Switchy

  She looked down at her food for a moment. “She’s got two kids, he’s got one. I love my nieces and nephew. I really do. But when I talk to Amy and Don, they’re borderline struggling. They do a fantastic job hiding it from my parents, but neither of them have anything saved up for retirement. My brother is a little better off than my sister, but they’re both only a couple of paychecks away from financial disaster. Every extra cent they have has to go to the kids or to paying bills.”

  “Sounds like you’ve got the soundest head on your shoulders.”

  “I don’t know about that. I devoted myself to working once Ronnie and I divorced. I like what I do, and I love Mitchell and Brent. I enjoy the fact that stuff is always changing around with our job. It’s never boring. Could I have gone to college and gotten a four-year degree doing something and made more money? Maybe. I’m not rich, no. But I have a financial cushion in place that allows me to sleep at night because I have three credit cards I pay off every month, and a car that’s paid for.”

  “So what is your mom’s big problem with all of that?”

  “I really don’t know. My dad retired after working over forty years for a bank. I don’t know if she thinks I’m not living up to my potential or what. It’s not my problem.”

  “So why did you let them move in with you and stay?”

  “I thought it would be just a few weeks. Then there were excuses from my mom. And more excuses. And more. And then I stopped asking and basically went on the defensive because before I knew it, she was all unpacked and it was obvious she didn’t want to leave. It was like there’d been a family meeting without me. Which, of course, it turns out there had been. My mom’s design. Putting notes together with my father and my brother and sister this week, we realized she’d played us all. It’s caught up with her now that Dad and I are refusing to go along with it any longer, and my brother and sister are on our side.”

  “Hypothetically. If something happens and your dad loses the battle to get her moved. Then what?”

  She shrugged. “My nuclear option, I guess. I move out. The lease will be due in a few months. They can deal with it.” She smiled. “All the better reason I don’t own a home. I can walk away from a rental without a look back.”

  “Well, if the nuclear option happens, I’d be happy to talk about you moving in with us.”

  She stared at him, trying to decide if he was serious or not. “You barely know me.”

  “I’m just saying, even if it’s only temporary. Keep us in mind. We’ve got three bedrooms at the house.”

  “I know we’re going to be playing things up for the effect, but I don’t want you to think I’m somewhere I’m not in terms of a relationship.”

  “No, I don’t think that. I’m good with being friends and seeing if it goes anywhere from there.”

  “What about Jarred?”

  “We’re a package deal.”

  “That’s what I mean.” She took another bite of her sandwich. “Shouldn’t you ask him before offering me an open-ended emergency place to stay?”

  “He’s good with it.” She watched as he seemed to need a minute to compose his thoughts, so she didn’t interrupt him.

  “Look, I don’t want to freak you out or put pressure on you. Not my intention at all. But it’s been a rough year for us. Just the fact that Jare wants to get back out and reconnect with our friends is huge. You have no idea how big that is. I have no reservations at all about us keeping whatever this ends up being among the three of us open-ended. Because he’s smiling again.”

  Yeah, she really hadn’t stopped to think about things from their end of it, framed in that way.

  They’d lost the woman they’d loved. They’d been in mourning.

  He wasn’t finished. “Inheriting the house was a chance for a fresh start for us. Honestly? I wasn’t sure if he’d ever want to move because we’d lived at the apartment with her. I think he’s turned a corner. I think I have, too. I’m always going to love her and miss her, but she literally told us she didn’t want us to spend the rest of our lives moping around and missing her. That she hoped we’d heal and get back out there and find someone else.”

  His gaze dropped again. “As much as losing her sucked, we didn’t leave anything unsaid. None of the three of us did. I don’t have that regret hanging over my head to beat myself up with for the rest of my life. She knew we loved her, we know she loved us.”

  He looked up again, into her eyes. “I think we’ve finally hit a natural fork in the road that will take us out of our rut and back onto a path among the living. I’m ready, and I think he’s finally ready. So if for that alone, I thank you. That’s not just some bullshit, either.”

  In this light, Garrison’s green eyes looked like a lush forest, fern and emerald greens mixed together.

  “Okay. Thank you for being so honest with me.”

  He shrugged. “Jarred and I learned a long time ago the hard, honest conversations are better and shorter than dicking around with being scared.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Em and Garrison were clearing out the garage early that evening when Jarred stopped by after he got off work. He still wore his hospital scrubs and she noticed his limp.

  “Shouldn’t you go home and rest?”

  “He should, but he won’t,” Garrison teased.

  Jarred stuck his tongue out at him before leaning in for a kiss. “I’m going to go change so I can help.”

  “We were going to knock off for the night here shortly,” Garrison said.

  “Oh, no you don’t, slacker,” Jarred joked. “I want to get moved as soon as possible.”

  “Then let’s go out to dinner,” Garrison suggested. “We’ll treat Em in exchange for letting her mediate the first round of paint chip selection.”

  She laughed. “Mediate?”

  The men turned, nodding. “Mediate,” they said together.

  That’s how, after a record-fast shower on her part, and texting her dad that she was going out to dinner with the guys, she was back over at their house in less than twenty minutes. They didn’t need to go home because they’d brought stuff with them to shower and change there.

