The Row Read online

  “Oh, Mama.” I slide out of my chair to kneel on the ground beside her, wrapping both my arms around her waist as tight as they can go. “It was an accident. It’s not your fault.”

  Her sobs come back more intensely than before. She pats my head and I hear Jordan move quietly into the living room. I appreciate him at least trying to give us a little more privacy, even though I really don’t want him to leave.

  “I’m so sorry, honey,” she chokes out. “I really wanted you to have a sibling.”

  “It’s okay. I don’t blame you,” I whisper softly into Mama’s shoulder.

  Her arms squeeze me tight. She kisses the top of my hand as she murmurs, “No one has ever told me that.”

  I’m filled with a sudden fierce desire to protect her and with anger at Daddy for so many things. He’s her husband. He’s supposed to care about her and protect her. Instead, he blamed her and shut her out.

  When I sit back, Mama looks over. “That’s why I didn’t leave him or divorce him when he cheated, Riley. Because what I di—what I did cost us so much more.”

  Her face is puffy and tear-streaked, her eyes full of nightmares I’ve never even known existed. I relive the awful words I said in anger and regret all of them. She isn’t the one who hurt us. Daddy is. She didn’t betray our family. She needs my help as much as he does—and deserves it more. Mama isn’t the guilty party here; she’s been a victim in every way.

  I won’t let that happen anymore.

  After a few more tearful hugs, I convince Mama to drink more water. Then she goes to the bathroom while I grab a blanket and an extra water bottle to put by her bed. She wants to rest for a bit, and I think that’s the best plan for her right now.

  The moment the bathroom door closes behind her, Jordan is beside me. He reaches his arms around me and cradles my head against his chest. I tighten up instinctively, but my heart aches like it’s been ripped apart. Though Jordan’s arms make it feel like it might someday heal.

  So I stop fighting against myself, I stop fighting against what I want. Instead, one at a time, I carefully wind my arms around his back. I hold on to him, close my eyes, and stop caring about when he is going to change his mind about me. Instead, I cling to him, and Jordan clutches me even tighter, whispering against the top of my head words that ease the pain in my soul bit by bit. He says things like “You’re not alone” and “I’m not going anywhere.”

  These would be simple words of comfort to anyone else, but they’re also words that no one has ever said to me. I wrap myself up in their sound and am only brought out of it when I hear the bathroom door open again. I withdraw slowly from his arms, and Jordan’s eyes meet mine—full of worry, full of comfort.

  I remind myself to thank him for this later, but then realize that the Things to Thank Jordan For list is getting a little long. Maybe it’s time to stop adding things to the list and just start saying thank you.

  “Thank you,” I whisper softly. He smiles and bends forward to kiss my cheek. My hand touches the spot his lips just were. Then I walk away and head down the hall to help Mama get settled in her room.

  28

  MAMA LOOKS WOBBLY WHEN SHE COMES OUT into the hallway, so Jordan joins me immediately to help steady her.

  My head is still reeling from hearing everything she’s been through. She’s lived a life where she had to choose between the man she loves and literally everyone else. In a similar situation, would I be that strong? Have I inherited my stubborn loyalty from her?

  Apparently I didn’t get any sort of loyalty or fidelity from my father.

  She’s been backed up against a wall time and time again. No wonder she’s falling apart. How long can anyone be expected to live under that kind of strain without being able to show so much as a crack in their otherwise unwavering faith?

  I run to the bathroom for a cool rag as Jordan has taken on most of the job of supporting her. On my way back, I stop to listen when I hear her speaking to him.

  “I know exactly who you are.” Her words slur, but they’re simple, and there is no question what she means. I stand with my feet frozen in place, torn between waiting to see how Jordan handles this situation and hurrying in to help him get out of it.

  “I know who you are, too.” His voice is light, but I can tell that he’s uncomfortable.

