Chapter 14 #2
“It wasn’t selfless,” I pointed out. “I thought it was my restaurant, too. I might have benefitted from it.”
“It was our family business,” she said, imitating our mom’s voice and saying the words we’d heard so many times. “You were pulling us along but you were also going down with the ship. Thank you, Molly. Thanks for trying.”
“You’re welcome.” If those words had sounded husky, it was because tears had become my new normal. I had found myself crying more than I ever had before.
We talked about other stuff, like a bad song on the radio and the nice shoes that Avonlea had worn today, until we arrived at the former family home where the “for sale” sign now leaned slightly in the yard. Morgan got out but then also leaned down to talk to me through my window.
“I’m not going to die,” she told me. “I mean, I’m not going to do anything to cause that. I’ve been going to a doctor for a few months and I’m a lot better. Ok? So, you don’t have to worry about me.”
“Ok.” My voice was gruff again and I had to reach for the T-shirt that I kept in the back seat. She waved and walked toward the porch.
Things had been emotional lately, emotional and difficult.
Not for me, exactly—like, I wasn’t the one having to go through hard things, or personally suffer.
That was Shane. But I was a witness to it and trying to be a support, and I found that it was a lot like watching my sister.
I did my best to help yet felt like I was failing—there didn’t seem to be anything to make it better.
So, once again, I was responding in a way that was inappropriate but I couldn’t stop myself. I had gotten mad at Morgan because she was depressed and suffering. And now? I was hugely emotional due to his situation, not angry but on the verge of crying at all times.
Both of those reactions were wrong. I shouldn’t have sneered and acted snide when my sister needed me. Regarding Shane, I should have been strong and stalwart, not someone who needed a steady stream of T-shirts for all my tears!
Fortunately, he had a large stack of those in his closet.
Something that had made me happy (and, paradoxically, also made me start crying) was that he had talked to his bosses about his vision.
It had ended up being a meeting with him, the offensive coordinator, the quarterbacks coach, and the head coach.
They all seemed like decent people and none of them had acted mad or accusatory, like I had expected.
I had thought that they would respond with anger, because they hadn’t known about it when they’d promoted him—although, at the same time, I wanted them to acknowledge that he was going to be a wonderful coach and they were extremely lucky to have him.
He was just a wonderful person in general and he only wanted a chance.
They were going to give him one. After a lot of discussion and more meetings, including with people from their human resources department and a few team lawyers, they had settled on some accommodations that could make his life easier in his new position, and he was going forward as a quality control coach for the upcoming season.
Beyond that, he didn’t have a contract and I had to assume that they wouldn’t offer another one. It was something else that made me cry.
We had also started making accommodations around the house.
First, the bumpy rug that I had thought would look cute in the living room?
It was a tripping hazard and had to go, because I couldn’t get it to lay flat enough, not even with double-sided tape.
I had painted the top of the coffee table white so that things like the remote, his phone, and his black laptop would stand out better when he was looking for them.
I had also swapped the handles on the white kitchen cabinets, replacing the silver ones with dark bronze so that there was more of a contrast, making them easier to grab.
We put more lights around the rooms, so there were no more dark corners, but we were careful to pick bulbs with wattages that didn’t bother his eyes.
I felt limited since this was a rental, not our own home, so we couldn’t do all the remodeling that I would have liked.
I had been reading about using grab bars for safety in the shower, but our landlord had said no to that idea and Shane had said no, too.
It was a fine line for him. He was still having a difficult time admitting that he needed to have anything changed, anything at all.
Maybe stuff like a grab bar wasn’t totally necessary at this moment. But in the future…
I picked up the T-shirt again. The future seemed very scary to me right now.
I had doubled down on looking for local jobs since his meetings with the Woodsmen team officials.
If he was going to stay here for the time being, at least through the football season, then I would be here, too.
I needed to get a better paying position so that, just in case he didn’t have one, we would be ok.
He could lean on me and I would be there for him, always.
I had reported that to his mom the last time we’d spoken.
