The Right Thing

I was driving Sidney crazy with my incessant tossing and turning. I knew that I was keeping him awake, but I couldn’t get comfortable. I couldn’t will myself to be still for long enough for sleep to take over. I was an absolute wreck and Sidney was paying the price from his place next to me in his bed.

I was completely exhausted. We’d spent the whole day outside. We’d gone for a run and I’d nearly died trying to keep pace with Sidney on a jaunt up Citadel Hill, and that was with him going at a clip much slower than he was accustomed to. We’d been out on the water with Sam swimming and he’d tried to teach me how to jet-ski, a lesson which I’d failed miserably.

We didn’t stop going all day and my body needed rest. So did my mind, but it just wasn’t going to happen.

“Wyn?”

I sighed. It was an exasperated sound, one that made it seem like I’d given up on even trying to rest. It seemed as though I’d decided that I wasn’t going to get any sleep and had chosen to remain awake because the effort needed to fall asleep was simply too much.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” I muttered towards the ceiling.

“Just tell me.”

“It’s fine. I’m fine.”

I felt his weight shift as he rolled onto his side, the covers slipping down to his waist. I turned my head to look at him as he propped himself up on an elbow and waited for me to tell him just why in God’s name I’d been flopping around like a fish for well over an hour. The moonlight streaming through the window glittered off the necklace he never took off as he gazed at me in the dark.
I could tell that he wasn’t going to give up. I was going to keep him awake anyway. It wasn’t like he was missing out on anything by turning his attention to me and trying to get to the bottom of my issues for the evening rather than lying there and suffering in silence. And it wasn’t like I didn’t want to tell him, it was eating me up and I had no intention of being anything but forthcoming with Sid.
The problem was; I didn’t know where to start.

I was anxious to say the very least. Terrified would likely have been a better word for the way I was feeling about things.

His mother had called him earlier in the day to tell him that our plans for dinner with his family had been moved to lunch and that he was in charge of bringing dessert. That meant that I was in charge of cooking dessert for Sidney’s parents and sister for lunch the next day. She also made it clear that she and Taylor had been informed of my existence. I was glad that there was no yelling. But at the same time, Sidney wouldn’t tell me what she’d said when he hung up that caused him to slip his phone into his pocket with a smile playing out on his lips.

I just kept looking at the clock on the bedside table, realizing that with every glance to my right, the time was ticking down to the point when I would be at the mercy of Sidney’s family.

I was scared shitless.

“Neither of us is going to sleep until you tell me what the hell is wrong,” he murmured as I looked back towards the ceiling, tearing my eyes away from him.

He was still watching me; I could feel his eyes searching my face for clues in the darkness as he inched towards me and brushed a curl out of my eyes. He kissed me on the temple and I let out a sigh. I couldn’t leave him in the dark wondering what was wrong and why I was seemingly so unhappy.

That would have been the worst part. I didn’t want Sidney to think that I was unhappy in the slightest. Sure, things were moving incredibly fast, at a pace I could barely keep up with, but it was working. I was in love with him more and more every moment I spent in his presence. My return to Boston was a few days away and I was dreading leaving because I didn’t want to be away from him for a moment.

“What if they hate me?”

My voice was barely audible but I knew that he heard me.

“Why on earth would my family hate you?”

I turned my head to him in the dark, giving him a look that I hoped he could read. There were a number of reasons his family could hate me, it would have been a concern for me regardless of who I was seeing, but for his family the concerns were even more present. The thing at the forefront for me was the way his father had reacted on Thursday morning and Sidney was well aware of how that brief interaction had left me feeling. I’d been rattled for the rest of the day, barely functional to be quite honest.

“My dad was surprised. We caught him off-guard, that’s all.”

“He hated me, Sidney.”

“He was angry with me for what he assumed was inappropriate behavior. You got caught in the crossfire. He isn’t the type of person to hate someone without a good reason.”

“Oh, and what he saw wasn’t a good enough reason to hate me?”

“What could he have seen that was so bad?”

