~oOo~
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As he rounded the turnin the gravel lane that served as the driveway to the family home—what Mom called ‘the farm,’ though the only crops on the place were planted in the twenty-square-foot patch she called her ‘kitchen garden’—Jay was relieved to see Pop’s trike was not in its place. No disappointed scowl from his old man just yet.
Mom’s Blazer and her Forty-Eight—yeah, his mom rode her own—were both parked in their spots, which tracked. In the years she’d been head of nursing at the hospital, her hours were even weirder than when she’d been on the Labor & Delivery floor. She was home a lot more, working online. But then there’d be weeks where she was at the hospital seemingly around the clock, too.
This was a best-case situation here, he realized. Mom home and Pop away. That meant he could tell his mom about the test results and get sympathy and a pep talk, and she would tell Pop, so he could work out his mad on her and maybe, when he saw Jay, not look at him like he was thinking he should’ve stopped at one kid.
That was probably harsh. Pop loved him, Jay knew that—and Pop made sure he knew it, most of the time. But there was no way around another truth Jay knew equally well, and Pop made equally sure he knew: he was a regular disappointment.
Just like at school, Jay was stuck following behind Zach, Mr. Perfect, and never managing to fill in his footprints. Or forge his own way. Just walking through life in Zach’s shadow, being less.
Zach insisted that one of his reasons for leaving Tulsa was exactly that: to clear the way for Jay make his own path, but that was bullshit. And even if it wasn’t, it wouldn’t work. All he’d cleared the way for was so that everybody could see nice and clear that Jay wasn’t good enough.
Whatever. Whatever! The fucking test was making him whiny. He needed to get extremely wasted and even more extremely laid tonight.
But first: Mom.
He parked his Street Bob in its spot—they had a six-slot garage, but they pretty much only used it in the winter or bad weather—and dismounted. As soon as he cleared the garage pad, Marv and Rose, their two goofy pit bulls, came charging across the yard. They’d been trained to stay clear of the garage and vehicles unless they were on leash.
Jay dropped to a crouch and caught both fur torpedoes in his arms, laughing as his face got a thorough tongue bath. That was all he needed to stop feeling so whiny and sorry for himself: some enthusiastic, unconditional puppy love.
When he was starting to get sticky and a little chapped, he stood and headed to the house. The dogs ran circles around him, their big butts wriggling and their tails flying.
Pits got a really unfair rap. He knew a bunch of them, and he’d known even more throughout his life—the breed was a club favorite—and he’d never known a single one that wasn’t just the goofiest dork ever and a total slut for a cuddle. A few that were anxious around strangers, which often looked like aggression, but those had all been abused or neglected in their pasts. Like Marv and Rose.
A lot of the Bulls—the first generation, at least—had their own abuse or neglect stories. Including Pop. It wasn’t a coincidence that the Bulls liked their pit bulls. Four legs or two, fur or leather, inside they were the same. Outcasts and misfits.
Jay didn’t have a story of abuse or neglect, but he was a misfit all the same.
Fighting his way through the dogs, Jay climbed onto the porch and smiled when he saw his mother at the screen door.
She was dressed the way she dressed when she was working from home but had meetings online: bare feet, her favorite pair of jeans—faded to almost white and shredded at the knees, hems, and getting there at the ass as well—but a silky blouse and a necklace and earrings to match, and makeup on, too. Her short blonde hair was styled and fluffy. Business up top, leisure down below.
Her computer glasses dangled from her neck on a silver chain styled like a roller chain.
His mom was kind of metal, to be honest.
If he squinted, he could tell she was getting old; she was in her fifties, after all. Her naturally blonde hair got some help at a salon these days, and sometimes he could see grey at the roots, and there were lines around her eyes and mouth. But he didn’t like to think about that. She was his mom, and in his eyes she was exactly as she’d always been. Eternal.
“Hey, Mom.”
She smiled and pushed the door open. “Hey, baby boy. How’d it go?”
He sighed and drew up just short of the door. Meaning to tell her in words, he found they wouldn’t come. Instead, he simply shook his head.
“Oh, Jake. I’m sorry, honey.” She put her arms up, and Jay fell into them. He had to bend a little to do it, but he rested his head on his mother’s shoulder, tucked his face against her neck, felt her arms close snugly around him. And felt better.
For a long time, despite their awkward position in the open doorway, Mom holding the screen door open with her ass, despite the summer heat and the air conditioning battling it out in the threshold, she let him rest there and feel better.
Then, at the moment he was restored enough to get restless in the hug, she gave his back a quick rub and asked, “How many do you have to retake?”
“Four,” he said on a sigh and stood up.
Mom smiled. “Well, that means you passed five. That’s most of them. That’s not a bad first go at all.” All of Mom’s men were mechanics—or, um, trying to be—so she knew her way around an ASE cert. She’d helped them all study, him and Zach for the certification, and Pop to keep his active.
“Zach passed all nine on the first try, though.”