by Maisy Morgan
“Definitely,” he said. “I’m looking forward to meeting you.”
“Same,” she said and hung up the phone. Wednesday. That was going to be there before they knew it.
She exited the office and headed into the sitting room only to see that the nude scene was coming up, so she hurried over and turned the television off. “Hey!” Tripp exclaimed.
“That’ll be good for tonight, I think,” Mary said with a wink. Mary called the shots in the house, and she was glad that she rarely had to put up a fight. Tripp seemed more interested in her phone call anyway.
“Who was on the phone?” Tripp asked.
“Matthew, just giving me an update on your mom,” Mary said.
Tripp shrugged. “She okay?”
“Out of rehab,” Mary said.
“Oh, yeah?” he said with doubt laced in each word and standing up from the couch. “Well, hopefully she’ll stay out this time.” They both noticed how bitter his last words were, but neither of them addressed it. Who knew what would happen this time? And Lilly did not have a great track record up to this point.
“That’s the plan,” Mary said in agreement. “Why don’t you go study you lines before bed? I’ve been told if you study right before bed, you’ll retain the information better.”
Tripp blushed slightly, obviously thinking about the scene he was going to have to perform. “Yeah… okay…” he said and scrambled up the stairs.
Chapter Five
Frankly, Tripp wished his grandmother would just give up on his mother. They were headed from Brooks to Fayetteville where Tripp attended school. He was usually still half asleep on the way there; Mary enjoyed dropping him off at school, though. It gave them time to talk in a place where he couldn’t just dip out. He didn’t have much of a choice other than to listen to her when they were confined to the front seats of the car for twelve minutes or so. It was on such occasion that she elected to tell Tripp that his mother would be flying in that day.
“Why is she coming, exactly?” Tripp questioned. “Did you two just decide we were going to get together without talking to me about it?”
“No, nothing like that,” she said. “She is coming with Matthew on a job.”
This made sense to Tripp as Georgia had a growing film industry. He knew very little about this Matthew guy except that he was some second-rate actor that he had never heard of. That, and that he seemed like a decent guy to be helping out a woman he had only just recently started dating by paying for her rehab center. Really, it made Tripp suspicious more than anything, but he wasn’t going to say it out loud until he had actually had a chance to meet the guy that was dating his mother and make the judgments himself. “They filming something up in Atlanta?” Tripp asked.
“Little closer to home than that,” Mary said nervously. “Senoia.”
Tripp frowned. Even if he said he didn’t want to see them, there was a pretty good chance of bumping into them if they were in Senoia, so close by. “Oh,” he said.
His grandmother sighed heavily. “They want to see you. Do you… want to see them?”
Tripp figured this question was coming. He loved and respected his grandmother, but she had raised an idiot. Tripp hadn’t seen his mother since he was a toddler, and they had only talked briefly on the phone and video chat. He hardly remembered her at all; she was a rather sorry excuse of a mother, but he knew it would mean a lot to Mary if he at least gave their relationship a shot. His hesitancy to answer said a lot. He just wasn’t sure if he was ready to finally meet her and risk the chance of something going terribly wrong again.
“Tripp, you don’t have to,” Mary said, ending the silence. “And, please don’t if you’re only doing it for me.” It was like the woman could read minds.
“I don’t know,” he told her, forcing himself to stare at the window because he didn’t want to see if he was upsetting her or not. “Grandma, I want to get to know her, I do, but I don’t know if I want to try so hard to do it, you know? I mean… she just… she really let me down already. A few times. Every day, really, since I was just a kid.”
“You’re still just a kid,” Mary said lovingly. He could tell that she really was on his side and wanted what was best for him, whatever he thought that was. “I’m not going to force it. I want you to know that. If you don’t want to see your mom, you don’t have to see your mom. You have every right not to want to see her after everything you’ve been through.”
“You said they’re flying in today?” Tripp asked. “Kind of random flying in on a Wednesday.”
“Yeah, I think they wanted to get settled in before their first day on set,” Mary said. “They’re flying in this afternoon. We could pick them up from the airport if you decide you want to see them, or we could wait a few days. Let them get settled in. Or we could not bother at all. I’m leaving it entirely up to you—you just have to tell me what you want and be honest with yourself.”