“A half-naked bimbo in your kitchen eating eggs and wearing a shirt that was probably a birthday gift from your grandmother or something.”

“You aren’t a bimbo and I bought that shirt myself. Besides, like I said, he was surprised, that’s all.”

“He tried to burn a hole in my face with his laser eyes.”

Sidney laughed. “Make a couple of comments like that and they’ll really love you.”

I scoffed.

“I’m serious, Wyn. They are going to love you. Once they get to know you, once they see the incredible things that I see, they’ll be planning for our future before we are.”

I didn’t let myself think about his mention of a future between us. Whether I loved him or not, it wasn’t the right time to start thinking so far ahead. I had to survive meeting his family before I could even think about anything down the road.

I focused on the subject at hand; the things that he saw in me.

I knew what I saw in him, I thought about them almost every minute of every day. I saw his passion and his drive; I saw the work ethic that was second to none. I saw his heart, the love he had for his family and friends and all of the people who had helped him get to where he was; not to mention the love that he was beginning to show me. I saw his determination, the spark he’d shown at the coffeehouse on the day that we met, the fire behind his eyes that made it clear he wouldn’t accept failure.

Not once in all of those thoughts of him had I wondered what he saw in me that made me so special. I had no idea what it was about me that made him willing to take risks he wouldn’t have before. What about his love for me was strong enough to make him stand up to his father and send Troy away with his tail between his legs?

“What makes you so sure about that?” I asked.

“I love you.”

“Plenty of people love each other, Sidney. My parents loved each other, but mom’s parents hated my father for taking her away from them. They never forgave him for that, even after she was gone. What makes you so sure that your parents won’t see me in the same light?”

“I would never allow it.”

He reached towards me and I reacted on impulse, curling my body towards him. Seeking comfort in him was still mostly uncharted territory, but he wrapped his arms around me, our heads landing on the same pillow, his lips close enough to my forehead to brush my skin when he spoke.

“You are amazing and I will make sure that they see that.”

His chest vibrated as he spoke, the sensation soothing my raw nerves. He was holding me so tightly that his strength overpowered my body; the impulses that had been making me fidget were being held at bay.

“They’ll see how smart and funny you are. It won’t take them long to understand why I was so fascinated by you that day in Boston. They will know how strong and resilient you are and that you’re tough enough to be a fixture in my life, the way I do.”

I felt my muscles tighten as his lips brushed my forehead softly. He knew where the impulse came from, the reason that I’d braced myself against the fear I was feeling. He pulled me closer, though it had seemed impossible that there was any space left between us.

“We don’t have to talk about your mom. This isn’t going to be some tell-all interview. My girlfriend meeting my parents for the first time doesn’t mean a polygraph or some checklist of criteria that they’ll be following to see if you measure up.”

“Girlfriend, eh?” I asked, craning my neck to look at him.

Laughter rumbled in his chest. “Four days in Canada and you’re already using the language?”

I giggled along with him.

“Yes. Girlfriend. I don’t let random women come here to spend my vacations with me. I don’t let them sleep in my bed or wear my shirts to breakfast and I certainly don’t cook them breakfast—”

“I enjoy your breakfast,” I replied.

“I sure as hell don’t tell them that I love them,” he finished as though I hadn’t cut him off.

I was still marveling at the definition that had just entered our relationship. In my mind I’d been referring to us as a ‘thing’ for weeks, but to hear him call me his girlfriend felt like a humongous step in a new direction; a wonderful and frightening direction.

“Everything is going to be fine tomorrow. I promise.”

He was using his serious tone with me again. I wondered if he knew that I could hear the change in his voice when he was using his heart to speak and not his head. I wondered if he knew that I was onto his ways. A part of me hoped that he wasn’t; that it was something I could keep for myself. I wanted it to be a calling card of sorts, the voice he used when he really meant it, when he truly wanted to get the point across and make me believe him.

“I just don’t like going into things and not knowing what to expect.”

“Most people call those things surprises.”

