take that.”
“Is that how you got my dad back?”
“That’s entirely possible.”
“Seriously.” He paused, realizing perhaps he’d driven to Memphis, unwittingly, to see his mother. “How did you come back from such an egregious fuckup?”
“Well, for starters, twenty years is a long time to hold a grudge,” Diane said pointedly. “But the simple answer is I was honest. And I know you hate it, but your dad loves me. He just…forgave me.”
Jamie let out a gentle chuckle. “I don’t hate it.”
“You do. And it’s okay.”
“I don’t,” he insisted. And he was pretty sure he was being honest. “I just can’t relate, I guess.”
“Well, you’re a Pisces, so that makes sense.”
“Horoscopes aren’t real, you know.”
“Says who?”
“Anyone with common sense. They’re just generic enough to apply to anyone.”
Diane paused and then exhaled, her gray eyes relaying a playful disappointment as she shook her head. “You’re so cynical. Is that my fault?”
“Probably,” Jamie said. “You ruining our family was my coming-of-age story.”
“Would you have preferred if I’d died?”
“It might’ve fucked me up a little less,” he said, both of them laughing. “Maybe I wouldn’t have ended up with Lucy.”
“Oh god .” She groaned dramatically, sounding exhausted on his behalf. “Where did you find that awful woman anyway?”
Jamie wore a pensive smirk as he recalled crossing paths with Lucy on Honky Tonk Highway his first week in Nashville. “We met at a bar,” he said.
“Of course you did.”
“For what it’s worth, we had a lot of good years together. And I wouldn’t have Jack without her.”
“While that’s all fine, well, and good, Sammy said she didn’t want to marry you, and I simply find that peculiar.”
Jamie felt a sudden stinging in his eyes, fighting tears for reasons unknown.
Something about his mother’s words comforting him in a moment when he needed to be comforted.
He liked the way she called his dad “Sammy,” simultaneously bringing him back to his childhood and to Evie. He missed them both.
“Lucy went about it the wrong way,” he said, sniffling, “but she was correct that we weren’t right for each other. Might’ve saved me in the end.”
“For the girl you told me about? Eve?”
“I don’t think so…” He bit his lip as he tried to think of a way that could be true. “But who knows,” he said. “Maybe so. Or maybe for someone else.”
“Either way. You’re probably right.”
Jamie looked down contemplatively, noticing that at some point, he’d leisurely propped his feet on the coffee table, and he and Diane looked like two old friends chatting. “By any chance, do you remember when I got my acceptance letter from Vandy?” he asked her.
“?’Course I do. Vanderbilt and U of M came on the same day, if I recall correctly.”
“Oh yeah…”
“Why do you ask?”
“I applied again,” he confessed. “And…I got in.”
“Jamie!” She swatted his leg excitedly, and even under the green goo, her face lit up in a way that told him she was genuinely proud. Of him and for him. “That’s incredible.”
“I guess.”
“I didn’t even know that was something you’d been thinking about.”
“I didn’t either until…” He stopped short of mentioning Eve and shrugged to himself. “I’d been putting it off forever. Finally decided to just get it over with.”
“I’m happy for you.” Diane was nodding her approval. “Truly.”
“Thanks…Mom.” The word sounded foreign on his tongue, but he felt like he could get used to it. He wanted to.
“Is that why you’re here? To celebrate?”
“The opposite,” he said, still stewing in his vacillating feelings. Jamie wiped the corner of his eye as that tear he’d been holding on to threatened to fall. “I don’t know. Just havin’ a bad day.”
“Okay,” she replied, her tone abnormally gentle. “Is it okay if I celebrate, then?”
Jamie looked at her dubiously. “What does that mean…?”
“I just wanna hug you.”
“Oh. Yeah. Okay.” Jamie was skeptical, but the two of them rose from the couch simultaneously.
He wrapped his arm around her slight frame and instantly melted as she did the same.
She smelled like green tea and strawberries, and it was as frustrating as it was heartening that she’d given him the exact thing he was looking for.
Jamie always thought of it as a cliché, but as it turned out, that didn’t make it any less true: Forgiveness really is for the forgiver.