Restless Night (Insomniac Duet 1)

Today, Ms. Jenkins selects the wooden bench between two old oak trees. The canopy shades the seat, but allows the occasional sunrays to highlight your skin. Birds chirp from the branches as squirrels run from tree to tree in a game of tag. A gentle breeze tames the too warm spring temperatures—not that either of us mind the heat. Hints of jasmine and rose drift in the wind from the flower garden to our left and I let the perfume fill my lungs.

The facility also has a fruit and vegetable garden. Residents with green thumbs are welcome to tend to the plants but aren’t required to keep them maintained. The facility has a groundskeeper that checks the plants weekly and tends to any needing attention.

As per usual, we sit the first few minutes in silence. Both of us soaking up the warmth and breathing easier.

“Peyton.” Ms. Jenkins rests a hand on my forearm and brushes her thumb over the skin. Her touch is gentle. Soft. Kind. A reminder of my nana. “You worry about me too much.” Her words are tender and quiet. “I have lived a full life. And as you get older, things change. Your perception of life, what matters… it all changes.”

Why is she telling me this? Has a new health issue come up that I don’t know about? I don’t like that she talks about herself as if she doesn’t have much time left. It unnerves me. Makes my stomach twist in knots. Robs me of breath.

With a slow twist of her body, she faces me head-on. The crinkles near the corners of her eyes and mouth turn up. “I love that you come to see me. That you want to spend time with a cuckoo old bat. But sweetheart, you need to live life too. You’re so young. Have so many years ahead of you. Don’t waste them visiting me.”

I shake my head, unwilling to absorb her words or give them life. “No. You don’t get to say that.” The backs of my eyes sting. “Coming to see you matters to me.”

“Why, Peyton? Not that I don’t enjoy our time together. But why does seeing me matter?”

Because you make me smile. Because I love hearing your stories similar to those my nana told. Love how I experience a simpler happiness with you. And how life doesn’t feel as messy and complicated when I get to talk with someone wiser.

“Seeing you makes me happy.” My thoughts summarized in that singular line. It doesn’t matter why. Spending time with this woman makes me happy. Provides some peace.

She pats my forearm, then leaves her hand to rest there. “Okay, Peyton.”

The next half hour ticks by with the sun on our shins. We don’t speak again until I walk her inside and leave for the day. She gives me a hug and says she will see me tomorrow. As I drive home, pain radiates beneath my rib cage. Pulsing and pounding and unrelenting.

Why did it feel like Ms. Jenkins was saying goodbye?

* * *

Reese laughs as Mom regales us with one of the weddings she catered over the weekend.

“Over the years, I have seen every kind of wedding. Or so I thought. But having livestock in the crowd and pictures… definitely new.”

“Cows?” Reese asks and Mom nods. “Pigs and chickens?”

“Yep. The whole shebang. Cows, pigs, chickens, goats, horses. Ducks, too.”

“Why?” Reese voices the question we all want answered.

Mom shrugs. “Said she grew up on a farm out west. She moved to Florida two years back to be with her now-husband.” My brows lift. “They met through a dating app,” she clarifies. “When the couple started planning the wedding, she got the groom’s approval for a country theme. But I don’t think even he knew how country she meant.”

Wow. Just wow.

After being less than cheerful once I left Gulfside, Mom’s story definitely lifts my spirits. Not one hundred percent. But some is better than none.

Reese and I attempt to help her make dinner, as we have every other time we visit, and she shoos us away. Suppose that’s what you get when your mother cooks and bakes and caters for a living.

Sweet T’s isn’t a big operation. Mom caters four to five events a week. Most of them office events or weddings with less than a hundred people. She appeals to the masses and is willing to explore all food and baking options with her clients. With two full-time employees working alongside her, they are a booming small business.

I may be biased, but her quiche, almond cake with layered fruit and whipped cream frosting, and macaroons are pure heaven. Being the daughter of a woman who loves the kitchen is never a bad thing. Unless you are concerned about your figure. Which I am not.

“Tracy, you have to take me to the next wedding,” Reese tells Mom. “I need these stories firsthand.”

She waves a hand at him. “They’re not all this outlandish.”

“Maybe not, but I love weddings. Don’t you, Peyton?” Reese flashes me with sparkling irises.

What the hell is he talking about? Reese and I have never discussed anything wedding related unless chatting with Mom. And never once have I mentioned a love for weddings. Hell, I barely hold on to boyfriends.

“Not so much,” I respond with narrowed laser eyes.

Mom adds roasted root vegetables to a serving bowl and the lemon-rosemary chicken to a platter. Without request, Reese takes them to the large cedar table in the dining room. Mom preps the last of the salad as I add a sliced baguette to a basket.

“You two sit. Be back in a sec.”

Mom wanders down the hall and disappears from view. Off to get my stepfather, his daughter, and her girlfriend. Who never seem to participate in family time until absolutely necessary.

Don’t get me wrong, Harold is a great guy. He loves my mom fiercely, which she needs and deserves after what happened with Dad. His job is safe and nine-to-five typical in the print shop he owns, Designs of the Times. But he is otherwise aloof. At least when I am here. Mom says Harold is simplistic and introverted. When it’s just the two of them, he is more outspoken and affectionate.

As for my stepsister, Trina, she just does her own thing. Five years my senior, Trina Williamson struts around like she knows all. I long since gave up offering support or opinions. Since Mom and Harold first started dating three years ago, we have always been cordial with one another. But it isn’t difficult to read her body language and determine she would rather not spend time with me or Mom.

As adult children, yes, it is weird to have our parents find new love. Especially when we both had parents we loved. Harold’s first wife, Trina’s mother, and he divorced when she was thirty. They had been married thirty-one years. But in the last year of their marriage, the misses went through a late midlife crisis. She wanted freedom and independence. With no way to recoup his marriage, Harold agreed to let the love of his life go.

Three years later, he met Mom.