“Fine, smartass; I don’t like surprises.”

“You want to know what to expect?”

“Why, do you have some insight for me?”

He smirked at me in the hazy light. “They are my family.”

“Are you going to tell me or hold your information for ransom?”

“A kiss for the information?” he suggested.

“We’re going to start using kisses as bargaining tools?”

“Among other things,” he replied with a playful wiggle of his eyebrow.

I stretched my neck and placed a kiss on his lips. He hadn’t shaved since I’d arrived and I was starting to feel the beginnings of some stubble on his face, scratching my skin a little as I pulled away; breaking contact before he could deepen the kiss and distract me from the task at hand.

“Meeting my family will go something like this,” he began. “My mother and sister will both marvel at your sense of style and the cookies that you baked. My sister will send some jabs my way about how I landed a girl as pretty as you and how much I’m paying you to pretend to be my girlfriend. That’s nothing new, she grew up with me as an older brother and I learned most of my people skills in a locker room.

“You can expect my mother to pull you aside and be incredibly sweet and complimentary. It’s who she is, but that doesn’t mean that the things she says aren’t genuine, because they are.

“As far as my father is concerned, expect him to be aloof. It will be in part because of your awkward first meeting but also because he’s overly protective in a way that my mother isn’t. He wants my focus to be on my game, not because he defines me based on hockey but because he knows that I’m a better version of myself when I’m on top of my game. He knows that being my best makes me happy. My mother doesn’t share that concern; she just wants me to be happy regardless of the source of that happiness. For her, that’s all that matters, no matter what Taylor and I do with our lives, our happiness is paramount.”

“Does she have anything to worry about when it comes to your happiness?” I asked quietly.

I could feel my eyelids starting to droop. The warmth of his body wrapped so securely around mine, his powerful legs tangled with mine beneath the sheets, was enough to send me towards my dreams. I was struck again by how hard it might be to sleep without him when I returned to Boston.

“My mother doesn’t need to worry about my happiness, Wyn. Not as long as you’re around.”

I burrowed closer to his chest and his chin settled in the nest of my tousled hair.

“Sweet dreams, baby.”

I felt myself release one last sigh before finally succumbing to the exhaustion that I’d been battling for hours.

It was the cold of the morning air that woke me. I was in the middle of the bed and once again, Sidney’s side was empty. I glanced over at the clock to find that I had three hours to get ready to meet his parents. My heart stuttered in my chest and I forced myself to toss the blankets away and head for the shower.

I let the hot water relax the muscles that my anxiety had tightened, bringing me back to life as the morning wore on. I lingered under the water until my fingers were like prunes and the skin of my chest and arms was red from the barrage of hot water. Wrapped in a towel I returned to Sid’s room to try to decide on something to wear.

Sidney had gotten tired of my living out of a suitcase and cleared a space in his closet for me. It wasn’t like I’d travelled with much. I had brought a couple of dresses but for the most part it was jeans and t-shirts and workout clothes. I’d been most concerned about clean underwear and the appropriate bra for each dress, the rest was just thoughtless tossing of casual clothing into the suitcase.

I would have struggled in choosing my garb for the day even if I’d been presented with my whole closet of options just as I had with picking a dress for our first date. Big moments were always a challenge to dress for as far as I was concerned. Being officially introduced to Sidney’s immediate family was certainly big and while Sidney had tried to tone down my anxiety, it was rebuilding as I considered my options.

I had never met a guy’s parents. Of all of the boyfriends I’d had, a short list that spanned from my sophomore year of college, none had ever asked me to meet their families. It had never been serious enough. It had never been the real thing. I certainly hadn’t loved them and they didn’t love me. They were relationships of convenience or boredom bound to go nowhere.

This was something real, palpable. This was something that Sidney and I were aware we would have to work for. It wasn’t going to be easy, regardless of how strongly we felt for one another. Distance was a hard thing to deal with and while I had the freedom to travel, his schedule was hard to work around. But it felt like both of us were willing, if not eager, to put in the work required of a relationship like ours.

