She shakes her head. “You still have a lot of catching up to do. Keep going.”
I sigh and roll onto my back. I don’t want to tell her anything else yet, but I’m scared if we don’t get out of this tent soon, I’ll tell her everything I know and everything she doesn’t want to hear. But maybe it’s best that way. Maybe if I tell her the truth, she can accept it and trust me and know that as soon as I get back, things will be different. Maybe if I tell her the truth, we’ll have a chance of making it beyond Monday.
“That night I didn’t show up here?” I pause, because my heart is beating so fast I’m finding it hard to think around it. I know I need to admit this to her, but I haven’t known how to bring it up. No matter how I spin it, I know she’ll react negatively, and I get that. But I’m tired of not being honest with her.
I roll onto my side and face her. I open my mouth to confess, but I’m spared by the knock on her front door.
Her confused expression reveals that she isn’t used to visitors. “I need to get that. Wait here.” She immediately climbs out of the tent, and I roll onto my back and exhale. In a matter of seconds, she’s back in her room and kneeling down in front of the tent.
“Owen.”
Her voice is frantic, and I lift up on my elbows as she pokes her head inside. Her eyes are full of worry. “I have to get the door, but please don’t come out of my room, okay? I’ll explain everything as soon as she leaves. I promise.”
I nod, hating the fear in her voice. I also hate that she suddenly wants to hide me from whoever is at her door.
She backs away and closes the bedroom door. I fall back onto the pillow and listen, aware that I’m about to get one of her confessions, even though she doesn’t quite seem ready to share it with me.
I hear the front door open and the first thing I hear is a child’s voice. “Mommy, look! Look what Nana Lydia bought me.”
And then I hear her respond. “Wow. That’s exactly the one you wanted.”
Did he just call you Mommy?
I hear feet shuffling across the floor. I hear a woman’s voice say, “I know this is last-minute, but we were supposed to leave for Pasadena hours ago. However, my mother-in-law was admitted to the hospital and Trey is on duty—”
“Oh no, Lydia,” Auburn interrupts.
“Oh, she’s fine. Diabetic issues again, which wouldn’t happen if she’d just take care of herself like I tell her. But she doesn’t, and then expects the entire family to give up their plans in order to take care of her.”
I hear a doorknob turning. “AJ, no,” I hear Auburn say. “Stay out of Mommy’s room.”
“Anyway,” the woman says, “I have to take some things to her but they don’t allow children in the ICU, so I need you to watch him for a couple of hours.”
“Of course,” she says. “Here?”
“Yes, I don’t have time to drive you to our house.”
“Okay,” she says. She sounds excited. She sounds like she’s not used to the woman trusting her to do this. She’s so excited, I don’t think she notices AJ is opening her bedroom door again.
“I’ll pick him up later tonight,” the woman says.
“He can spend the night,” Auburn replies, hopeful. “I’ll bring him back in the morning.”
Her bedroom door is open now and a little boy falls to his knees directly in front of the tent. I lift up on my elbows and smile at him, because he’s smiling at me.
“Why are you in a tent?” he asks.
I bring my finger up to my mouth. “Shhh.”
He grins and crawls inside the tent. He looks to be about four or five years old, and his eyes aren’t green like Auburn’s. They’re all different colors. Browns and grays and greens. Like a canvas.
He doesn’t have her unique shade of hair color, as his is dark brown. I’m assuming he gets that from his father, but I still see a lot of Auburn in him. Mostly in his expression, and how he seems so curious.
“Is the tent a secret?” he asks.
I nod. “Yes. And no one knows this tent is here, so we need to keep it between us, okay?”
He smiles and nods, like he’s excited to have a secret. “I can keep secrets.”
“That’s good,” I say to him. “Because it’s not muscles that make men strong. Secrets do. The more secrets you keep, the stronger you are on the inside.”
He grins. “I want to be strong.”
I’m about to tell him to go back to the living room before any attention is brought to me, but I can hear the opening of the bedroom door.
“AJ, come give Nana Lydia a hug,” the woman says. Her footsteps grow louder and AJ’s eyes grow wide.
“Lydia, wait,” I hear Auburn say to her with panic in her voice. But she says it a second too late, because I don’t have time to pull my feet inside the tent before Lydia walks into the room.
I can see her steps come to an immediate halt. I don’t have to see her face to know that she’s not very happy about the fact that AJ is in this tent right now.
“AJ,” her voice is firm. “Come out of the tent, sweetie.”
AJ grins at me and puts his finger to his mouth. “I’m not in a tent, Nana Lydia. There’s no tent in here.”
“Lydia, I can explain,” Auburn says, bending down. She motions for AJ to come out of the tent, and her eyes only meet mine for a second. “He’s just a friend. He was helping me put up this tent for AJ.”
“AJ, let’s go, honey.” Lydia grabs his hand, pulling him out of the tent. “You may be okay with allowing your son to be around complete strangers, but I’m not.”
I can see the disappointment wash over Auburn. It washes over AJ, too, when he realizes Lydia isn’t letting him stay. I follow after him, crawling out of the tent, standing up. “It’s fine, I’ll go,” I say. “We just finished setting it up for him.”
Lydia looks me up and down, unimpressed with whatever she thinks she sees. I want to eye her the same way, but I don’t want to do anything to make this worse for Auburn. When I get a good look at her, I realize I’ve seen her before. It’s been a while, but she hasn’t changed a bit, other than having a little more gray in her straight, black hair. She still looks just as stoic and intimidating as she did all those years ago.
She faces AJ.
“AJ, get your toy. We need to go.”