  This time, Jarred grabbed the front passenger door and held it for her before taking the back seat himself. They went out for pizza, where she spent more time laughing than she had in a while, except when with Mitchell and Brent. Then, finally, they were standing in front of a paint display at a home improvement store.

  “Maybe we should just let Em pick for us,” Jarred suggested.

  “Oh, no. This is your house. You guys pick. I don’t want you hating me.”

  “We’ll probably fight over it for weeks if we don’t have help,” Garrison said with a smile. “What do you like?”

  She picked up a couple of the sample booklets and looked through them. “Well, after seeing your apartment and what you have in the way of furniture and decor, I’d suggest light. I don’t think either of you are dark walls kind of guys.”

  “See?” Jarred said with a smile. “You’re a natural at this.”

  She put back two of the sample booklets immediately. “I also don’t take you guys for bright and bold in terms of paint. I have a feeling that might get on your nerves.” She laid out two of the booklets, open to pages of living room color schemes. “I’m not going to suggest what you put in your bedroom. But for the living room, I think that suits you. And this one here would look nice in the dining room.”

  She’d picked a light dusty green for the living room, and a pale ocean blue with hints of grey tones for the dining room.

  The men looked at each other and high-fived.

  “You like?” she asked.

  “To be honest,” Garrison said, “those were sort of the colors we were thinking of.” He gave her a smile that melted her. “Nice to see our instincts were right on.”

  Jarred reached over and grabbed several color swatch cards in similar colors. “Now we tape these up on the walls and see what we like the best be
fore we get sample pots.”

  “There’s one more battle to wage,” Garrison said.

  “Huh?” she asked.

  “Ah, yes,” Jarred said. “Flooring.”

  She found herself being led over there. Fortunately, the men already knew the kind of flooring they wanted, but they needed to decide on a finish. After picking a medium bamboo pattern she sort of wished she had in her house, they placed an order for it. Jarred had already done the calculations for how much they’d need.

  “You’ll do that yourself?” she asked.

  “Yep,” Jarred said. “That stuff’s easy. I helped a friend with it in their house. A utility knife and a straight edge are basically all you need.”

  “And a lot of extra blades,” Garrison said.

  “Yeah. And that.”

  “And better aim than you had with the carpet knife, I hope?” she teased.

  “Oh, heh, yeah. Definitely.”

  They parked in front of their house but walked her back to hers. Em saw her parents were home and knew she couldn’t delay her homecoming any longer.

  “Thanks for dinner. I wasn’t expecting that. Or lunch.”

  “Our pleasure.”

  “I’ll come by tomorrow to help you finish the garage,” she told Garrison.

  Yes, not just to escape her own home, but to help them finish the job faster.

  It would mean they’d move in more quickly, and she wouldn’t deny having them as neighbors would be nice.

  “And dinner tomorrow night with our friends,” Jarred said. “We’re still on for that, right?”

  “Right.”

  She gave them both goodnight hugs before heading inside.

  That’s where she took a deep breath when she spotted her mom sitting on the couch and watching TV.

  “I was starting to worry,” her mom said by way of greeting.

  Em refused to lose her temper. She’d had too much fun that night and didn’t want to spoil her mood. “Why?”

  “You know why. Because you didn’t bother to tell me anything about where you were going or what you were doing or who you were with.”

  Em sat in the chair across from the couch, reached over for the TV remote, and shut it off.

  Then she stared her mom in the eyes. “Mom, I love you. But stop fighting us. You need to work with Dad to decide on a new place to live.”

  “What if we paid you more every month?”

  “No,” Em gently said, forcing herself to remain calm. “It’s not about the money.”

  “Then what is it? We didn’t toss you out when you were a kid, any of you. You practically ran away from home despite me telling you marrying Ronnie was a bad idea.”

  Em sensed her mom trying to divert the topic again and refused to let her. “Regardless of what the medical tests show, you and Dad need your own place. You are capable of living on your own. I don’t know why you’re scared to now, but we need to address that.”

  Her mom started to stand.

  “Mom, sit down,” Em said, keeping her voice soft and even.

  Her mom hesitated, finally retaking her seat.

  “Dad said the two of you had made all sorts of plans. That you were going to take trips. Travel. If you have your own place, you can do that.”

  “We can do that living with you.”

  “Please, stop. You are not going to be living with me. Because I love you, and you two need your privacy, just like I need mine.”

  “It’s those two guys next door, isn’t it? They’re moving in and now you want us gone so you can…can—”

  “Three years, Mom,” Em said, refusing to be diverted. “Three years ago you moved yourself in here without asking me if I wanted you living here. Why?”

  Her mom stared at her.

  “Three years ago, what suddenly happened that made you decide you had to live with me? It wasn’t just the new neighbors. You stopped volunteering. You dropped contact with your friends. You hyper-focused on me and Dad. What happened?”

  She heard her parents’ bedroom door open and sensed her father standing in the doorway to the hall, but he didn’t speak.

  “Is it so wrong that I love my daughter and want to live with you?”

