Getting Real (Getting Some #3)(2)
“She’s going through something right now. A phase.”
His little brows draw together.
“You mean like how Brayden is in the bathroom all the time and uses up all the tissues? A phase like that?”
Brayden’s thirteen. It’s a weird age.
“Yeah. Sort of, kind of. A little bit like that.”
“But Brayden’s a kid, Dad. Adults aren’t supposed to go through phases.”
Childhood is the only time you get to think your parents are perfect. There’s a security and innocence that comes from believing your mom and dad control everything, can protect you from anything. It sucks that Spencer never got to have that.
I cup the side of his dark-haired head before bringing him in for a hug.
“I know . . . but sometimes they do.”
*
My old man was not a knocker-on-doors type of guy when we were growing up. He ascribed to the belief that since he paid for the house, premiums like privacy were his to giveth and his to taketh away.
Mostly taketh.
He also strongly suspected that if any of his sons wanted to do something behind a closed door, it most likely involved drinking or “smoking the weed” or begetting him an early grandchild.
And—okay—he was totally right about that.
But one of the perks of having your own kids is you get to actively not do all the annoying shit your parents did. Feels a little bit like vengeance.
So, when I get to Aaron’s closed bedroom door, I knock.
“Come in,” is his immediate answer.
He’s reclining on his bed, his light-brown hair that needs a trim pushed back by neon-red headphones, in a room smelling of sweaty socks and shrouded in tomb-like darkness thanks to perpetually sealed sunlight-blocking drapes.
“Can I talk to you a minute?”
“Do I have a choice?” he asks. Because my firstborn is both smart and a smart-ass—so that’s always fun.
I shake my head. “Not even a little.”
“That’s what I figured.”
He slips his headphones down around his neck as I sit on the end of his bed, bracing my elbows on my knees.
“I need you to lay off your mom in front of Spencer.”
I pause to let that sink in and to give him the chance to object. When he doesn’t, I go on.
“I know you’re pissed at her and I’m not saying you don’t—”
“I’m not pissed at her.”
Aaron’s face is expressionless, his jaw relaxed, his mouth passive, his dark eyes trained steady and dispassionately on mine.
It’s his lying face.
Every kid has one, and while he may get an A-plus in smart-assery, he’s always been crap at lying.
“It kind of seems like you are, Aaron. Like you have been for a while now.”
“Nope,” he pops the p at the end, stubbornly. “She decided to stop being a mom; I decided to stop being her son. Everybody wins.”
“Right.” I nod, choosing my battles. “But, Spencer’s young—he idolizes you and still adores your mom. And when you badmouth her, it makes him feel like he has to pick between defending her and going along with you—and that doesn’t feel good for him. Can you understand that?”
Aaron takes a breath. “Yeah, I get it. I’ll lay off the cursing and the name-calling. But . . . I mean, she basically abandoned us, Dad. Dumped us on you and hasn’t looked back. Don’t you think it’s better for Spencer to know that that happened because there’s something wrong with her—and not because there’s something wrong with him?”
Teenagers argue a lot, but they rarely make actual sense. The times when they do are always accompanied by an odd mix of pride and unease—the feeling that the baby bird is getting ready to fly the nest, that the student is becoming the master . . . that you’re one step closer to possibly getting your ass stuck in a retirement home.
Still, I give the kid his due.
“Touché.”
*
Growing up, my mother did her best to raise her four sons to be gentlemen. It was important to her that the Daniels boys were chivalrous, respectable, and mannerly.
Not an easy feat, considering we settled our differences by punching and shoving, and pinning each other to the floor and farting on each other’s heads until somebody gave in . . . but she tried.
Which is why, when my ex-mother-in-law called to ask if I could move some furniture out to her curb that got ruined when her basement flooded last week, I didn’t hesitate to say yes. I make the half-hour drive over to Hammitsburg, pulling my truck up in front of the two-story, beige stucco hacienda-style house that Stacey’s mom redecorated with the life insurance money after her dad passed away when she was ten.
And I’m not alone. My brothers, Ryan, Garrett, and Timmy, came along to help. Because not only do they owe me a lifetime of favors for the various shit I helped bail them out of when we were teenagers, but also because we’re close. The four of us actually like each other.
Most of the time.
“Hiiii, boys!”
Joyce Skillman, Stacey’s mom, stands on the stoop with her right hand raised and waving vigorously, wearing high-cut black velour lounge shorts and a low-cut matching top that’s at least fifty percent cleavage.
Joyce is a piece of work. She’s not like my mom or any other mom I know—she never was.