Feels Like Falling - Kristy Woodson Harvey Page 0,114

smiled, his finger still on my lips, and nodded.

“Because I love you, and I want to see if we can make this thing work despite your very stupid reservations about it. Would that be okay with you?” He finally dropped his hand.

I nodded again. “I shouldn’t have underestimated you, Andrew. And I do see you. I see how extraordinary you are, and I promise I will never take you for granted again. I am ready to put you first, to try this for real, to give you what you deserve and what you want.”

“Gray?”

“What?”

He took my hand in his, and we walked toward the shore.

“Do you know what I want more than anything?”

I shook my head and smiled.

“To take this relationship out on dry land.”

diana: come hell or high water

I couldn’t avoid Charles and Momma forever. But I wasn’t going back to Frank’s house until I was good and sure the coast was clear. I wasn’t sure how I was going to know the coast was clear, so I sat in the guesthouse that used to be mine, and I waited—and sort of half-heartedly tried to straighten up some of the mess that was Quinn. Lord. It must’ve been genetic.

I wasn’t real clear on what I was even waiting for. Just waiting, I guess, like an old preacher for the deliverance day. When a pair of lights shone through the darkness and onto the driveway, I felt that deep, internal sigh, like maybe I was finally getting saved too.

He got out of the car, all tall and strong, and I’d been sitting in here blaming him just a little, though Lord knows it wasn’t his fault. I guess the part of me that had been really scared that he wasn’t coming was so relieved that when he walked through the door I ran to him and he held me tight. He hadn’t left me. I wasn’t alone.

Neither of us said anything for a long time, just letting that love sink in, letting it wash over us and cleanse us deep into even our very worst parts.

When Frank spoke, I wished he hadn’t, because I didn’t want to think about it. I didn’t want to have to care about her. I wanted to be with him and our baby. We would have our own little family. Only, way deep down, even I knew that wasn’t how this stuff works.

“She’s an addict,” Frank said.

“Who?”

“Your mom.”

“Okay,” I said, my voice noncommittal but my blood running cold. “Sure. That’s fine. Whatever. I don’t really care. I’ve been twenty-nine years without a momma, and I don’t need one now.”

“But it doesn’t change the fact that your mother has been fighting this disease for your entire life.” He took a deep breath and said, very calmly, “I don’t want you to be upset, but she got into some trouble and was in jail. That’s why she never came home.”

I was pissed because I could feel myself starting to care just a little bit, not even really as her daughter but more as like an innocent bystander who was finding this story interesting. “So how’s she out now?”

“Well, that’s the tough part.” He bit his lip. “She was only in jail for five years, but then it took her a few years to get the right help, and then she figured y’all wouldn’t even want her back.”

I felt it again, that thing that I was trying to distance myself from—hot and intense and piercing—pure, unadulterated anger.

He just kept on yammering. “She started looking for you a few months ago. For all of you. She just happened to find Charles first. She’s doing really well now. She’s been clean for almost ten years.”

I could still feel it, that bubbling anger, mixed with probably the worst pain of my life. Well, maybe not as bad as when she left, but pretty bad all the same. My mother had been out of jail since the time I was sixteen years old, and she never even cared enough to look for me. And now she wanted us back? I don’t think so. But I wasn’t going to cry over any of it. Nope. So I yawned. “You know, Frank, she was dead this morning. She’ll be dead again in a few years. I don’t really have the energy for all this. I don’t need a mom now. Don’t want her either.”

He didn’t say anything, but I could tell he didn’t approve. And I got that. Because I’d seen people I’d really