That… explained a lot. Probably more than it should have. The Darren I knew didn’t ask questions, at least not before this whole thing started. He either did something, or he didn’t. There was never really an explanation required. It made him seem cold, sure, and certainly unapproachable. At least, that’s what it seemed like from the outside.
I thought of telling her as much, but didn’t want to interrupt.
She said, “Maybe I let him have too much freedom.” She looked down at her hands. “I worked a lot because I wanted one day to be able to sever ties with Andrew, to be able to support the both of us on my own. But I never really had to worry about Darren. He didn’t cause trouble. He went to school. He got good grades. He made his own dinners on the nights I worked late, and did the laundry and cleaned the apartment we lived in and… just. He was a better son to me than I was ever a mother to him, I think.”
“He doesn’t see it that way,” I said lightly. “You have to know that by now.”
She laughed. “Oh, I know. I figured that out a long time ago when he told me to stop feeling so guilty all the time. He said he’d already had an absent father, he didn’t need a martyr mother. He was thirteen when he said that.”
“Snarky even then,” I said, sounding terribly fond.
“Even then,” she agreed. She looked back up at me, studying me with a fierce determination. I don’t know what she saw, but it must have been enough, because she said, “There’s only two times in his life that I ever really saw beyond that, though. Beyond the little boy who could take care of himself. Beyond my kid who was so independent, he probably could have been on his own as a teenager and come out just fine.
“The first was when he met Vince. He called me one day when he was in college and told me he’d found him. He’d always known Vince was out there. I didn’t hide that fact from him, nor did I hide who his father was. He knew Andrew was married to someone else, that I didn’t know it at the time. He’d never really seemed interested in finding out anything more. Or so I thought. Apparently, they were both at the University of Arizona. Apparently, they’d just run into each other one day and got to talking. Apparently, they’d figured out on their own who they were to each other. And when he called me, there was such light in his voice, such warmth, because he’d found his big brother, he’d found Vince. Vince was amazing, he said. Vince was so cool. Vince wasn’t the smartest, but that was okay. Vince liked the same things Darren did, and wasn’t that awesome?” She shook her head, a small smile on her face. The dishes were all but forgotten. “I don’t know that I’d ever heard him like that before. Certainly not years later when he told me he’d spoken to Andrew. And most certainly not when he told me he was taking a job with the city after he graduated. My sweetly indifferent little boy sounded alive, and it was something wonderful to hear.”
I didn’t want to ask, for fear of the answer. But I had to. Because I didn’t know if my heart could take not knowing. “And the second time?” I asked, hoarse.
“The second time….” She coughed and cleared her throat. “I didn’t know if it would happen again. I didn’t think there would really be a reason for it to. There were differences, sure. Now that Vince was in his life. He smiled more. He laughed more. I remember him coming up to Phoenix on his break from class and just hugging me for a while. That wasn’t something he normally did and I remember thinking I never wanted this to go away. He didn’t change completely, mind you. It wasn’t the way things worked. He was still reserved and aloof about most things, but there was just something more to him after. And that was good, you know? It was great. And I hoped it could become something bigger, that he’d finally let people in rather than keeping them at arm’s length. He never really had friends growing up, more like people who worshipped the ground he walked on because he was handsome, or good at sports. Got the good grades and the wicked smile. He had those things now, so I told myself it would be enough. And it was. Until you.”
And even though I knew it was coming, it still knocked the breath from my chest. My heart was tripping all over itself and all I could do was stare at her, slack-jawed and bug-eyed. It was probably not one of my more attractive moments, but I didn’t think I could be blamed. After all, she’d just said I was responsible in some major way for her son’s happiness. Or something. Maybe. Actually, I was probably thinking way too hard about those two words.
Until you.
But she was obviously waiting for some response, so I tried to force together some kind of coherent thought and form it into tangible speech. I failed, and rather miserably, as the sound that came out of my mouth then would probably not be out of place in a nature documentary about the orgiastic mating habits of macaques (why I knew those monkeys had orgies to begin with, I’d probably never know). It was really rather unfortunate, that sound, because the Austers had a big kitchen with great acoustics, and it echoed quite loudly. Echoing monkey orgies is not the best sound to make when the mother of the man you are kind of hung up on tells you that you’re a big reason for said man’s happiness.
I clapped my hand over my mouth so that no sound like macaque sex could ever fall from it again.
“Um,” Sherry said. “Are you okay?”
I nodded furiously, not trusting myself to speak.
“Should I continue?”
I shook my head. Stopped. Then nodded. Stopped. Then did both at the same time.
“Are you having a seizure?” she asked, eyes wide. “It’s okay! I’m a nurse. Don’t choke on your tongue!” She tried to knock my hands away, most likely to hold on to my tongue so I didn’t choke on it.
“I’m fine,” I gasped, pushing her hands away. “I just didn’t want to sound like monkey orgies when talking to you!”
“What,” she said, lips twitching.
“It doesn’t matter,” I hissed at her. “Why would you say something like that!”
Her brow furrowed. “The truth?”
“Oh my god.”
“Sandy, you’re—”
“Oh my god.”
“It’s going to be okay—”
“How is this going to be okay!”
“Wow,” she said. “This kitchen really echoes. Great design choice.”
The TV muted in the living room.