Knowing that his mom was going to be just a few minutes down the road from him was rather tempting. If they were staying in Senoia, it was only about a five to ten-minute drive from them. They had arrived at school and were now sitting in the car line. He could see Draco waiting for him out front, having spotted them a few cars behind his. Tripp sighed and finally adjusted himself in his seat so that he could actually look at his grandmother. “Can I… think about it? Think about it and maybe text you?” he asked.
“Of course,” Mary said, smiling. “I hope I didn’t just stress you out right before school starts.”
“I get why you waited to tell me,” he said. “I mean, her flight doesn’t leave for another few hours; are we sure she won’t be shipped back off to rehab for screwing up again before then?”
Mary frowned. “Tripp, that’s not funny.”
“I know,” Tripp said. “I wasn’t trying to be.”
“You’re still very upset about Christmas,” she said plainly.
Tripp nodded, not wanting to say it out loud, but he was. He was furious. She had gotten his hopes up, only to ruin everything. He had wanted to see her then—really badly, in fact. A part of him had known all along that his mother would probably find a way to screw it up, but he had had enough hope in him that he thought it would be possible. “I’ll text you,” Tripp said at last. “Um… have a good day at the shop.”
“You have a good day at school. I love you,” Mary said.
“I love you too, Grandma,” Tripp said and jumped out of the car. He hurried over and met Draco by the main entrance of the school. They began their walk towards the cafeteria where, based off what time it was, Tripp assumed Hannah was already waiting on them. “You good?” Draco asked as they pushed open the front doors and headed inside.
“Huh?” Tripp had hardly heard him. “Oh, um, yeah, I’m good.” Tripp walked ahead of him a bit, but Draco sped up to stay caught up.
“No, I don’t think you are,” Draco said, scurrying after him.
Hannah was seated in her chair at the edge of one of the cafeteria tables. She waved them over, and Tripp tried to get Draco to drop the conversation before they got there, but to no avail. “Come on, man, what’s going on? You look like crap. Something happened, right?”
“Draco, shut up,” Tripp warned as he sat himself down at the table near Hannah.
Hannah raised a brow. “Something happened?” she asked.
“Nothing happened,” Tripp said.
“No, something definitely happened,” Draco said. “He looks really grouchy. Even more than usual.”
“Shut up,” Tripp said again, glaring at Draco. Hannah didn’t have to say anything. She just stared at him with these very concerned, serious eyes. “Fine,” Tripp grumbled. “My mom is flying in today.”
“Whoa!” Hannah exclaimed. “That’s heavy stuff. When are you going to see her?”
“I don’t know if I am,” Tripp said. “Grandma told me to let her know what I want to do.”
Hannah smiled slightly at him. It was a sympathetic sort of smile. “Y
ou better text her and let her know you want to then,” Hannah said.
“He hasn’t made up his mind yet, Hannah,” Draco said.
“Of course he has—he’s just being dramatic,” Hannah said and turned herself slightly in her chair. “Look, I get the whole crappy parent thing, Tripp. I mean, my dad abandoned mom and me because he couldn’t handle me being in a wheelchair, and now he’s in prison. He’s an idiot, but he’s still my dad. And, your mom is trying, right? That’s why she went to rehab. To try to get better.”
“I guess,” Tripp said and sighed. “Fine. I’m texting grandma. I’ll let her know I want to go pick her up at the airport.”
“That’s the spirit!” Hannah said, punching him in the arm. Somehow, she always seemed to know what to say to help Tripp think things through and all three had known all along how badly he wanted to meet his mom. Even if just this once.
“Did you guys study your scripts for the showcase any this week?” Draco asked.
Tripp’s cheeks instantly flushed, and he made sure not to look directly at Hannah. “Not really,” Tripp lied. Truthfully, all he had been doing in his spare time was studying that stupid script.
