Chapter 19
chapter nineteen
Busy
I sit on my knees on the floor, looking at the camping gear scattered all over my childhood bedroom, trying to figure out what I’m going to use and what I can get rid of so I can make room for the things I need to bring for Junie. The Kilroy trip at the end of August will be my first time taking my kiddo on a real hike and overnight camping trip, so to say I’m feeling overwhelmed is an understatement.
Which is why I’m here, snooping through all my parents’ gear instead of just using the sleeping bag and backpack that were tucked in my closet.
Every year growing up, our family has done the six-hour hike into the surrounding mountains, up to the top of Kilroy, to watch the most breathtaking sunrise over Cedar Point. For many years, it was my favorite trip, and I was always careful not to plan anything that conflicted with it because I wanted to make sure it was a priority.
Thankfully, my siblings all really enjoyed it as well—except for Boyd, who seems to finagle his way out of it on a regular basis—and each summer when we’d converge in Cedar Point together during the month of August, Kilroy was the one thing consistently on the docket of family activities.
Until I became pregnant and didn’t come home for two summers, I was the one Mitchell to do every single hike. So this year, it feels of the utmost importance that I go, even if I have to miss out on the first part and drive to meet my family halfway up. Because let’s be honest, no two-year-old is going to be manageable for a six-hour hike.
Since it will be the first time in several years that our entire family will be doing it together, it feels supremely important that I figure out how to make it work with Junie, sooner rather than later.
“Remember that one year when your father brought the really high-powered flashlight and it looked like he was sending out the bat signal?”
I laugh at the memory. “I told Bellamy if we had two we could have swooped them around like a movie premiere.”
Mom laughs. “That’s right. I think we were all lucky to get out of that weekend without going blind.”
“Speak for yourself,” I reply, leaning forward and grabbing an older backpack that has seen better days. “I think I still have a bit of corneal damage from when Bishop turned it on in our tent.”
Setting that backpack in the ‘do not need’ pile, I continue looking at the array of items strewn about the floor.
“I’m glad you’re going to be coming this year,” mom says after a lull of silence. “It hasn’t been the same without you there.”
I glance in her direction, wrapping my arms around my knees. “Really?”
Her brow furrows. “Of course, really. We’ve missed you around here.”
Part of me wants to default to the way I’ve been feeling over the past few years and tell her it didn’t seem like she missed me all that much, but then I think back to our conversation from a few weeks ago, and I bite my tongue. Even if I might have felt that way, I know my family loves me, and I know my mother wouldn’t say something like that if it wasn’t true.
“It’ll be really fun for Junie to get her first experience camping,” I end up saying instead. “Not that she’ll remember it.”
Mom shrugs. “It isn’t always about whether your kids remember every detail, though. I mean, what are you supposed to do? Ignore them until they’re old enough to create memories?”
I chuckle at that. “Okay, that’s fair.”
“And even if your kids don’t remember something, that doesn’t mean the memory isn’t meaningful for you .”
At that, I actually get sort of choked up, thinking about what it will be like someday when Junie’s older.
“What’s it like, watching your kids grow up?”
I’m sure my question is out of left field, but if there’s anyone who can talk about the different stages of kids, it’s my mother. Having raised five of us, with a ten-year age span between her oldest and youngest, I don’t doubt she’s been through it all.
“Talk about a loaded question,” she says, leaning to the side on my bed and resting her head in her hand. She hums and seems to think it over for a second.
I lean back against the dresser behind me, just watching as she stares unseeing out the window, surely scanning through a million different memories.
“Well, it’s a lot of things. First, it’s incredible, because you get to watch these little monsters you created slowly grow and morph and change. And, I’m sure you’re seeing it with Junie, but how quickly they learn things is just…amazing. You feel so proud all the time because you’re the one helping them learn those new things.”
She tilts her head from side to side, considering.
“But then it’s hard, too. It’s hard to stay sane when you’re getting no sleep and there is just…constant noise. It’s hard to teach your children how to be those kind, considerate people you want them to become. It’s hard to begin backing off so they learn independence and how to take care of themselves. And then it’s really hard when you watch them make mistakes.”
Her words echo a sentiment similar to what Tabitha said at the beach park last week, and, not for the first time, I wonder if, when my mother looks at me, she only sees the mistakes I’ve made.
“What has it been like for you, watching Junie?”
I scratch at my chin, thinking it over, realizing almost immediately what my mother means when she says it’s incredible.
“I’m just so…astounded by her. All the time. I mean, the things she says, the way her brain works, how curious she is.” I shrug, my hand playing with the zipper on a two-person tent. “It’s amazing.”
