Wild Reckless (Harper Boys #1)(114)


“Hi, honey,” she says, her fingers holding small strips of tape, and a curled ribbon dangling from her teeth.

While I kick away my shoes and dump my coat on the floor, I watch her tape down the edges of bright red paper then tie her ribbon around one of the wrapped pictures, holding it up to show me when she’s done.

“That’s…awesome. You’re wrapping crap we already own,” I say, sliding closer to her in my socks, peering over her to the various large paintings and décor still waiting to be wrapped, I presume.

“My mom used to do this, every Thanksgiving. She’d wrap the things hanging in our house like presents, and then we’d have Christmas joy around us all season long,” she says, turning her first package to face her. She straightens the ribbon then proudly sets the picture down to the side once she’s satisfied with it.

“Yeah…that’s not weird at all,” I say, counting at least sixteen more things she needs to wrap.

“There’s some mail for you in the kitchen,” she says as she begins cutting and measuring paper for the next package.

I head to the kitchen and grab a Diet Coke from the fridge before turning to the island counter and sifting through the stack of papers and envelopes, discarding the various advertisements and coupons I know we’ll never use. Caught in between two of the bigger mailers is a heavy envelope, with no address. I look over my shoulder, and my mom’s still in manic-wrapping mode, a nearly empty glass of wine next to her on the floor, so I pull the papers from inside.

The top of the packet is labeled with an embossed masthead for Walt, Kendall, and Katz law firm, and just below that I catch the word divorce. I read on quickly, taking in enough to realize what I’m looking at, then I step into the wrapping fray, dropping the packet in front of my mom—right on top of the package she’s taping.

She sighs when it lands in front of her, but instead of speaking right away, she reaches for her drink, taking a long sip until she’s tipping the glass upside down.

“I’m sorry, Kens. I didn’t mean for you to see that,” she says, moving it to the side and continuing to tape gold paper on top of green.

I drop to the floor, sitting next to her, and pick the packet back up, flipping it between my hands a few times, waiting for her to give me more. She pretends I’m invisible.

“Does this mean…” I wait for her to finish my statement for me, but she only nods her head toward the tape, a silent request for me to help with this insane craft project. I rip two pieces off and push them onto the paper where she asks. She turns it over to face me when she’s done. It’s my baby portrait, wrapped and bowed. I don’t know how to respond to seeing it, so I just lift my brow high and smile.

“Well, I like it. I think they look pretty. And your father never let me do campy holiday décor. He said it was junky,” she says, moving right along to the next picture in the pile, this one a larger framed painting. “And yes, this,” she says, nodding to the packet from the law firm, “means I am filing for divorce.”

Wow. I wasn’t expecting this, and I’m so overcome with pride for my mom that I rush her, leaping on her lap and tearing the paper she’s cutting. I kiss her cheek as I hug her, and she laughs with me, but only for a second or two, her focus quickly going back to her task—her eyes never staying on mine for long. “I’m not quite to celebrating status yet. I’m still sort of in acceptance…if that’s okay,” she says, curling ribbon.

“Acceptance is good,” I say, pulling on one of the curly cues on her completed present, letting it spring back into place. “What made you change your mind…if…that’s okay to ask?”

There’s a harsh ripping sound as she presses with the scissors firmly, her hand striking against the ribbon grain with more force, each pass growing a little rougher until she finally snares one of the ribbons against the blade, ripping it from the cluster. She sets the scissors down, untangling her legs as she stands, her gait wobbly as she makes her way back to the kitchen, reaching for a half-empty wine bottle. When she comes back to the living room, she pauses before sitting back in her spot, her lips forming a tight line, her smile like the Mona Lisa—only there if you look for it.

“I was cleaning out old boxes a couple days ago from your room, the empties from the move. I thought I found one under your bed, and when I dragged it into view, I saw it had a pretty expensive-looking dress in it,” she says. I wince knowing what she saw, and I’m angry at myself for being so careless with it and not hiding it better or simply throwing it in the trash like I had planned.

“Curious, I opened the letter that was tucked inside the box,” she says, her eyes on mine, her smirk somehow growing more wicked. “She wrote you a lovely letter, full of na?ve apologies and half-baked excuses. She explained how broken she was over losing him, how he was re-promising himself to me, and how she let him…ha ha! She let him go, because she knew that’s what was right. You needed to have a father at home, she said. And that’s the statement that made me stop. You need a father? Kens, I look at you and have no idea how you’ve come out as normal as you have. And when I read that, it hit me…you don’t need that father. And I don’t need that man.”

Well, damn. I don’t think I’ve ever been more proud of my mother, and all I want to do is celebrate with her. But she’s put a ban on celebrating, so instead, I sit with her on the floor and wrap three more pictures from the collection from our walls, not prying any more, and only taking in the extra information she offers.

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