Shock - Marie Johnston Page 0,44

His gaze goes back to Jayden. “Say you’re right about Becky.” He waits to make sure I get it. Jayden might not be able to tell his mom what we’re saying, but we’re not sure what he can understand.

“Okay. About Becky?”

“Right. Why would Becky want her friend to settle down if she was waiting for him to do that with her?”

“Because she’s still in love with him.” His mouth flattens. He doesn’t believe me. “At least with the idea of the him, who he was supposed to be when they were together.”

“I don’t see it.”

“You might not, but when Becky does, she might realize that nothing else ties her here. Not a potential husband, not a custody agreement, nothing.”

Ford rescues the yellow duck from floating too far. “Becky was the one that ended things.”

“She might regret it. What if it was a manipulative move that didn’t work? You have—Becky’s friend has his whole life in front of him. He needs to figure out a way to keep what’s really important to him.”

“Becky’s friend needs more money,” he says tightly.

And we’re back to the beginning. Every time we’ve talked about his issues with Cass, we go in the same circle. Pretty soon, that circle’s going to shrink until it’s just a noose around his neck.

Ford

As Jayden’s bedtime creeps closer, I know I have to get him home. But Mom brought out the picture albums.

She’s got Jayden on her lap at the kitchen table. The album is spread open in front of Lia and I’m on the other side.

Lia points to the trophy held up by a bunch of five-year-old boys. “You didn’t tell me your team took first.”

“They didn’t. That’s an adult league trophy, but I told them to do that for the picture.”

She laughs, an open, generous sound. This is nothing like going through these pictures with Cass. First of all, Cass had to be almost bolted to the chair to look at the photos. Then all she focused on was the fashion of the time, like Mom’s “Rachel cut” and the eighties car Mom drove in the nineties.

“Oh, these are going backward in time. Oh well.” Mom nudges Lia to open a new album.

Lia smiles over my senior pictures and asks about the experience, not the style of clothing I’m wearing. She giggles over the shots of me at the San Diego Zoo when I was fourteen, then the time when I was twelve and got my one and only Mom haircut.

“That was unfortunate,” Mom says between laughs. “Every time I grabbed a pair of scissors for years after that, he ran.”

Lia points to a picture of three scrawny kids, dripping wet, with popsicles in their hands. “Look at Ryan and Karoline. That’s a nice picture of all of you.”

“I know you don’t remember them, but there were happy times,” Mom says quietly.

Like the day that picture was taken. Mom set up the sprinklers and we played for hours. She showered us with snacks and sunscreen, and we watched movies all night, falling asleep on the floor.

Yeah. There were some happy times. A beat of longing goes through me. I wasn’t an only child those years after Mom married, but I look back on that time like I was.

Lia opens a new album, this one full of photos of me around Jayden’s age. “Aww, look how much you look alike.”

Pride swells in me. Jayden has my hair color and gets his eye color from Cass. But his cheeky grin is all mine.

I reach over and point out the baby photos to a sleepy Jayden. He’s about to pass out against Mom’s chest. “We should go before he falls asleep and then stays awake all night on Cass.”

“There’s only one album left,” Mom says and Lia sets the old one down, picks up the new one.

“How much older can we get than when I was a baby?”

Mom chuckles and shifts Jayden to the other knee. He leans over the table to grab at the pages. “No, honey,” Mom whispers and twists her body so he can’t reach. “I found this one when I was cleaning boxes out the other day.”

Lia flips a page. There’s Mom with my grandparents. She doesn’t talk about them much. Other than getting a Christmas card every year, I don’t talk to them either. Another page and there’s a picture of Mom hugging a familiar man.

My stomach drops. My dad. He’s grinning, his arm possessively around Mom’s waist. He’s leaning against a red Mustang, wearing black