Page 93 of Unbearable
Watching Mom in her own world is what I love most. When no one else is looking and she’s talking to my dad in the backyard. You know just by seeing her now she’s completely at ease. She says she feels him out there, mostly because she loved our backyard and he did too. They spent many nights on the patio together talking, so naturally she’d find strength where they spent time together.
“Oh, hey, honey,” she says when she notices me. Setting down the hose, she takes a seat next to me on the patio.
“How’s Tyler doing?”
“Seems good. He’ll probably need a lot of help tomorrow. I feel bad going back to school.”
She waves her hand at me. “Don’t, honey. He’ll be fine and I’ll take good care of him until you get back.”
I kind of laugh because I’ve never really come out and told my mom what’s been going on with Tyler and me, but she knows. A mother always secretly knows.
Her eyes move from mine to the table when a lady bug lands on her gardening gloves and stays there. She smiles softly, like it’s an inside joke. “Your dad used to hate lady bugs and grasshoppers. Any flying insect with wings made him scream like a little girl.”
I laugh too, because I remember that about him. My father was my hero in so many ways but if a bug landed on him, you’d think he was going to die.
“Since he passed, lady bugs always land on me. It’s like he’s telling me he’s always with me.”
“How do you manage so well without him here? I mean… I’m… I just can’t imagine spending your whole life with someone, raising a family with them and then having them taken from you so suddenly.”
She thinks about my question for a moment, tears flooding her eyes and I think maybe I shouldn’t have asked.
I fretted over my mom for months after my dad passed away last May. Nervously waiting for the breakdown and the moment I’d have to be there for her to pick up the pieces like she did for Red when Nevaeh died. But Mom has only ever showed strength.
“Things like this.” She points to the lady bug who hasn’t moved. “He’s all around me, in my thoughts, here in this house, the shop. He’s all around us and I just”—her hand moves to her chest, over her heart—“he’s here. Inside my heart. Your father possessed such a confidence about him you couldn’t ignore. Even before I really knew him, he had my attention just off that confidence. He could walk into a room and captivate it just by being there. When he passed, that feeling never went away for me. I can walk outside and it’s here, all around me. I can step foot in the shop and know he’s there, beside Red, giving him the strength he needs to go on.”
I smile, knowing it’s true. The lady bug that’s on her gardening gloves moves, flies around and then lands on my right hand.
“He’s with you too, Raven. He’s with all you kids.”
“Well then, why can’t he knock some sense into Rawley? Maybe turn himself into a spider and bite him,” I tease, trying to keep from crying.
Mom laughs, her cheeks warming with the gesture. “Rawley will come around when he’s ready. You just have to give him time.”
“I can’t believe you’re saying that after what he did at the shop.”
She frowns. “I’m not happy with his behavior, but with Rawley, forcing him to change his ways isn’t going to make him do it. He’s stubborn and he needs to do this on his own.”
She’s right, again.
“How are you and Tyler?”
I knew this was coming. Naturally she’d want to know since we hadn’t talked about him.
“I gave him a maybe.”
“A maybe?”
“Yeah. I didn’t want to fall into the trap of just having sex with him.” Normally I wouldn’t tell my mother this but we were opening up so I just kept going. “For so long I wanted to be with him. I mean, you know how much of a crush I had on him. My face would literally turn beat red when he’d come into the room when I was younger.”
She laughs, probably remembering me trying to come up with every excuse I could to go to the shop when Tyler first started working there. I wasn’t shy about it either. I’d hang out in the shop like I belonged there just to be around him. So yeah, Mom knew I had a huge crush on him.
“So what was the hold up on his part?”
“Well, he kept telling me he wasn’t in a position to fall in love. But then every time I came home for the weekend or a holiday, he wanted to get together. Then I wouldn’t hear from him. It got to the point where I felt like I was being used. I knew it and he knew it. I was his escape from all the shit in his life he was trying to avoid. So when it finally got to the point where I told him I was done, suddenly he wants to be with me. It wasn’t until after the accident that he told me he can’t have kids and that’s the reason he kept pushing me away.”
“Wow, that’s a lot. Wait, he can’t have kids?”
“It’s a long story but the short version is the medication he takes for his seizures caused him to be sterile. You’re right. It’s a lot and we’re a mess, so despite the fact that I want to be with him, I think we have a lot to work through before that happens. His greatest fear is that if we’re together and let’s say, ten years from now when I’m ready to start a family, then what?”
