So Much More(58)

“Both.” His answer is short and clipped, but I can hear enthusiasm beneath his angry armor.

This seems to be passing the time, and I have to admit I like them both talking to me, so I continue with the questions, “What’s your favorite color?”

“Blue,” Kai answers. God, he is a mini-Seamus, that was always his favorite color too.

“Red,” Rory answers. Fiery, just like him, that fits. I like red too.

“What’s yours?” Kai’s question catches me off guard. Something as simple as a child showing interest in me brings a lump to my throat. Not many people I’ve ever encountered in my life have shown genuine interest in me, except my grandmother and Seamus. People in the corporate world did, but it was either subordinates kissing ass to get ahead or superiors expecting performance. Neither of those were personal. This is. My first inclination is to say red like Rory, but I stumble on the thought. “I don’t know. It depends, I guess.”

“Why would it depend? You should just have one. When you close your eyes and think about your favorite color, what do you see?”

I can’t close my eyes, of course, because I’m driving, but I stop thinking about everything else and I focus on the question, and the color that comes to mind first is the shade of the hydrangea bushes my grandmother planted on either side of her porch steps. She tended to those plants with such care and devotion. “Periwinkle.”

“You just made that up,” Rory challenges. “I’ve never even heard of periwinkle.”

“It’s a light shade of purplish blue. My grandmother had hydrangea plants that color.” Sharing this information with them just turned scary. I don’t talk about her out loud. Ever.

“Where does she live?” Kai asks. “Can we meet her?”

The words threaten to pummel me. I don’t want to answer. I suddenly feel like I’m not the one in charge of the conversation. I’m always the one in charge of every conversation. That’s how it’s supposed to be.

Rory doesn’t wait for me to answer his brother’s questions before he fires one of his own. “What’s her name, Miranda?” He can sense my unease, and he’s just poked it with a stick to see what it riles up.

I want my words to sound authoritative and threatening to put him in his place. “Kira. Her name was Kira.” They don’t. They sound sentimental. So sentimental that I may as well just roll over, admit defeat, and let him beat me with the stick he was poking me with seconds ago.

“I’m sorry,” Kai says in a comforting manner.

And confusion sets in because A) I don’t know why he’s apologizing, and B) I hear all of the times Seamus needlessly apologized to me while we were together in an attempt to smooth things over. He wasn’t a pushover; he was the bigger person.

“What are you sorry for?” I should let it go, but it seems that pushing my boundaries is what today is made of.

“That she died.” It’s the same comforting voice.

Followed by the same confusion. “How did you know that?” I ask softly. I don’t want him to answer.

“Because you said, ‘Her name was Kira.’ If she was alive, you would’ve said, ‘Her name is Kira.’” His explanation is soft, like he’s sad to have to say it. Sad it will make me sad. And for the first time I’m ashamed that I’m his mother, that he’s related to me. Not from my standpoint, but from his. He deserves better.

The tears begin to trail down my cheeks for so many different reasons. I wipe them away. More replace them.

“I’m sorry,” he echoes, but this time, he caps it off with, “Mom.” And my heart blows apart. He hasn’t called me Mom since before they moved to Seattle. And before that, Mom was just a compulsory title that lacked conviction. Maybe I’m hearing things that aren’t there, but what I heard just now was acceptance. A sweet, little boy accepting a mean, evil woman.

For the next few hours I tell Kai, Rory, and a freshly awake Kira about my grandmother and me: how she raised me after my mom died, where we lived, about our dog, and our house, and my school, and our neighbors. I share it all. They’re good listeners. They ask lots of questions. And with each question my memory expands and my filter shrinks and by the time we approach Seamus’s neighborhood I feel different. Lighter, like I’ve unburdened myself and given a little piece of me to my kids. The good pieces that existed before my grandmother was stolen from me and the world went dark. The part that astonishes me is that they wanted it and didn’t throw it back in my face.

My kids are much better at being human than I am.

I planned on driving to the hotel we stayed at prior. I already made a reservation, but for some reason, my car drives to Seamus’s apartment instead. I feel like I owe it to the kids to let them see him tonight. Sonofabitch, I don’t know what’s gotten into me. I’m thinking these meds are some serious mind-altering shit. Or maybe it’s the kids. Or sharing my grandmother freely with them, unencumbered by the crushing guilt that’s usually anchored to her memory.

Seamus doesn’t know we’re coming. He doesn’t know I’m moving back. He doesn’t know his life is about to change for the better.

When we knock on the door of his apartment at nine o’clock, Seamus answers. I didn’t know shock was an emotion capable of looking so happy, but it does on him. His eyes go directly to the kids, and he gathers them up in a hug they’ve already initiated. They’re clinging to him before his arms make contact.