  “Why are you hanging around my daughter?” Mama’s bluntness makes me suck in a quiet breath of surprise. She isn’t messing around. Southern hospitality is her motto, and she never talks to people this way.

  Jordan doesn’t answer her for so long that I wonder if he felt offended and has left. I take two steps toward the doorway and then freeze up again when I hear him say words that make me feel light-headed.

  “Because she’s both amazing and stubborn in all the best ways.” He doesn’t sound nervous anymore, more like he’s searching really carefully for the right answer. “Because I want to help.”

  Silently, I lean my back against the wall. My heart burns and flutters and I can’t help but smile.

  When Mama responds, her voice is significantly kinder, but her words still make me cold. “You just make sure you’re prepared to deal with the fallout before you drag her down with you.”

  He repeats, “Fallout?” like a question, but I get the distinct impression that he knows exactly what she means.

  “Don’t play dumb with me. I know you’re smarter than that,” Mama says, but then her voice softens so much I have to inch my way to the end of the hall to hear her. “Riley better not get hurt when your father finds out you’ve been spending time with her.”

  My mind latches onto those words and I don’t move. It isn’t like I haven’t had similar thoughts myself about Jordan’s dad being furious if he finds out Jordan’s been hanging around me. But somehow hearing someone else say the same thing makes it more real—more terrifying.

  Mama doesn’t give me any extra time to think about it.

  “Riley, did you get a cool cloth? My head is starting to pound,” she hollers, and I hear footsteps too heavy to be hers walking toward the hallway. Panicking, I quietly move back a few feet and then come jogging just as Jordan steps around the corner.

  “Got it.” I hold the cloth up, fighting not to let guilt or confusion about what I’d overheard show in my expression. The deep frown that creases his face is erased the moment he sees me. I know then that he won’t realize I’ve been secretly eavesdropping, not when it seems like he’s so busy hiding his own fears.

  The thought makes me penetratingly sad in a way that I can’t shake.

  “I’ll just wait out here,” Jordan says, pointing over his shoulder toward the living room.

  I move in to where Mama sits up in bed, closing the door behind me. She grabs a couple of ibuprofen pills from her nightstand, and she reaches her hands out for the washcloth and the water bottle, muttering, “I’m sorry, honey.”

  I feel terrible. I want to kick myself for calling her weak. I had no idea she was hiding secrets like these. “You don’t need to be sorry, Mama. The only thing you should apologize for is not telling me this was all going on so I could help you.”

  She still won’t meet my eyes.

  I wrap my arms around her. “I’m so sorry for calling you weak. I was wrong. But I can’t help you, or even understand, if you don’t tell me.”

  Mama hugs me back and gives me a teary smile. “I know. When I look at you, I still see the tiny girl whose feet swing a foot off the floor when she sits on the courtroom benches. I know you aren’t little anymore, but parents aren’t supposed to accept that defeat easily. I don’t want to put any more on you than you’ve already had to deal with. You—you were right that you’ve had too much and I don’t want to give you anything extra to carry.”

  “I’m fine, Mama.” I smooth down one side of her blond hair. Then I decide that saying these things isn’t really helping either of us. “Well, okay—no, I’m not fine. And neither are you. And neither is Daddy. But for now, we’re all doing the best we c
an, and that’s okay. Right?”

  Mama laughs. “You sound like a therapist. Maybe we should be calling today a breakthrough.”

  I groan and then smirk. “Don’t tell anyone about this, then. I prefer for most people to think of me as a dangerous misfit. If people think I’m unpredictable then their expectations are considerably lower.”

  “Fair enough.” Mama kisses my cheek, but I can see her eyes starting to droop. She slides down against her pillow, and I don’t even have enough time to walk slowly to the door and close it before she is slipping into oblivion.

  As I head back into the living room, I look out the front window.

  “Everything okay?” Jordan whispers, coming up to me.

  “Yeah. Thank you.” I don’t turn around, but he’s so close I can smell his scent and feel the warmth coming off his body. And we just stand in the silence together.

