Scratch the Surface

“Ah, yes.” Makayla cackled evilly. “I remember it well.”

“Me too,” Seth added as he walked by.

I remembered it too, from the way she’d treated Troy, and decided one parent out of two wasn’t bad.

Everybody on my team groaned when it was their turn to draw, but Jeremiah gave me a nod, and I took a breath and read the clue—Barcelona.

Seth got busy fast, and I drew a shirt with stripes on it, and the sun, and what could be perceived as the outline of Spain, and a star toward the top right where the city would be on a better-rendered map.

“Barcelona,” Jeremiah guessed.

“What the hell?” Seth grumbled, turning from his drawing to face me. “What’d you draw that he got that?”

“Is that right?” my father asked, laughing.

“Yeah, that’s right,” Seth whined, which sent his wife into peals of laughter.

“What even is that?” Makayla questioned, getting up to look at my drawing.

“It’s a shirt with a sun and lines on it,” Courtney confirmed.

“It’s a shirt with the flag of Argentina on it,” I clarified, as though it was obvious.

“Which makes zero sense.” Seth was adamant.

“Yes, but everyone knows Lionel Messi captains the Argentinian National team, but he plays for Barcelona, which is why the country and the star.”

“How the hell did you get Barcelona”—Seth pointed at Cam’s whiteboard—“from that?”

He shrugged. “I’ll be honest and say I don’t know any other Argentinian soccer players.”

“No, not that, how did you––”

“Could you have put the number ten on it, Cam?”

I shook my head. “No numbers or letters.”

“I guess it’s lucky I know my flags, then.”

Walking over to him, I gave him a quick kiss. “Yes, it is.”

When it was Jeremiah’s turn to draw, he made a snowcapped mountain, and then he drew faces on it, which I guessed was Mount Rushmore. After we annihilated my mother’s team, we switched it up next time, no spouses or partners on the same side, and turned the easels back to back so we couldn’t see what the other team was doing. When we were all stumped, we turned our drawings so the other team could see.

“Oh,” Jeremiah yelped, seeing mine. “Bruce Lee.”

“Yes,” Courtney snapped at him, gesturing at my board. “How do you see that?”

“Well, there’s a dragon walking in a door,” my father answered his third-born child, “and the arrow is pointing at the dragon, so the name of the dragon, or, in the case, the star of the movie.” He glanced at me. “That’s very good.”

I waggled my eyebrows at my sister, who growled in return.

We declined dessert, as well as more games, explaining that if we were expected tomorrow before the gathering horde, they needed to let us go. It was nice when everyone hugged the man in my life goodbye, but I wasn’t at all surprised that my mother was conveniently out in the yard when it was time for us to leave. What was different this time was, while I hadn’t liked it when she did it to Troy, I understood. Now, as we left, I was mad.

“What’s wrong with you?” Jeremiah asked, holding my hand as we walked toward my Toyota RAV4. “Everybody liked me. Why aren’t you doing cartwheels?”

“I––”

“Wait!”

We both turned, and there was my mother, rushing down the path from her front door toward us and stopping in front of Jeremiah. She had to have run from where she’d been, in her garden, to reach us.

“I didn’t realize you two were leaving. I was out on poop patrol with the dogs.”

He chuckled, and she smiled, and when he opened his arms for her, she stepped forward and they were hugging. It was nice how he bent so she could wrap her arms around his neck, and she didn’t put space between them, but instead embraced him like she did the rest of her children. I glanced away, wiped at the tears that had welled up surprisingly fast, and was looking at them again as she murmured things into his hair.

He nodded, and she said, “Good,” loud enough for me to hear, and then let him go, only to turn, give me a quick clutch, and dart back toward the house. Only then did I notice she wasn’t wearing shoes.

“Your mother has paint swatches and a mood board she wants to show you before you redecorate the house, and I quote—” He paused dramatically for effect. “—go at it all willy-nilly.”

“Is that right?”

“I would never lie about something like that.”

I took a breath. “What else did she say?”

“Just that she was glad I came, and she was looking forward to spending more time with me tomorrow.”

Never, ever had she wanted anything to do with Troy Fortney, and she’d known him for years. Jeremiah had been in her house a handful of hours, and she wanted to sit with him. I was more than a bit overwhelmed.