I let the towel drop and started with my undergarments but couldn’t bring myself to pick an outfit. I didn’t want to seem too casual, but it was essentially a barbeque and I didn’t want to seem pretentious or overdressed either. If I wasn’t dressed well enough, it would appear as though I wasn’t good enough for their son. If I was too well put together, it would seem like I was trying too hard or high maintenance.

I stared into my tiny section of closet, my hands on my hips, waiting for inspiration to strike.

A pair of strong arms snaked around my waist, and his scent filled my senses. He dropped his chin to the juncture of my neck and shoulder, nuzzling close, his breath hot on my neck.

“They’ll love you no matter what you wear,” he said. “But I would suggest clothes. We don’t want a repeat of Thursday.”

“You really think you’re funny, don’t you?” I muttered quietly.

He placed a soft kiss to my shoulder as I turned in his arms. He was already dressed in shorts and a t-shirt. The waves of his hair were out of control, free of product and left to the nature of his cowlicks. I knew that he’d pull a hat down over his eyes on the way out the door. He looked plenty casual, but I thought he pulled it off better than I could have.

“I need your guidance.”

He chuckled. “My style knowledge begins and ends with the selection of ties. You’ll look beautiful no matter what you choose. This isn’t a fashion show.”

“No,” I replied. “It is so much more than a fashion show.”

He retracted his arms and sighed. He knew that he wasn’t going to get anywhere with me. I was lost in a bout of negativity that I couldn’t quite shake and until it was all over and done with, I was going to be a nervous wreck.

“The yellow one.”

I smiled.

It was a maxi-dress in a sunny shade of yellow. It was a color that I wore rarely, the tones of my skin touchy when it came to brighter colors in the spectrum. It wasn’t anything fancy, spaghetti straps and a few ruffles in the jersey fabric that gathered a bit at the waist.

Sidney watched as I pulled it on over my head and smoothed the fabric as the waves fell towards the floor. I slid into a pair of sandals and went back into the bathroom, feeling Sidney follow me. I opened my makeup bag and began the process of smoothing the layers over my skin.

Sidney leaned in the doorway watching me apply my makeup in the way that I had been doing it for almost a decade. He didn’t speak and neither did I. I liked silence between us. It never felt like something was lacking or that conversation needed to be forced in order for the air between us to be comfortable. The quiet was more than suitable when there was nothing that needed to be said.
He slipped away after a while and I heard sports highlights playing on the television in the living room. When I was finally done, convinced that my hair and makeup were fit for the occasion, I headed into the main room to join Sidney. He was loading the dishwasher as Sam licked a few remnants from a plate that he’d placed on the floor.

When he headed back to Pittsburgh before the season started, she would go back to living with his parents. It made me a little sad, a grown man with such a crazy schedule that he didn’t even have the time to take care of his own dog. He’d told me that his parents didn’t mind, that they liked to have something to take care of with him so far away and his sister at school in Minnesota. I knew that it made him a little sad to leave her behind, but it was clear that he enjoyed being around her in the summer.

I got busy packing the cookies I’d baked into a Tupperware container. I’d tasted one the night before; even convincing Sidney, so careful of what he ate during the off-season to take a bite as well. Once they had his seal of approval I’d been a little more confident about my abilities. But there was still a subtle terror involved in the idea of feeding anything to his family.

I’d pulled my hair away from my face, I didn’t want to feel like I was hiding behind the waves and I certainly didn’t want an excuse for nervous ticks and habits to take over my meeting his parents. One of those nervous ticks for me was twirling my hair and it wasn’t the most attractive of idiosyncrasies and I didn’t want to give his parents any excuse to feel uneasy about my relationship with their son. I needed to keep habits and neuroses to a minimum.

He held my hand in the car, his thumb tracing shapes in the palm of my hand, running in clockwise circles that both soothed and distracted me. The cookies sat in my lap as I nibbled at my bottom lip.