  I’m not sure why Jordan isn’t talking. Maybe it’s because he’s afraid to wake Mama. But in her state, we could probably throw a concert in here and she wouldn’t wake up. Or maybe he’s staying quiet for some other reason.

  I don’t really care why, I’m just so happy he’s here.

  After everything I just learned, my mind still spins, and I like the comfort of this silence.

  I move and Jordan follows me toward the front door. I pick up the bag we used to carry our notebooks back from the library. Pulling them out, I walk into the kitchen and place them on the table. Then we just stand, looking at each other. I’m exhausted. I feel like everything from the last few weeks has landed squarely on my head and it’s just too heavy for me to stand up straight beneath it all anymore.

  Jordan studies me and then asks a question I don’t expect. “What do you need?”

  I look up at him. The table separates us, but he’s only a couple of feet away and somehow it feels like a massive chasm compared to when he held me earlier. What I want, more than anything else in this moment, is to be closer to him, but I’m obviously not going to say that. “I don’t understand what you mean.”

  “Yes, you do,” he responds immediately, and his eyes feel like they’re staring a hole right through me.

  I put my hands on the back of the chair in front of me, staring down at the worn wood. “No, I don’t.”

  He takes a step closer and his voice drops lower. “Riley, what do you need?”

  Something about the way he’s talking and moving and looking at me ignites a spark that only makes my desire to be close to him a million times stronger. In contrast, the fact that he seems to know exactly what he’s doing makes me feel like I’m being manipulated, and it kind of ticks me off.

  Moving around the chair, I inch up so close to him that he fills my senses with everything that is Jordan to me. I’m not sure if it’s his cologne or what, but it smells warm and spicy. It’s the kind of scent that I wish could be made into a large, soft blanket that I could wrap myself up in. When I’m just as close to him as I can handle without touching him, I look up into his face and ask, “You want to know what I need?”

  He nods, and from this vantage point I see the muscles on his throat constrict as he swallows. I hope it’s a sign that maybe I have as much of an effect on him as he has on me.

  “I need answers, Jordan.” I watch his eyes and carefully judge his reactions to my wording.

  “To what questions?” He doesn’t move or change his position, but his attention is fully on what I’m saying now.

  “I heard what my mom said, about the fallout when your dad finds out you’ve been spending time with me.”

  He recoils like I’ve punched him in the gut, taking a step backward. “I thought you overheard, but I wasn’t sure.”

  “I’ve mostly tried to stay out of your issues with him.” I consider explaining why I’ve changed my mind, but instead just finish with “I’m sorry for eavesdropping.”

  “No, it’s only fair. God knows I’m neck deep in your family problems at this point. It would be hypocritical of me to refuse to talk about mine.” He leans against the edge of the table. “It’s been really hard … since Mom died,” he continues, his face looking haggard. Jordan wears his emotions well, but at the mere mention of his mother, he instantly goes from normal to beaten down.

  “I noticed that the pictures of her are gone from your house…,” I start, hoping that giving him a place to begin might help.

  “My father can’t handle even looking at her.” He slides down into the chair with that sentence. “He says he deals with death all day long and he doesn’t want to face it when he gets home.”

  I wince, knowing exactly how much that hurts. I slip into the chair closest to him, but I don’t speak for fear that it might slow him down.

  “But I miss her. Matthew misses her. My brother is so young that I really need to make sure he doesn’t—I can’t let him—forget her.” He folds his arms across the table and rests his chin on top of them. In that pose, he suddenly looks just like a bigger version of Matthew.

  “That makes sense.” I wish I had some way to comfort him.

  “So I keep talking about her. I keep finding the hidden pictures and hanging them back up.” Jordan turns his eyes on the table. He traces one swirl in the wood with his thumbnail when he goes on. He’s visibly steady, but his voice wobbles, betraying the emotion below the surface. “Did you know … did you know she was killed by a drunk driver? He drove straight into her. They both died on impact.”

