Regretting You(59)

I hope he knows he’s cleaning that up.

Jonah is in front of me now, holding out an egg. “Feels good. Try it.”

I take the egg and hop off the counter. I draw my arm back like I’m throwing a softball, and then I hurl the egg at the painting. He’s right. It feels good watching it splatter over a memory Jenny and Chris made together. I take another egg from the carton and throw it. Then another.

Sadly, there were only four eggs in the carton to begin with, so now I’m out, but I feel like I’m just getting started. “Find something else,” I say, urging Jonah to open the refrigerator. Something about destroying one of their memories fills me with an adrenaline rush I didn’t even know I’d been missing. I’m bouncing on my toes, ready to toss something else, when Jonah hands me a plastic cup of chocolate pudding. I look at it, shrug, and then throw it at the painting. Part of the plastic punches through the canvas.

“I meant for you to open the pudding, but that works too.”

I laugh and grab another pudding from him, then tear open the film. When I try to throw the pudding at the painting, the contents are too thick and too hard to get out. It’s not as satisfying as the egg until I dip my fingers into the cup and walk to the painting. I smear the pudding across the canvas.

Jonah hands me something else. “Here. Use this.”

I look down at the jar of mayo and smile. “Chris hated mayonnaise.”

“I know,” Jonah says with a grin.

I dip my whole hand inside of it, scooping out a cold glob of mayonnaise before smearing it on as much of the painting as I can. Jonah is next to me now, squirting mustard on the canvas. Normally, I’d be freaking out about the mess we’re making, but the satisfaction far outweighs the dread of the eventual cleanup.

Besides, I’m actually laughing. The sound is so foreign I’d smear mayonnaise all over the house just to keep up this feeling.

I’ve smeared almost an entire jar of mayonnaise over the painting when Jonah starts at it with a bottle of ketchup.

God, this feels good.

I’m already thinking about what else in this house might hold secret memories between the two of them that we could destroy. I bet there’s stuff in Jenny and Jonah’s house too. And Jonah might even have more eggs than I did.

The jar of mayonnaise is finally empty. I try to turn around so I can find something else to throw, but the combination of bare feet, egg yolk, and tile flooring doesn’t make for a reliable surface. I slip and grab at Jonah’s arm on my way down. In a matter of seconds, we’re both on our backs on the kitchen floor. Jonah tries to push himself off the floor, but the mess we’ve made is everywhere. His palm slips on the tile, and he’s on his back again.

I’m laughing so hard I roll onto my side in the fetal position because I’m using muscles I feel like I haven’t used in forever. It’s the first time I’ve laughed since Chris and Jenny died.

It’s also the first time I’ve heard Jonah laugh since they died.

Actually . . . I haven’t heard him laugh since we were teenagers.

Our laughter begins to subside. I sigh, just as Jonah turns his head toward me.

He’s not laughing at all anymore. He’s not even smiling. In fact, everything funny about this moment seems to be forgotten as soon as we make eye contact, because it’s so quiet now.

The adrenaline coursing through me begins to change shape and morphs from a need to destroy a painting into an entirely different need. It’s jarring, going from such a fun moment to such a serious one. And I don’t even know why it became so serious, but it did.

Jonah swallows, and then in a rough whisper he says, “I’ve never hated watermelon Jolly Ranchers. I only saved them because I knew they were your favorite.”

Those words roll through me, slowly warming up the coldest parts of me. I stare at him silently, not because I’m speechless but because that’s probably the sweetest thing a man has ever said to me, and it didn’t even come from my husband.

Jonah reaches a hand out, wiping away a sticky strand of hair stuck to my cheek. As soon as he touches me, I feel like we’re back to that night, sitting together on the blanket in the grass by the lake. He’s looking at me the same way he was looking at me back then, right before he whispered, “I’m worried we got it wrong.”

I feel like he’s about to kiss me, and I have no idea what to do, because I’m not ready for this. I don’t even want it. A kiss between us comes with complications.

So why am I leaning in toward him?

Why is his hand now in my hair?

Why am I completely caught up in the thought of what he might taste like?

Other than the quickening of our breaths, the kitchen is quiet. So quiet I can hear the hum of an engine as Clara’s car pulls into the driveway.

Jonah releases me and quickly rolls onto his back.

I sit up in a snap, gasping for a breath. We both pull ourselves off the floor and immediately begin cleaning.





CHAPTER TWENTY





CLARA


Jonah’s car is in the driveway. Hopefully he hasn’t lost his mind again and is here dropping off Elijah for another week. That’s the last thing my mother and I need right now.

I’m not sure what we need, but we need something. An intervention? Separate vacations?