barely manage to catch myself in time to hear him growl in my ear, “There’s no way in hell you’re going to convince me he’s not Jennings’s son. Not when he’s the spitting image of him,” before releasing me and stalking away without waiting for a response.
Not that one’s needed.
I wobble dangerously on my feet. Maris and Kevin both reach for me. “Mom?” Kevin’s face holds too much fear for someone his age. He’s scared by what just transpired and doesn’t have the skills to hide it.
“I’m fine, baby. I just got a bit light-headed.” Stepping back, I turn to Maris to find her shooting glares toward the backs of the Jacks, who are leaving en masse. I touch her arm to get her attention. “Brad guessed?” she surmises as her attention returns to me.
“Oh yeah,” I confirm.
Squishing me tightly to her side, she whispers, “Only a few more minutes, then I’m throwing everyone out.” Muttering to herself, she asks, “I don’t know what Jed was thinking.”
I tell her honestly, “Some days, neither do I.”
Maris pulls me tighter to her, if that’s even possible. “We’re almost done, babe. Then it’s just you and me.”
“And Kevin,” I remind her.
“Think he’s too young for a glass of wine?” she muses aloud.
“Yes!” I say too emphatically, drawing the attention of people around me. I smile weakly to assure them everything is as fine as it can be.
But just then, my eyes catch sight of John Jennings as he’s about to walk out. He looks overwhelmed—more so than when he first walked in. And his eyes aren’t on any of the photos of Jed placed tastefully around the room.
They’re on me.
And they’re devastated. Part of me feels an urge to go to Jennings, to explain, but Nick drags him to the door before I can give into the urge.
Later, I remind myself firmly. Kevin is your priority right now. Let the will be read, and deal with Jennings later.
Hours later, Kevin’s engrossed on his iPad in the basement. I hear a distinctive pop that heralded so many nights Maris and I spent together while I lived here for five of the most life-altering months of my life. When she slides the glass in front of me, I lift it to my lips with a grateful “Thanks.”
She then proceeds to plunk the rest of the open bottle next to my arm. “I’m opening my own,” she declares.
And on a day when I suspect neither of us expected to feel nothing but anger and bitterness, my lips curve. “Talking to you just isn’t the same as being with you.”
Maris lifts her glass and touches it to mine. “I feel the same way. How’s Kevin holding together?”
Knowing he’ll be engrossed for a while, I answer honestly. “As best as he can.”
“He won’t miss his friends while here?”
I wave my hand toward the basement door. “He’ll catch up with them. If he wasn’t, then I’d be worried.”
“You raised an amazing young man, Kara,” Maris compliments me.
I just shake my head. “I had a lot of help, my friend. Especially in the beginning.” My mind flashes back to the days after I first realized I was pregnant, calling my parents, being cut off, then talking to Dean and knowing I always would have my brother. Then there was Jennings and coming to terms with the emotions I had as both a parent and a woman.
As the months, then the years, passed, Kevin and I had nothing but the world before us. Who knew then how life would work out?
“Does being here bring back the memories?” Maris asks.
“How could it not?” Taking a fortifying drink, I think back to the girl I was then. “I had stars in my eyes, literally.”
“You still could have…”
“No,” I say firmly. “Once I knew Kevin was on the way, it was up to me to make a life for us, Maris. I wasn’t about to be separated from my son for months on end while I aspired to do scientific research on Mendenhall.” Taking a sip, I remind her, “Being an intern at the gift shop is a lot different than camping out in a tent with a Coleman as a heat source on top on the far reaches of the glacier for months on end, taking measurements of annual snowfall and looking in a makeshift lab whether the snow crystalized right.” After another drink, I tack on, “I don’t think they deliver Huggies as often as I would have needed them.”