  My heart hurts for him as I watch the muscles in his neck and jaw clench and relax again and again as he fights for composure. So many things about Jordan make more sense when I understand this pain that pulses just below the surface. My entire being fills with sadness for him and for Matthew. What an awful thing to have happen. My fingers ache to reach out and soothe him, but I know there is nothing I can do to take away that kind of pain. No matter how much I may want to.

  “I’m so sorry,” I say, feeling useless. “How long has it been again?”

  Jordan raises his eyes to look at me for the first time since we started this conversation. “Five months and twenty-four days.”

  He’s still counting, just like I am. He counts up from the night his whole world changed. I count down to the day that the same thing will happen to me.

  His voice drops so low I can barely hear it. “My dad was the first officer on the scene. And he couldn’t do anything to save her.”

  My throat closes up. For the first time ever, I’m flooded with intense sympathy for Chief Vega.

  “This is just one reason I feel like I need to be able to help you.” His voice is even lower than normal. It sounds rough and it takes me a minute to understand his words. “Ever since my mom—ever since we lost her, Dad and I can’t stop fighting. But I know—I know without question that she’d be furious at us for that. I feel so guilty knowing she’d be mad, but I just can’t let our family forget her.”

  “I understand why you can’t let that happen,” I say softly, “but I don’t get what that has to do with me.”

  He pauses for a moment, fighting through an obvious wave of pain. Then he takes a deep breath, and when he speaks again, there is a hint of desperation. “I need to feel like I can make things better somehow. I couldn’t help her. I couldn’t save her. You can’t understand how much I need to feel like I matter right now.”

  The emotion in his voice is so raw that I’m filled with an immediate instinct to protect him somehow. But as much as I want to understand him, his words don’t make sense. Of course he matters. All I see in his life are people who need him. Why doesn’t he see that?

  “You matter to a lot of people. Matthew and your father love and need you, Jordan.” I speak the words softly.

  “Matthew needs a mother.” Jordan looks up at me and his eyes are wet. “Since he’s lost that, he needs a nanny—someone to make sure he’s loved and clean and fed. It doesn’t matter who it is if it isn’t her. But that isn’t what I’m talking about, Riley. I want someone to care that I exist, no
t because of what I can bring them or do for them, but because of who I am. I need someone to need me around because I am uniquely me and I’m exactly what this person needs. My mom needed me. My dad—my dad doesn’t need anyone.”

  Seeing this amount of pain in his eyes tears me apart. I’d always thought he helped me because he could somehow see how badly I needed help even when I couldn’t convey it, but that was only part of the truth. As badly as I need him, he needs me, too. We heal the broken pieces of each other because we’re so opposite. We have both nothing and everything in common and I’ve never felt like someone could understand me the way he somehow does.

  I tentatively lift one hand up to his cheek. I graze the tips of my fingers across the lines in his brow and they relax. As I brush my knuckles down the right side of his face, I’m surprised by the shadow of stubble I find along his jaw. The muscles fall slack and he closes his eyes, inclining his head toward my hand. I gently touch his eyelids with my fingertips, and slide the edge of my nail gently along his long, dark lashes.

  Finally, I move my thumb down and hesitate for just a moment before lightly pressing it against his full lips. Jordan’s lips are soft but firm, and my heart races when he kisses my thumb. I look up and realize his eyes are open again. The heat in them could make a Texas day in July weep from envy. I’m suddenly self-conscious and I start to pull my hand back from his face, but he catches it. His eyes never leave mine, but he softly turns and presses a kiss on the inside of my wrist.

  Tingles of pleasure shoot up my arm and through my body. Then he turns my hand over and kisses the back of it before lowering it to the table and holding it lightly between both of his.

  “Anyway, if my dad gets mad because I’m spending time with you, it will be more because of me than because of you.” He squeezes my hand again and then gives me a pointed look. “Just let me worry about that, okay?”