She sent me a gentle smile.
I turned back to my boys, soft affection riding through my expression.
“Tell me you two weren’t too much trouble for Nana and Grand-Pop?”
Dillon looked at me, a tease in his dark eyes. “What are you talkin’ about? Boys are supposed to be noisy and rambunctious and like to get into trouble. I mean, we are troublemakers, after all.”
Dillon’s gaze slid to his brother. Two of them thick as thieves.
Benjamin cracked up, a laugh so big and genuine that it stole my breath. “Yuuuup. Told you, Mmmom, total troubbblemaker.” He gestured to himself with that crooked grin.
“Fine, you’re right. Boys are noisy and rambunctious and totally like to get into trouble. What am I supposed to do with you two troublemakers?”
“Love us?” Dillon grinned up at me, sarcasm thick.
“Hmm . . . no problem there,” I said, pushing to my feet, “but that doesn’t mean I won’t gladly send you to time-out, too.”
“Ah, man. Mom’s nothin’ but a funsucker.”
I bit back a smile. “Watch it, little man.”
He held up his hands in surrender. “Fine, fine, I won’t be a troublemaker. Crush my dreams, why don’t you?”
This kid.
I laughed, kissing Benjamin on the top of the head and running my fingers over the top of Dillon’s before I turned around and headed toward my mama. She was plump and as pretty as ever, lines starting to deepen on her face, like maybe she’d aged right along with the house.
“How did it go?” I asked, edging up to her side so I could help her dry the dishes. “Did they wear you out? I hate to be any trouble.”
I added a little extra emphasis for the sake of my two troublemakers.
She knocked into my hip. “Oh, stop it. They were just fine, exactly like I told you they would be. You worry too much.”
I let a light chuckle ripple free. “Of course, I worry too much. I’m a mother.”
She angled her head. “Who finally has a little help. You need to take a breather and relax. Rely on us a little. We want you here. We want your boys here. It’s what we’ve always wanted. So, stop walking around like this isn’t your home when that’s exactly what it’s always been.”
I blew out a strained sigh, taking a dishtowel to a plate. “I know. It’s just . . . strange being back. Especially with the boys. It’s like my old life here and the one in Idaho were completely separate. It’s hard to see how to mesh them together.”
She set down her towel and turned to take me by the chin, studying my face. “You do it just like you’re doing now. A day at a time. You’ve always been the bravest, strongest person I know. You have more power than you’re givin’ yourself credit for.”
Old grief lapped, and I tried to swallow down the emotion that gathered at the base of my throat, quick to sting my eyes. “I saw him today.”
Worry traipsed across her face, brow twisting in a frown. “Well, we knew that would be comin’, didn’t we? I’ve seen him around over the years. There was no avoiding it.”
“I’d just . . .” I fidgeted, warring with what to say. With what I felt. “I’d hoped to have a little more time to prepare myself, I guess.”
I glanced around, as if I could picture the thousand times that he’d been in this room, then darkness came speeding in when I thought of the last time he’d come through this door. The day that had changed everything.
She brushed her thumb along my cheek where a single tear got loose. “I hate him for chasing my baby away. I won’t let him do it again.”
Sniffling, I lowered my voice, “I’m scared, Mama, of having to face him. Of the way he still made me feel.”
It was just like those two segmented lives. Once I’d jumped back into the old one, it felt like a day hadn’t past.
The wounds just as raw. The connection just as real.
“He hurt you somethin’ terrible. But the one thing I am certain of when I see him is the guilt he carries.”
I winced. “He left me, Mama. Left me and turned his back as if what we’d shared for our whole lives didn’t matter at all. He can feel guilty all he wants, but it doesn’t change what he did.”
I swallowed around a tremble of sorrow. “He hurt me in a way no one has ever hurt me before. In a way that no one else ever could.”
“And still, he inspired you through it. Made you feel all that time. And you continued to hope for the goodness to shine.”
She brushed her knuckles down my cheek.
“Who knows what love is if he hasn’t experienced grief?” She almost sang the words, the quote hitting me square in the chest, and I sucked in a staggered breath.