“ She’s amazing,” my mom says, and I look up to find her watching me with a sweet smile. “And that’s because she has an amazing mom.”
My throat grows tight at her words, the realization of how much I’ve wanted to hear them only just now hitting me. I open my mouth, wanting to say thank you, to tell her how much it means to me, but feeling too choked up.
So I just nod and lick my lips.
After a beat or two, my mom slaps her thigh and pushes up from my bed.
“Alright, well…I’ll let you finish this,” she says, tiptoeing between things until she makes it to the door. “I’m gonna go check on your father and Junie. I think he said they were gonna go sit on the dock, so that’s where I’m headed.”
“Sounds good,” I finally reply.
She turns, but before she disappears, I call out to her again.
“Hey mom?”
Her face reappears in the doorway. “Yeah?”
“Thanks.”
Her lips tilt up at the sides, and I hope she knows I’m actually thanking her for more than just the camping gear.
Maybe someday, I’ll learn how to say exactly what I mean.
I jog up the front steps and key into my cabin, stopping briefly to grab a package leaning up against the door. Then I’m wandering through the house, having left work on my lunch break to search for Junie’s blanket.
The thing about toddlers that nobody prepares you for is how batshit crazy your child will be if their routine gets thrown off. I know all too well if Junie doesn’t have her blanket when my mom puts her down for her nap soon, she won’t sleep at all.
With no luck, I fill up a glass of water and drink it slowly, leaning against the counter, my eyes scanning the living room for something I missed. As I’m dumping it out, I spot Sydney on the porch.
“Hi sweet girl,” I say, pushing my screen door open. “You just out here enjoying the sun?”
Sydney’s head spins my way, her tongue flopping out and her mouth wide as I crouch down next to her. She rolls onto her back, exposing her belly, and I laugh, giving her really good pets.
“Always looking for tummy rubs, huh?”
I sit outside with Sydney for a good ten minutes before I head back inside, deciding to try one more time to find the blanket before I give up. Miraculously, this time, it’s found—tucked between Junie’s bed and the wall—and I let out a dramatic, victorious sigh.
Then I give my mom a call.
“Hey.”
“I found it.”
“Oh, thank goodness.” I want to laugh at the relief in her voice, but at the same time, I know exactly how it feels. I keep my giggles to myself. “Last time we didn’t have it, it took two hours to finally get her down.”
“I remember.”
I tuck the phone between my ear and my shoulder then grab the package that was at the front door and slice it open with a knife.
“I’m just gonna make myself a sandwich and I’ll be…”
My voice fades as I pull out a bottle of pills and spin them around. There’s a label with the name of some kind of medication but no patient name. I look back at the box, cringing when I realize it says Reid Cohen in big fat letters.
“Busy?”
“Sorry,” I say, shaking my head. My voice is distracted, my mind still focused on the orange bottle. “I’ll be there in ten minutes.”
“Sounds good. See you soon.”
“See you.”
I end the call, rotating the bottle and reading the complicated drug name a few times before tucking the pills back in the box then leaving it on the counter.
I drop the blanket at my mom’s and get back to the bookstore, and as the day continues, I find it difficult not to think about that orange bottle. It feels ridiculous, because there are any number of reasons someone might receive medication in the mail. Simple things. Uncomplicated things. It’s probably something for migraines or blood pressure.
Eventually, though, I succumb to my curiosity and look it up…only to then feel even more curious. Why is Reid taking something to manage seizures?
By the time I get home after closing up the bookstore and picking up Junie, it’s almost seven, and I have to move quickly to manage dinner and bath time and get my girl tucked into bed. As soon as Junie is asleep, I grab the package off the counter and head next door.
Reid and I haven’t done more than say hello to each other since the night we fooled around on his couch, and that was a over a week ago. It’s been understandably awkward since he basically gave me an orgasm then said nothing had changed.
Not basically.
That’s exactly what happened.
What I wasn’t expecting was for Reid to be the one to pull back. He’s been distant, more than I would normally expect from him, and in some ways, it has been a relief. But in others, it’s been…well, maybe not a nightmare, but definitely far from a dream.
I knock on his door, and when he opens it, his brow furrows.
“Why are you knocking on my front door?”
I chuckle awkwardly. “I don’t know. I just…felt like that was what I should do.”
He nods, his eyes falling to the box in my hands. I see the shift in his expression immediately.
“Is that my package?”
I glance down at it then thrust it forward, like I did something wrong by opening it when really and truly, it was just an accident.
“It got left at my door by mistake,” I tell him.
“And you opened it?”
I nod. “I did. I’m so sorry. I was on the phone and I wasn’t paying attention…”
“Obviously, or you would have realized it says my name, right here, in huge letters.”
