Chasing Serenity (River Rain 1)

“How does that make you feel?” Judge asked.

“There’s more.”

He said nothing.

She did.

“He had three photos on his desk. The desk where he killed himself. Mom never saw them. At least, she hadn’t for decades. The first time she did was when Bowie came with her when she hit LA. She asked Hale about it and he said he’d seen them before. Not on that desk, but other places, like in his briefcase, or tucked in a bunch of pictures on his credenza at his office. Those frames moved around with him. Hale didn’t think he took them everywhere with him, but he’d seen them more than once and not in the same places. He asked about the man in them he didn’t know, and his dad just said, ‘He’s an old friend.’ But he never said more.”

Judge knew where this was going.

It went there.

“One was a picture of them when they were kids. All three of them, Mom, Bowie and Uncle Corey. Mom said it was during one of Corey’s late-night birthday parties Gram and Gramps used to throw because his parents were…well, not right, and they never celebrated Corey being alive.”

Shit.

“The other one,” she continued, “was Mom and Bowie, when they got back together the first time, back when they were in their twenties. Mom was sitting in Bowie’s lap and they had their arms around each other, smiling big at the camera.” Pause. “At Corey.”

“Right,” he muttered.

She finished it up.

“And the last was a picture of Bowie and Uncle Corey. Mom says she took it. They were in high school. Kicked back in the flatbed of a truck at a drive-in theater. They’d just had a popcorn fight. Bowie and Corey were covered in popcorn and,” another pause, “they were laughing.”

“That must have been hard for your mom to see,” Judge remarked. And you, he didn’t say…yet.

But she shook her head.

“No, it was…she told me that Bowie was all set never to forgive him. But he saw those photos, probably the last thing Uncle Corey looked at before he died, and it happened. I guess Bowie kind of lost it. But Mom said it was good. A release. Of the pain. And it was a reminder, of how good of friends they were. What he did will never be forgotten, but there is no way anyone, even Bowie, could walk through this house and not see the love Uncle Corey carried in his heart.”

Abruptly, she stopped talking, and although he could see her face, she turned away from the camera.

He gave her the time she needed.

She got it together and came back to him.

“For me, it changed things,” she said, her tone different, pensive. “Seeing that picture of all of them together as kids, then of Mom with Bowie back when they had their whole lives ahead of them, I…I…” She took a second then, “I’m sad about what happened with Mom and Dad, but something clicked, Judge. Seeing that photo, I think I finally got it. The fullness of their love story. Mom’s with Bowie. And now I’m genuinely happy for them and not just because I love my mother and I want her safe and settled, and Bowie is wonderful. Because, this is going to sound strange, but it’s a simple fact that they were meant to be.”

“Yeah,” he said carefully, because this had to have been a rough emotional road to travel.

But it was obvious to him as an outsider, just being around Duncan and Genny, not to mention knowing the story, that they were that.

Meant to be.

“So we had our meetings with some of the designer’s reps and we’re having fun and I mean it, honey. I’m having fun. This is exciting. Mom is ecstatic, and I love that she wants to make it a big thing to celebrate them finally having this. And I feel honored to be a part of it.”

“I so fucking dig that for you, Coco,” he replied.

“It’s even making being around Sasha cool.”

Well, shit.

“So that isn’t going as well?” he asked.

“I don’t want to say this, but I think the truth is, after she did what she did, and while she’s still not connecting with anything or anyone really, I’m not sure we’ll be the same.”

Yeah.

Shit.

“But Matt called and talked to Mom,” she carried on. “She put him on speaker, we all talked to him, and he asked to speak to me privately. I took the phone, and we had a chat. He told me he was being a dick, apologized, and shared he was contemplating. He had plans with some friends for spring break, but he secured a job this summer at a large animal vet clinic outside Prescott and he’s going to think about sitting down with Dad and talking things through.”

“That’s good.”

“Yes.”

“So this is all good.”

Her lips curved. “Yes.” Her lips stopped curving. “But I miss you.”