“Mom and Taylor are really looking forward to meeting you,” he assured me with his eyes trained on the road.

“How do you know?”

His eyes flickered to me then back to the road. “Because Mom told me.”

I wondered if that was what he’d been smiling about when his conversation with his mother had ended the day before. I wondered if perhaps she’d told him that she was excited or happy for him, for us. I felt a bit of relief pour into me, it was far from a flood, but it was enough to calm my nerves just a little.

The drive was short, too short for my liking. It didn’t give me enough time to catch my breath or prepare myself for how I would greet his parents. It wasn’t like there was a language barrier or a cultural issue so strong we would struggle. Sidney and I had no issues spanning the gap between Canadian and American. Yet I still worried that something I did or said would cause an issue.

He held my hand again as he led me up to the house, leaving the comfort of his car behind. There was a light rain, little more than a drizzle falling as we reached the front door.

“It will all be fine,” he assured me as his hand landed on the doorknob. “I promise.”

He meant it. My pulse slowed slightly but I clutched his hand like I was holding on for dear life. He didn’t complain as he swung the door open and stepped inside, drawing me close to his side and over the threshold before I could try to run.

“We’re here!” he called into the house.

For a moment, all was quiet. I felt like a trespasser as Sid closed the door behind us, stopping short of locking it in order to slow my attempts at escape. I wouldn’t have blamed him if he had. He kicked off his shoes and I followed his lead in doing the same.

I heard a squeal come from somewhere in the bowels of the house before the sound of running feet began to make their way towards us rapidly.

“That would be Taylor,” Sidney said with a soft smile playing at his lips.

He had spoken highly of his younger sister whenever she was mentioned in conversation. It was clear to me that he was protective, but the distance made it hard for him. It had been a bit easier when she was still in Cole Harbour, but with her move to Minnesota to follow his footsteps to Shattuck, she wasn’t as easy to wrangle. Phone calls weren’t always the easiest way to keep track of someone.
He always seemed impressed by her, astounded by her maturity and her drive. I assumed he was the source of it, even if he didn’t know it. It would have been a shock for her to have been anything but a mature and well-adjusted young woman having grown up trying to keep up with an older brother like Sidney.

I doubted he saw the influence that he had.
She appeared from around the corner, a tall streak of strawberry hair and bright eyes. Her ponytail swung from side to side behind her as she came to an abrupt stop. A smile broke out upon her face and while they didn’t necessarily look alike when taken in passing, the way her full lips curved when she grinned made it clear that they swam in the same gene pool.

“Hi,” she said brightly. “I’m Taylor.”

“Bronwyn,” I replied.

She reached towards me and shook my hand before taking the cookies from me and smiling at Sidney. She shook her head gently from side to side and he chuckled. I could only assume it was some strange form of sibling conversation that I wasn’t privy to.

I glanced up at Sid. He was smiling but he rolled his eyes at me briefly. Taylor followed his gesture with a laugh of her own.

“What?” I asked quietly.

“My big brother is wondering why I’m so enthusiastic today.”

“She’s usually pretty calm. I was actually looking forward to a bit of quiet.”

“Yes, but it isn’t every day…or decade, that my brother brings a girl home. I’m not sitting this one out.”

Sidney had told me that only one girlfriend had ever made the trip to Cole Harbour to meet his family. It had gone well enough, but things just didn’t work out and the relationship ended as quietly as it had begun. Taylor would most likely have still been in elementary school at the time.

“Where’s Mom?” Sidney asked.

His arm was still firmly around my waist and it didn’t feel as though he had any intention of letting go for the time being. I didn’t mind having him there to hold me upright.

“Kitchen.”

Taylor led the way through the house, quaint and homey. The décor was warm and inviting not unlike the house I’d grown up in. There were pieces of Sidney’s career all over the house, a few of Taylor’s accomplishments joining them on shelves and walls.

“Sidney and Bronwyn are here,” she chimed as we entered the kitchen.

