Crazy (The Gibson Boys 4)

“That must’ve been hard for you,” I say, balancing the boxes in my arms.

Nana’s hand drops to her side. “Listen to me jabber while you just stand there holding those boxes. Just tell me to hush next time.” She scoots down the hallway toward the kitchen.

I place the boxes on the island.

“Can I ask you a question?” I force a swallow as Nana nods. “How long has Jessica been gone?”

“She left for good when Peck was fifteen. Vincent was a senior. That was a hard year. Poor Vinnie acted out, causing mayhem, and Peck sort of internalized it. It was rough.”

I press my hands against the island and think of the weight Peck must’ve been carrying around. The loss of his parents. Taking responsibility for Molly and her problems. The poor kid must’ve been ready to break.

“He seems to have turned out all right,” I say.

She grins. “That he did. He’s a very good boy. If I need something, he’s there. He’s there before I need things.” She laughs. “I guess, in some ways, I’m all he has. It’s why family is so important to him, I think. He’s already lost so much of it.”

My throat tightens as I take in her words.

“All my boys are good, family-centric kids,” she says. “But Peck … it’s different with him. I don’t care what Machlan does to him or how many of my cheeseballs Lance takes or how much he and Walker bicker at work, Peck doesn’t hold grudges. He lives and loves and lets go. The other boys can be mad for a while.”

“I know he’s happy Vincent and Sawyer are moving back.”

“Me too.” She ambles over to her rocker and gets settled. “The boys think I want them all together because it makes me happy. And it does. It thrills this old heart to death. But you know why I really want Vincent back here?”

“Why?”

“Because once you get to be my age, you realize family is absolutely all you have.”

I sit on a barstool. The weight of her words falls on my shoulders, pressing me down into the hard wooden seat.

“That’s unfortunate for people like me,” I say.

“Why is that, honey?”

“My family … isn’t like your family. We just aren’t close.”

I look at the ceiling, concerned that I feel so comfortable with this woman to be opening up like this. But now that the sieve is open, I can’t close it. I don’t want to. With every word, I can feel my load lightening.

“What are they like?” she asks.

“Well, my dad is gone. My mom …” Tears well up in my eyes. “She doesn’t really even like me.” I blink back the water that threatens to spill over my cheeks. I can feel my nose turn red as I try to rein in my emotions. “I don’t know what I ever did to her, but … I have to earn her love, and that’s hard …”

She rocks gently back and forth in her rocker. The sound is soothing in a very strange way.

“Dylan, sweetheart, I’m going to tell you something. And this is a fact with my hand up.” She waits for me to look at her. “That’s not love.”

I try to speak, but my mouth is too dry.

“You don’t have to earn someone’s love. Their respect? Yes. Their loyalty? Absolutely. But true love comes freely. You can’t stop it or start it. You have no control over it.”

Her words hit me in the chest, digging right into my heart. I think they should hurt. They should cut me deep with the truth that my mother doesn’t love me. But it doesn’t. It doesn’t hurt. Because I accepted it as truth a long time ago. But clearly, from these tears, I haven’t fully grieved the loss of love from my mother.

“But here’s another thing for you,” she says. “Parents always, always love their children.”

“But …”

She sighs. “Parents are people too. Take my Jessie. I know she loves her sons. But someone looking from the outside may think, ‘How could she? She left them. She wasn’t a great mother.’ Those people have never considered that maybe the best thing she could’ve done for Vincent and Peck was to leave them.”

I think about that. If she was strung out or into bad things, maybe Nana’s right. But I wouldn’t have thought of that.

“Parents make mistakes,” she says in that steady way of hers. “Sometimes, they don’t know what to do or say. Sometimes they don’t even realize how badly they’ve treated you. They’re just dealing with things the best way they can. Does that make sense?”

I nod. It does. I’m going to need to really think about that to absorb all of it, I think, but it makes sense.

It also hurts my heart.

“Will you promise me something, Dylan?”

“Um, sure,” I stammer.

“Always remember what I just said.”