Nedra had asked Shane if he minded if she and I talked, and it was ok with him.
It was ok with me, too, so now we were calling and texting.
We were both worried about him but neither of us wanted to overstep, her into smothering and me into invective.
But again, currently my emotions were leading me away from anger and into crying.
I tried to cut that out as I rushed to my job.
Our family meeting had been a little different from the ones before it, in that it hadn’t ended in arguments.
Similar to the others, though, it had ended late, so I was in a hurry.
I was a good employee for them, though, so it was ok when I ran in and threw on my apron, a little out of breath. “You have someone who requested you,” the cashier told me, pointing to my section. It was empty except for one man who waved when I looked over at him.
I walked to the table. “How did you know I’d be here?” I asked Corbin. I liked his shirt quite a bit—if it were two or three sizes bigger, it would have looked great on Shane.
“I asked you,” he reminded me. “I asked you where you were working and you told me, and I’ve been dropping by now and then to see if you were in.”
“Why?” I wondered. “No, never mind. Can I get you something to drink? Are you ready to order?”
He wanted a Coke and to keep looking at the menu, which wasn’t complicated. He mostly wanted to talk more but I got two other tables, so I didn’t have time for that.
“I thought that you and I could go shopping again,” he suggested when I set down his patty melt. “Didn’t you have fun?”
“Are you still trying to make friends with me?” I asked. I glanced over at the counter to see if the order for table six was ready under the warmers. “You don’t have to do that.”
“I had asked you to that party…I’m sorry to bring that up.” He frowned briefly but kept going. “I had asked you to go to that because I liked you. I’m around for most of the summer and it would be fun to hang out again.”
The order did appear in the window so I only nodded and walked away.
I served my other customers, got them extra napkins and another straw, and stopped by to see Corbin again.
“I’m not interested in you,” I stated. “I might have thought you were cute and you do dress well, but I’m not interested at all. ”
“No, I don’t feel that way about you, either,” he told me. “Um, it’s kind of a story. When are you done here?”
Shane got home late that night, around ten (and he had gone in at seven in the morning).
For both trips, he had taken a rideshare because that made him feel more comfortable.
I was back from my jobs and waiting for him, lying in bed and reading one of the musty books that Morgan and I had salvaged from the garage in my former home.
That still hadn’t sold, although they had dropped the price again, and the real estate agent had her own list of things we were supposed to do to improve the situation.
My sister and I had done our part by clearing out at least half of the basement and my mom had painted the kitchen (white and not the aqua color she claimed to love so much for Walter’s).
“Hi,” I called when I heard him come in. “There’s dinner in the fridge.”
“Thank you,” he answered and a moment later, he came in with a plate. They could eat in the employee lunchroom at the Woodsmen football complex, where there were lots of healthy options that he enjoyed, but he was usually still hungry by the time he got home.
He sat in the chair that I had moved to the side of the room so that the entrance wasn’t blocked like it had been before. “Long day but a good one,” he reported, and smiled back at me. “How about you?”
I had been waiting to tell him what had happened and I jumped right in. “I had a visitor,” I said. “It was Corbin. He asked to be seated in my section and then he waited for me afterwards to talk. I couldn’t understand why.”
Shane had stopped smiling and his eyebrows had drawn down. “I know exactly why,” he said. “Did he ask you out?”
“No. And he’s not going to,” I answered. “The thing is, he’s gay. He told me that today.”
“Oh, ok.” He continued eating, unperturbed by that information.
But there was more to the story. “He hadn’t told anyone in his fraternity,” I said. “I think he was still figuring things out for himself and he kept that private.”
“Sure. I don’t know why he’d have to say anything to anybody. Why would they care?”
“I guess he thought that they would,” I explained. “He might have been afraid of their reactions. That frat has the reputation of being the party place and there are always a lot of women there. It’s why he invited me.”
“To make the video.”
“He swears that he didn’t plan it and…I wasn’t sure at first, but I do believe him. I was his beard.”
“Pardon?”