Trina was a petite woman compared to the rest of her family. Her children were both taller than she was by at least a head, taking after their father more than Trina. She gave me a quick smile; I could see her take note of our posture as we stood in the doorway, noticing Sidney’s arm around my waist with me pressed closely to his side.

“Bronwyn made cookies,” Sid offered, nodding towards the container in his sister’s hands. “They’re good.”

Taylor and Trina both game me a look of surprise.

“Sidney ate a cookie?” Trina asked. “In the off-season?”

I chuckled. I knew Sidney’s diet well enough. He denied himself more when he wasn’t playing. He wasn’t a nut about health food, not in the way some players were, but he wasn’t one to nosh on junk either.

“He took a bite of the one I had,” I said, trying not to speak too quietly, but my voice felt like it might falter. “Then he ran an extra mile to make up for it.”

They both laughed and I felt Sidney’s hand tighten on my waist for a moment, a squeeze meant to reassure me. It was his silent way of telling me that I was doing just fine.
Then it happened, the forced separation I had hoped would take more time. Trina pulled a plate out of the cabinet and handed it to Sidney.

“Why don’t you take this out to your father? The steaks should be done any minute.”

Sidney let go of me, but much to my surprise, he placed a kiss on my temple before heading out the back door to make amends with his father before lunch. I felt awkward and cold without Sidney next to me. I adjusted the strap on my left shoulder nervously.

“Is there anything I can help with?” I asked.

Trina shook her head and began pouring iced tea into glasses.

“Everything is pretty much finished. The boys can finish up the meat and we’ll be ready to go. But thank you for asking.”

She pushed one of the glasses towards me and I accepted it graciously, if only to have something to do with my hands. She led the way into the dining room where the table was already set. We each took seats, Taylor taking the seat to my left and Trina sitting across from her daughter.

“How do you like Cole Harbour?” Trina asked.

“It’s a beautiful little place. Halifax seems like a really wonderful city.”

“How do you really feel?” Taylor asked with a smile.

“Taylor,” he mother warned quietly.

“What? This can’t be a fun thing for her, feeling like she’s going to spend the whole day being questioned. She should at least have the opportunity to speak truthfully. This should be a safe place where she can be honest.”

I tried to suppress a smile. It was no wonder he spoke so highly of his younger sister. Still a teenager and she seemed to have a firm grip on the reality of her brother’s world. Not to mention to air of sarcasm that she had likely learned from him. The wry smile that said she was up to something or simply full of it. She was very much like her older brother in that way. She could have chosen much worse people to emulate.

“I mean it. It’s beautiful here. It reminds me a little of my hometown, though where I’m from is quite a bit smaller.”

“Sidney says you’re from Minnesota,” Trina said. I noticed that she didn’t phrase it like a question, just an offer of continuing on the same track.

“I am originally. It’s a little town called Cannon Falls. It’s where my father grew up. Barely more than 4,000 people, but they’re friendly people. They really care about each other.”
I didn’t mention that it was one of the reasons I’d never wanted to go back. Sidney knew all about it, but I wasn’t sure sharing such a detail with his family was called for the first time we met.

“I go to school in Minnesota,” Taylor offered.

“At Shattuck, I have a cousin who went there a few years ago. It’s only about 45 minutes from where my Dad lives. Sid’s told me all about it, said you had a great season last year.”

“Sid told you?” she seemed genuinely surprised that she ranked enough in her brothers world to be a topic of conversation.

“Of course,” I assured her. “He’s proud of you, and not just because of hockey.”

She smiled and the apples of her cheeks turned a bit red, they were already pink from the summer sun, but it was clear she was blushing. It was important to her what her older brother thought.

“You’re living in Boston now?” Trina asked quietly.

It was her prerogative to search for information, but I’d had much less comfortable conversations. It really wasn’t bad answering a few questions, though I didn’t know how I would feel when Troy and Sidney made it to the table, and it was only a matter of time before they did.

“I am. I have been for about 6 years now.”

“Why Boston?” Taylor asked.

