Chapter Two
Perri
Home less than twenty-four hours to find my entire world turned upside down.
Coming home the prodigal daughter to find my mother married to a man I have never met was a shock. How could she not have told me she was seeing someone? And got married! My mother is my best friend, and it has always been the two of us since my father bailed when I was just a child. No one else gets me the way she does—and tolerates my sometimes wild ways.
What I consider wild may seem tame to others. Really, I am just a bit flighty with my life choices. Growing up I wanted to be a ballet dancer, a painter, an author, a photographer, and a hundred other things. We all go through phases as our interests and dreams change but I tried all those dreams on. One right after the other,over and over again, and my mother always supported each change and direction change.
When I left for college when I was seventeen—I may be flighty, but I am also what they call gifted—I had no plan in place. I rarely do. At college, I flourished in a dozen different directions, doing theater, sculpting, physiology, and even Greek history. None of it useful in real life and none of it preparing me for living on my own and taking care of myself.
Mother always took care of things for us without making it seem difficult. It allcameso easy to her: working, paying bills, and being responsible.Laundry. Things people do every day that seem so foreign to me because she always handled them. When I realized I was relying on her too much, I tried to pull my big girl pants up and figure things out on my own.
I may have finished college with a few degrees, but none of them helped me when I left college to go out on my own. I thought cooking classes and some business courses would translate to me somehow figuring out how to pay my bills on time, work a job, and fend for myself. I was very wrong.
“Honey, you can always come home. I am always here,” she insisted just a few months ago when I was still faking things.
“Of course, you are, mama,” I had wailed dramatically as I watched soap suds spilling out of my dishwasher to flood my tiny kitchen, “youcan’ttake care of me forever. I cannot ask you to do that.”
That day was another awful lesson in my failures. I had started a fire on the stove trying to cook grilled cheese, flooded the kitchen with soap and water because I used dish soap in the dishwasher, and had two shut-off notices show up in the mail. I told myself I could clean up my messes, put out any fires I started, and get those bills paid.
This week it all came to a head. I lost my job when I was late—I cannot start my day without coffee, but my boss seemed to think otherwise—tore my dress boarding the train, sobbed on a stranger’s shoulder, got mugged by that stranger, and came home to an eviction notice and no lights. I had failed as much as I couldpossibly fail, so I had no other options but to come home.
“You got married?” my shriek had echoed loudly in the car just this morning.
Mother and her new husband, a handsome but stern looking man in a military uniform that looked like his second skin, had picked me up at the train station just a few hours ago. Finding her with a man wasshockenough—she had never dated much when I was growing up and had never brought a man home. I had no idea what type of man she might even date—let alone marry. All I remember about my father was his back, leaving us behind.
“We got married last month,” he spoke for her, beaming at her with a look that made me smile, “we met and fell in love very quickly. Greedily I have taken up every moment of her time, so you can blame me. We planned to visit you very soon, but this is better. I want you here so I can get to know you.”
Grant seems like a very nice man with a good head on his shoulders. All I care about is that look he gives my mom when they think I am not paying attention. That is how a man should look at the woman he loves, I think. His eyes get all soft and he smiles so big he looks downright silly. And my mother looks back at him like he saved her from something, and I think he did. He saved her from being alone and from worrying about me so much.
On the way to back to town, Mother filled me in about how they met—she was volunteering at some event the local Naval base was hosting—and sparks flew right away. After a whirlwind courtship of just a few weeks they were married at the chapel on base. When she told me he took her to Paris after, I knew she had found her knight in shining uniform.
“Paris? Whoa, Grant, good job. You know she also always wanted to go to Greece,” I had teased them, laughing when the military man blushed.
At their new place—a sprawling home on the outskirts of town that suits them both so well, I found myself feeling like an intruder. They were so happy and still making the place their home. When I suggested staying in town while I figured things out, my new stepfather forbid it. Said he wanted me home where we could both spoil my mother, and he could be sure I was well taken care of.
What I think is he knows I am a bit of an... unfinished project. I came home with just a few things because I had yet to get my life started. I have no idea what will come next to me—not that I ever do—and he wants to take care of me because he knows I need it.Someonewho has a bit more discipline and direction can help me figure my life out.
“Dinner tonight with your mother, wherever the two of you want to go,” he tells me as he and I head towards his base, “before that, I have someone who will take you wherever you need to go, get whatever you need to settle in. Perri, your mother,” he smiles and flushes again and I love it, “she is the best thing to ever happen to me. I led a very strict, regimented, and boring life before her. I want to give her the entire world because that is what she gave to me. That means taking care of you, giving you the world too. Because you mean everything to her, now, as strange as it may be for us,” he turns to grin at me, “you mean everything to me too.”
“Well, she is everything to me. I am so glad she found you, Grant. Even if it is a shock, I don’t care if you got married in two days or two weeks. I love my mother and she gave me everything she could. Discipline, however,” I make a face as I say the word and hesmilesa little, “is not something I know much about obviously.Youcan add a little to the mix for us.”
“Maybe I can. Not that I know discipline when it comes to her. I can never say no to her, not sure if I will be any good saying no to you,” he really smiles now and I grin back, shrugging my shoulders.
“No need to break precedent, Grant. Oh, I am sorry, sir,” I stammer, bowing my head as he parks and I realize how informal I have been, “I never thought to ask, should I call you Grant?”
“Of course. Too many folks call me sir,” he sighs as he glances towards the base, “feels nice to not to be a sir to someone, Perri.”
Watching him I notice the slight lines at his eyes and the salt and pepper at his temples. I decide I very much like him. He is nothing like what I would expect mother to fall for but at the same time he seems perfect. He clearly adores her. Given the prolonged kiss goodbye I turned away from earlier, I know they are passionate. Her smile seems brighter than ever, and she laughed often talking about how they met.
“Mother is happier than I have ever seen her,” I start quietly, hands twisting in my lap, “whatever you have done to her, I hope you keep doing it. I love her and she has had to put up with me all these years,” my voice breaks and I shake my head, swiping at my foolish tears, “she sacrificed so much to let me be whoever I wanted to be. I have not figured out who that is yet.”
“Perri, I joined the military when I was a teenager because I had no idea who to be. I thought I knew all these years, until I met your mother. I am still a commander, still a pilot, but now I am who I was always meant to be. I have a few decades on you honey, and if I am still figuring it out with all that discipline, I would say you can cut yourself some slack. Come on, let me show you a little bit about myself and what I do.”
Grant shows me a bit of the naval base where he spends most of his time and takes me through a tour of a hangar full of helicopters and planes. He promises me a ride sometime when I get excited seeing the cockpit of a fighter pilot. I imagine hurtling through the skies and going topsy turvy.
I wish I could feel something like that just once.