Page 16 of A Return For Ren
“True,” he said. “I’ve been painting today. I can’t do a whole lot more than superficial stuff. That’s all I can see that it needs. At least right now.”
He wasn’t going to bore his best friend about the things he was doing. His mother and he were working it out, but he wanted it done sooner rather than later.
He hadn’t realized how much or how hard his mother worked for the marina and started to feel some guilt over the fact he avoided it like the plague as a kid. Maybe he shouldn’t have. Not that he would have worked here as his career, but his mother shouldn’t have been working so hard.
“That’s good,” Colin said.
“What is going on there? How much of a crunch are you and the team feeling with me gone?”
Colin laughed. “Dude. You’ve been gone three days. Life goes on. You were out longer months ago.”
He had been. When Max showed up he’d taken four weeks of paternity leave while he tried to figure out how to even handle a kid. He’d still signed in and did some work when Max was sleeping at night, but not as much as he normally did.
“This is like a long vacation. If you need me to do anything, you know how to reach me. I can hop on the computer and get some things taken care of.”
“We know,” Colin said. “But we’ve got it covered. You’ve had a pretty shitty year and everyone knows it.”
“Thanks,” he said. He kept to himself a lot with his coworkers, but many knew the basics about someone’s life.
Having a child you didn’t know about show up out of the blue was hard to keep quiet. Especially a baby. Then the death of his father last month. A week after the funeral his mother said she couldn’t and didn’t want to run the marina alone.
She’d told him she was ready to retire and asked if he’d help her get it ready to put up for sale.
His mother never asked him for anything. Ever.
He expected it had more to do with him not wanting to have to deal with his father.
He wouldn’t tell her no. Not the woman that always stood up to him.
“I’ll let you get back to whatever you’re doing,” Colin said.
“Painting,” he said.
“Sounds like fun...not.”
“Better than a needle in the toenail,” he said. Colin laughed and they hung up.
He went back to his manual labor, wanting to finish this room before he left for the day. He was tackling his father’s office and knew the sooner it was done, the sooner he wouldn’t have to come back here.
He’d spent a few days cleaning it out so his mother didn’t have to.
He might have strong negative feelings toward the man. Maybe his mother had some too. But she’d married him and they’d been together over forty years.
Life as she knew it wasn’t going to be the same. It might be easier and better, but it wouldn’t be the same.
The least he could do was clean this office out for her and save her those emotions.
The fact his mother didn’t argue when he offered told him everything he needed to know about it.
He was cleaning the paintbrushes over an hour later and coming out of the bathroom when his mother said, “Ren, don’t you have to get Max?”
He looked at his watch. “Shit.” It was five of five and he was fifteen minutes away. “I lost track of time.”
He dropped everything and ran to his car, calling the daycare saying he was on the way.
Thankfully there were no cops around because he was pretty sure he’d broken every traffic law other than running a red light.
He skidded to a stop in the parking lot and saw it was completely empty.