“I went to Boston University. My best friend went to Harvard and we moved out there together. We got an apartment our junior year and I still live there.”

“Where is she?”

“He’s in Pittsburgh actually. He’s an engineer at an architectural firm. I’ve visited a few times.”
Trina raised an eyebrow but she didn’t comment. I wasn’t sure I wanted to know what she was thinking.

“Go to any games?” Taylor asked.

I felt my face grow hot as Sidney and Troy came into the room. Troy sat at the head of the table between his wife and daughter while Sidney took the seat across from me, placing the steaks in the middle of the table. He glanced at me and gave me a quizzical look, wondering why my face was so flushed.

“A went to a game as a kid, but I’ve never actually been in Pittsburgh during the season, I’ve only visited in the summer so far. I haven’t seen Sid play live though, only on TV.”

“Not yet,” Sidney said with a smile, his foot brushing mine beneath the table.
Half way through the meal, conversation was still flowing. Taylor was terribly sweet, so much like her brother in a lot of ways. I could tell that their gentler nature came from their mother. Troy hadn’t said so much as a word as the plates began to clear and I had the urge to go hide in a closet with the entire container of cookies and stress-eat until I passed out.

It was Taylor who pulled him into the conversation.

“Did you hear that, Dad? Bronwyn says that if I’m playing when she goes back to Minnesota to see her Dad she’ll try to come see the game.”

Troy looked up at me; there was a questioning look in his eyes. I wasn’t sure what it was he was trying to deduce, but he was considering me quite a bit before I finally decided to speak.

“Sidney speaks so highly of Taylor, I’m naturally curious. Besides, there isn’t a lot to do back home and sometimes it’s nice to just get away for a bit. Might even drag the old man along and get him out of the house. He could use something to fill his time.”

My father was retired and had been since just after I graduated college. I didn’t like to think about him back in Minnesota sitting alone in the house I’d grown up in, but it was the state of his existence. He went up to the cabin a lot, but I knew nothing helped him escape the fact that she wasn’t there. The thought made me sad.

“What does he do that he has so much time on his hands to fill?”

I knew it wasn’t meant to be cruel, just Troy’s awkward way of trying to involve himself in the conversation that kept turning his way. Sidney didn’t seem to care and sent a withering glare down the table, not even attempting to hide the fact that it bothered him.

“He was a cardiologist. He retired a couple of years ago.”

He just didn’t want to do it anymore, not without Mom there to get him through.

“And your mother?”

There is was. The question I’d dreaded. The fact that I hadn’t mentioned my mother during my conversation with Sid’s mom and sister didn’t slip by them, they’d known not to mention it. It made me wonder if Sidney hadn’t warned them that it was a touchy subject, not one I approached over lunch with perfect strangers.

My voice was quiet when I responded. “She died when I was 16.”

The eyes of his wife and children turned to Troy, perhaps wondering how he was going to climb out of the whole he’d dug. I didn’t hold it against him, he didn’t know. But it didn’t make it easier.

“I’m sorry, Bronwyn. I didn’t know.”

My eyes turned to him then. His voice was so different from Sidney’s but he’d used the tone. He meant it. Maybe he wasn’t bound to be my biggest fan, but he was truly sorry so he had no intention of upsetting me. It wasn’t much, but it felt like some sort of forward progress. A win in my book.

“It’s okay.”

Sidney reached across the table, taking my hand in his. Once again I found myself surprised at his willingness to be affectionate in view of others, even if they were only his family. His voice was low as he trained his eyes on mine.

“I should have warned them, Wyn. I’m sorry.”

So he hadn’t warned the women of the family. It seemed that they were more perceptive than the men in the room, picking up my mentions of only my father, not speaking of my mother once in the time we’d been alone or even during the meal.

I shook my head. “It’s okay, no harm done.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

He squeezed my hand.

“She was from Boston, a nurse. She moved to Minnesota when she was my age to be with my father and never looked back. It was hard on her relationship with her family, but I know she never regretted it. They worked together almost every day until she died. He always teased her about being his favorite nurse because she listened to what he said, but everyone knew it was the other way around. Mom called the shots, she always knew better than he did.

