He shook his head, like he couldn’t even think of that right now. And I smiled some more. “Don’t worry about the rest, Clint. It’s okay, really. I’m done with this job, not this family. And I couldn’t expect you to know what I didn’t tell you.”
Clint nodded slightly. His eyes still looked a little dazed. Nowhere near loopy but not the same laser pointers they usually were. And his jaw still looked a little tight though the rest of him had loosened up. But looking at me he seemed resigned and okay with all this. Then again, I wasn’t really giving him another option.
“Is there anything else?” Clint asked. I blinked at him so he added, “That I should know.”
Nodding, I glanced over to my mother. She was still standing by my father’s side, watching us with an ashen sickly look on her face. She was silent and still and unlike herself as her eyes glued themselves to me. And in them, I saw something that reminded me of the first year we’d lost Clementine. No contact, no updates, no knowledge of where she was or how she was doing. Gone and unreachable in the blink of an eye. It made me feel a string of pity. Made me want to hold my hand out to her and let her know I was still here. Just on my own terms now.
If it was a surprise to me that my mother, proud and stubborn and prickly, took that hand with no hesitation—I made sure to swallow that shit down as I walked her over to the seats in front of my brother's desk and told them both to sit down.
Looking at them across from me, both stunned but both with rapt attention aimed my way for once; I felt a bittersweet sensation crawl over my heart. Because even as I stood there making the decision to choose myself, I still didn’t know if I would be enough for them.
But I was enough for me, and possibly for somebody else too, and that’s all that mattered right now.
It had to be.
“Look, in my professional opinion, you guys are going to have to make some changes around here,” I started.
And for the first time in what seemed like forever, I had their undivided attention.
* * *
“You sound sort of sad mate,” Malcolm said as I talked to him on the phone. “No wait, sad isn’t the word. No, you sound…”
“Winded?” I asked him as I finished yet another sprint out back on the beach. I had been out there for hours.
“No, no, that’s not it. I don’t know what you sound like. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you this way before,” he said, voice contemplative. “It’s eerie.”
I laughed, exhaustion hitting me at the same time his tone did. Pulling up short I walked off the burn of the last sprint a little before collapsing to the soft warm sand.
“Thanks… Mal,” I said between huffs of air. “Good to know freedom sounds good on me.”
I could hear the smile on his voice as he said, “Ah don’t be like that. You know I’m happy for you. And now that you're free you can come over for the reunion yeah?
“Maybe, if I can.”
“If you can…” he trailed off waiting for me to finish. When I didn’t he finished for me. “If you can leave your girl.”
“Yeah.”
“So that’s what she is, yeah? Your girl?”
“Always has been.”
“And she knows that?”
Yes? No? Cross my heart and hope to God?
“I don’t know how she could miss it, Mal,” I sighed.
“There! There it is again. That sad—not sad tone in your voice. It’s freaking me out man, what gives?”
I chuckled. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. I’m not sad, I’ve just made a lot of big decisions lately. I'm just settling.”
“How’s mum?”
“Okay.”
“How’s big bro?”