Blinking, I take a step back, surprised by his bristly attitude. I’ve never actually heard Reid…angry before.
“I said I’m sorry.”
He scrubs at his jaw, the irritation evident in his every movement. Then he sighs.
“Thanks for bringing it over.”
We stand there for a minute, and I war with myself. Should I ask him? Part of me knows I shouldn’t, knows I’ve already violated his privacy, first by opening the package and then by searching for information about its contents.
But I have to know.
“Do you…I mean…that medication is for seizures, right?”
Reid licks his lips then chuckles, but there’s absolutely no humor in it. “I’m assuming that’s what it said when you searched online.”
My response is slow as I try to read his mood. “It is.”
He shrugs, his expression flat. “So then why are you asking me?”
Before I can say anything else, he shuts the door in my face.
When the bell over the door rings at the end of the day on Tuesday, I groan. The last thing I want is a slow-moving customer right before I’m scheduled to close up the bookstore, especially on the first rainy day we’ve had all summer. For whatever reason, the people who come in five minutes before close always move as slow as molasses, and all I want to do is head home and revel in the fact the recent heat wave finally seems to be on the verge of breaking.
“Is anyone here?”
“I’ll be there in just a second,” I call out, climbing up my step stool to add a few more books to the top.
Happily Ever After has a mixture of used and new titles, but the ones absolutely flying off the shelves are the romantasy titles. It isn’t surprising, but it has been wild. Sometimes we get in a new shipment and customers will have cleared them all out within a few days. A great problem to have, especially as a new business.
Once I’m done, I hop down and return the stool to the closet in the back before walking up to the front.
“How can I help you?” I ask the blonde looking at biographies against the far wall.
When she spins around and I realize it’s Reid’s mom, the previous disappointment at a last-minute customer fades away, and I smile.
“Oh, hi Mrs. Cohen!”
She returns the book in her hand to the shelf, her eyes wandering around the store, taking everything in as she heads my way.
“This bookstore really is something special. I wish this was here during any of the forty years I lived in this town,” she says, coming to a stop in front of me. “And it’s Tabitha .”
“Sorry about that,” I reply. “It’s good to see you again. I didn’t realize you were still in town. I assumed you were only visiting for Lois and Paul’s anniversary.”
She lets out a sigh. “Well, that’s why I was in town. But I had a conversation with Reid the other day and I felt it was really important for me to come back.”
My eyebrows rise. For a split second, I think maybe she’s talking about what’s going on with me and Reid, but just as quickly as that thought comes, it goes. Because that would be ridiculous right?
“Really? I hope everything’s okay.”
“It’s not. And I think, primarily, it’s because of you.”
I bring a hand to my chest, my brows coming together. Even though I just contemplated the idea that it would be about me and Reid, nothing could have prepared me for the fact that that’s actually why she’s here.
“Excuse me?”
Tabitha steps forward and takes my hands in hers, her aging hands strong and her grip firm. “I’m just going to rip the Band-Aid off because there’s no use tiptoeing around everything. Reid is in love with you.”
My shoulders fall, relief coursing through me. I thought something was seriously wrong, but this is something else entirely.
“I told you, Mrs. Cohen—”
“Tabitha.”
“—we’re just friends.”
She rolls her eyes. “Busy, please don’t insult my intelligence. I know my son, and I know he is head over heels in love with you, even though he puts on a brave face and tries to pretend he’s not. The reason I know is because my boy wears his heart on his sleeve for everyone to see.”
I want to tell her that’s not the truth, but at this point, who the hell knows what the truth is. The way Reid talks to me, looks at me, touches me would lead me to believe what Tabitha is saying, but all I can go on are the things he actually says.
“I can’t force him to do something he doesn’t want to do,” I finally say, being maybe a little bit too honest. “Regardless of how either of us feel.”
Tabitha takes my hands in hers again. “But you have to.”
I chuckle uncomfortably. “I can promise you no woman wants to have to convince a man to love her.” I shake my head, my mind briefly flitting to Jay, even though I know these situations aren’t similar in any way. “It is…probably the last thing I would ever consider doing.”
“You don’t have to convince him to love you, Busy.” She pauses, her face tight as she appears to deliberate on what she’s going to say next. “You have to convince him that you love him —enough to weather any storm.”
Something prickles at the back of my neck, then. A warning, maybe.
“What do you mean?”
Tabitha takes a deep breath and lets it out, long and slow.
I almost know it before she says it.
That something is wrong. Reid is pushing this friends narrative because of a bigger reason.
But in the end, when she finally does speak again, nothing can prepare me for what she says.