“I try to get back every few months to check in. I worry about him.”

“Have you thought about moving back?” Trina asked.

I felt surprisingly comfortable speaking with them about it. I hadn’t expected for the flood gates to open when the truth came out, but they did.

“Once, then I went back for a visit and remembered why I left. Like I said earlier, Cannon Falls is a tiny town. People are always aware of your business and even after college, after she’d been gone for 6 years they were still offering their condolences. I couldn’t live like that. I did it through the last couple of years of high school, but there’s only so much kindness that you can take.

“It makes you dwell on the negative and I think that’s bad for our growth as people. I miss her, I think about her all the time, wondering what she’d think about my life now, but I don’t let her memory hold me back. It’s the last thing she’d want for me.”

Sidney was still holding my hand, neglecting his meal. He was the source of some of the thoughts that crossed my mind. I wondered what my mother would think of the little whirlwind of our relationship and how she would have perceived him as a person. I let go, gave his hand a pat, and took a bite of my own food. He followed suit.

I was waiting for them to ask. It was the question that every person wanted the answer to but very few people wanted to ask. Sidney had asked during one of our conversations when I’d arrived. We’d been on separate couches at the time, but my answer led him to join me on mine, holding me while the tears flowed.

“Why don’t you ever talk about her?” he asked; his thumb tracing lines on the back of my hand as we sat in the corners of our respective couches.

“Because it hurts too much. If I talk about it, it makes it too real.”

“It’s real no matter what. I’ll admit that I don’t know what happened, and I’ll never ask you to tell me, but something tells me that things like this, losing someone you love, that’s always real whether you talk about it or not.”

“Why won’t you ask?”

“Because I don’t want to cause you pain. I would never hurt you if I could help it. If you ever want to tell me, I’ll gladly listen. But I won’t ask.”

It got quiet again. The two of us simply existed in the quiet. I felt the pain bubbling up in my throat. The words came out before I could stop them, an attempt at a joke that fell painfully flat.

“Don’t drink and drive, kids. You never know if you might kill someone’s mother.”
His gaze jolted towards me, his features hardening, his jaw locked and eyes focused. He didn’t say anything, but he didn’t need to. But then he was there, holding me together when I was trying to fall apart. I couldn’t have asked for more.

I felt the eyes of Sid and his family lingering on me. It was in their heads, the question floating around, begging to be asked. I didn’t want any of them to carry the burden of the question in the way that I knew Sidney did, still feeling guilty about asking though I’d been terribly happy to finally have it in me to tell him.

I didn’t try to crack a joke that went horribly wrong, I just told them in as few words as I could.

“She was struck by a drunk driver after a double shift at the hospital.”

‘My father blames himself’ were words that I only thought and never spoke. He thought he should have been in the car with her, but they’d driven separately and he was fighting off a bout of the flu.

She’d sent him home with a promise to see him in the morning.

The next time he saw her was in the morgue.

“She died on impact.” I paused. “And now that I’ve thoroughly depressed all of you, maybe we should pick a new topic.”

Sidney smiled at me across the table. “Dad and I were discussing the possible schedule for this year; I’m going to have to make sure to have some tickets for you and Sebastian.”

His father blanched at the mention of another man’s name. I tried not to laugh.

“Sebastian is a childhood friend and old roommate. He lives in Pittsburgh. I’m not hiding a child or anything, no package deal for Sid, just me.”

Taylor laughed brightly, her giggle so similar to her brother’s. Sidney and Trina laughed as well, a certain stability returned to the atmosphere. Troy’s lips turned up in a smile, small but present. It wasn’t perfect, but it was a change. It was a step in the right direction.

I appreciated any progress we could make from Thursday morning wearing Sidney’s dress shirt. It was also good to know that it couldn’t get worse than that initial meeting; it could only go up from where we were.

It was a little victory, but I would take it over a loss any day.