“She said she loved him. I don’t know. I think her parents’ divorce and its impact on her had more to do with it. She didn’t want to have a failed marriage.”
Emma nodded. “Sounds like the same thing you do. You do everything possible to prevent being compared to your father.Your mother held onto something much longer than maybe she should have for those reasons.”
He wasn’t sure why he never thought of it that way himself. “I guess so,” he said. “But she can’t say her mother or father hated her. My father hated me. He blamed me and my existence for his failed supposed football career.”
Her jaw dropped. “That’s horrible,” she said.
“Yeah, well. That’s what I lived with for years. And then when I hit high school and had talent, he came around again.”
“What a dick,” she said with her hands on her hips.
“There you go,” he said, grinning. “Join right in.”
“I think I will,” she said, snapping her chin down.
“So here is this asshole that isn’t around, and when he is, he’s drunk. If he has a job and money, he’s not giving any to my mother. She’s working extra shifts and holidays to provide for our needs, and the three of us kids are at home doing what we can to take the load off of her.”
Warren was the father to his sisters when he should have been a brother.
They didn’t always appreciate him telling them to do their chores or help with dinner because he was trying to fix something in the house, but they did it anyway.
He wondered if his sisters ever ratted him out or not.
“He was better off gone,” she said.
“He was. But once I got attention as our high school quarterback, he decided it was time to come back into the picture and act like the supporting father.”
“Did people believe it?” she asked.
“No,” he said. “By then he had a reputation in the town. That’s the other thing. People felt sorry for us. My mother is the nicest person you’ll ever meet. I’m not sure what she saw in Sean. I think of him that way now.”
“If you think of him at all,” she said. “Do you?”
“Rarely,” he said. “Only when I look at you and worry people will judge me for where I came from. Or compare my background to yours.”
“Oh, Warren,” she said, crawling into his lap and putting her arms around his neck. “Repeat after me. Fuck them. Fuck, fuck, fuck them all. Go on, say it.”
He laughed. “Fuck them,” he said. “Fuck, fuck, fuck them all.”
“That’s right,” she said, giving him a big smacking kiss on the cheek. “You’re Warren Showers. Not Sean Showers. Not Casey Showers. Warren. That’s you.” She shoved her finger into his chest. “You took the good and the bad in your life and blended it into something great. All you should care about is howyoufeel aboutyourself.”
Her words humbled him.
“I care about howyoufeel about me,” he said softly.
“As you should,” she said, kissing him on the lips. “I feel very favorable toward my boyfriend.”
He wanted to know more. To ask more.
But she was showing him instead and it was better than nothing.
25
REAL LIFE TAKES MORE WORK
“I’m so glad you stopped over, Emma,” her mother said the next morning at her parents’ Boston home.
“I was on this side of the water anyway,” she said, grinning. “Why not?”