  “When you move in under false pretenses and basically lie to everyone to force it to happen before I get a chance to tell you no, that is absolutely wrong. What happened?”

  Her mom tried to stand again, but Em’s father spoke from behind Em. “Sit down, Francis. Answer her question. I want to know, too. I’ve asked you this enough times, and you refuse to answer me. You tell me I’m being silly. Obviously, it’s a valid question.”

  Her mom’s gaze darted from Em to behind Em, likely to her dad, and back to Em again before dropping to where her hands rested in her lap.

  “Laura Egleart,” she finally said.

  “Huh?”

  Behind her, her father let out a sigh. “Oh.”

  Em looked back at him. “You want to enlighten me?”

  He walked in and rounded the coffee table to sit next to his wife. There, he took her hand in his.

  “That was a completely different situation than we have,” he told her. “And we don’t even know what the doctor’s going to say.”

  Her mom didn’t reply.

  “Who is Laura Egleart?” Em asked.

  “She was a friend of ours,” her dad said. “Her husband was about a year or so younger than me, and he died suddenly of a heart attack about a year before all of this started. None of their kids lived down here. They were from New Jersey, and they all lived up north. After the funeral, they all went home, leaving Laura here.”

  He looked at Em. “It turns out that apparently she was in the early stages of Alzheimer’s, but they hadn’t told anyone yet. And she didn’t tell anyone. She ended up in an ER one night about six months later, looking like she’d been in a car wreck. She had car keys in her hand, but no ID, couldn’t tell anyone her name, but she was complaining of chest pain and had tried to drive herself there.

  “The sheriff’s office found a wrecked car a couple of blocks away, figured out the keys fit the car, found her purse, all of that. When they sent someone to her house to try to contact family, they found all the lights on, a pot of water and pasta boiling on the stove, and the place was a disaster. They were able to locate a neighbor who knew her and could contact her children. It was amazing she hadn’t killed herself by accident because they figured out she’d been boiling bleach with the pasta.”

  “I put my keys in the fridge one night,” her mom quietly said.

  “Francis, that can happen to anyone. It doesn’t mean anything by itself.”

  “I managed to put my phone in the freezer once, Mom. And that was before I turned forty.”

  “I can’t figure out how to work a cell phone.” She looked up at her husband. “Doug, how many times did you try to teach me, and I still can’t do it?”

  “Again, that doesn’t mean anything,” her father said. “You’ve always been tech-stupid. No offense. We always had to show you how to work the remote control for the cable box.”

  “Mom,” Em said. “This is all the more reason why you and Dad need to move out. Go travel. Go do all those things you talked about doing. Now, before it’s too late. Whether it’s just regular old-age brain farts or something worse, you’re not getting any younger.”

  “What if something happens to him while we’re on a trip together?” she softly asked. “What if I lose my mind then?”

  Now Em got it. Her control-freak mother was scared. “What if you don’t? What if you miss all that fun you two could be having just because you’re scared? Living in fear isn’t going to make things not happen. And, god forbid, if the doctors do tell us something’s wrong, we’ll catch it early, do whatever it takes to make sure you have as good and as long a life as you can. But it’s even more reason for you to get out and enjoy life now.”

  “Besides,” her dad said. “I’m going to have our old vet put one of those chips in yo
u like they do for dogs and cats.”

  Em let out a snort as her mom looked up at him and, finally, for the first time in a long time, she heard her mom laugh.

  He pulled her in for a hug. “He said you did the spatial tests and the memory test in the office just fine. So even if there is something wrong, it could be years before we have serious worries. Or it could be a number of different health issues that are treatable and not Alzheimer’s. Please?”

  “Okay,” she softly said. “I’m scared.”

  Em got up and moved to her mom’s other side on the couch and hugged her. “Feeling scared’s okay. Living scared isn’t.”

  Her father got her mom into their bedroom and Em headed for bed. As she lay there trying to go to sleep and wondering if maybe she was being a little too hasty trying to get her parents out of the house, she thought about the urn sitting on the shelf in Garrison and Jarred’s apartment.

  About a life and love cut short.

  Way too short.

  Maybe I should take my own advice about not living scared.

  Chapter Twelve

  After spending most of Sunday helping Garrison clear out the garage, including trading increasingly playful and sexy banter with him, Em parted ways with him so they could both clean up for the party. Garrison was going home to shower so he and Jarred could ride back together to pick her up.

  Em was ready to go early that evening, waiting for the men to arrive. She knew her mom was watching TV in the living room, so she headed to the kitchen to get a few minutes of peace and check her e-mail on her phone.

  Her dad had walked in and looked like he was going to ask her something when her mom followed him into the kitchen.

  “So, where are you going, again?” her mom asked.

  So much for last night’s progress. I knew it was too good to last.

  Em leaned against the counter, arms crossed over her chest, and stared at her mom. Her father had whispered to Em briefly when she’d first arrived home that today her mom had been back to her old behavior, as if last night’s conversation hadn’t happened.

  Em didn’t know if her mom was just being stubborn, or it was a medical issue, but she wasn’t going to play into it.