“I read mine,” Hannah said and then laughed. “Kara told me—”
But Tripp didn’t get to hear what his ex-girlfriend told Hannah that had to do with the showcase. The thought horrified him; the bell rang, and Hannah laughed and used it as an excuse to quickly end the conversation. Saved by the bell. “Oh, I’ve got to go drop some books off at the library before homeroom!” she exclaimed. “I almost forgot!”
“Need me to go with you?” Tripp asked.
“That’s okay. I’ve got it,” she declared independently. She always made sure to do the things she could do by herself, no matter how much Tripp asked to help. “Not like our lockers are that far from it.” She wheeled herself off, and once she was out of sight, Tripp punched Draco in the arm—hard.
“What are you bringing that up for?” Tripp asked.
Draco smirked. “I was going to warn you—I heard Mrs. Smitz is going to have us reading lines in class today. You have a rather… sensitive… scene.”
“Your scene is the sensitive one,” Tripp huffed as they walked off together. Draco was still laughing at his expense as they split ways.
Tripp flopped down in his seat, grumbling as he opened up his composition notebook and began working on the warm-up writing assignment their teacher had scribbled on the board. Hannah arrived moments later, wheeling herself in right next to Tripp like she always did. “Got your books returned?” Tripp asked.
“Yup,” Hannah said. She shifted uncomfortably in her chair, and it caught Tripp’s eye.
“You okay?” he asked.
“Huh?” she questioned. “Oh… yeah, I’m good. Little sore.”
He had never heard her complain about comfort before, and it struck him as a bit odd. Just as he was about to ask her about it, the teacher started talking, drawing the class’s attention. After homeroom, he paused in the hallway for a moment to text his grandmother and let her know that he would like to go pick his mom and her boyfriend up at the airport that afternoon. His grandmother responded with way too many happy emojis, but he smirked.
The rest of the day, he was rather distracted. He had exactly two things at the forefront of his mind for the duration of his day: seeing his mother face to face for the first time since he was a toddler, and the fact that he and Hannah were going to have to read lines today in class. When the bell rang for him to go to drama, he waited for Hannah by their lockers, but she never showed. He frowned, but Draco came hurrying up. “Hey, man, come on, we’re going to be late for class!” he exclaimed.
“Have you seen Hannah?” Tripp asked.
“Huh? Oh, her mom came and got her during health today,” he said. “Not sure what it was about. I think she was feeling sick or something.”
“Seriously?” Tripp questioned with a big frown. Well, at least this meant he wouldn’t be able to run lines.
He and Draco sat down in drama class, and Tripp frowned at the empty space beside him where Hannah normally rolled up her wheelchair. He started to feel a dreadful amount of insecurity wash over him. Had she gotten sick thinking about having to practice their scene together? It was a rather embarrassing scene to have to practice. He shook the thought away. There was probably something else going on.
“We’re going to do our first read-throughs today for our showcase scenes before we start on our next assignments,” Mrs. Smitz began. Upon seeing that Hannah, as well as a girl named Nancy, were not present, she partnered Tripp up with a girl named Veronica so that they could help each other with their read-throughs. Tripp had to play a character from Boys Don’t Cry that had the whole class snickering despite the seriousness of the scene, simply because he was a boy playing a girl who believed she was really a boy, and then that launched Mrs. Smitz into a long discussion on gender roles in theater and Shakespeare’s play Twelfth Night. It only got worse when he and Veronica had to read through his script together because now everyone knew he would be doing Titanic with Hannah.
He was relieved when class was finally over. He was going to have to try really hard not to be upset with Hannah about missing class that day.
Chapter Six
Mary and Tripp arrived at the airport about fifteen minutes earlier than they had expected to, so they went and hung out inside one of the airport’s coffee shops. Mary bought Tripp a hot chocolate, and she got herself a coffee while they waited. She received a text from Matthew saying that they were getting off the plane after a few minutes of sitting around, so the two of them began walking towards the gate exit to wait for them.
“Nervous?” Mary asked Tripp, who kept tapping the side of his hot chocolate to-go mug with his fingertips.
“Maybe a little,” Tripp admitted. “I just don’t know what to say to her is all.”
“Don’t feel obligated to say anything if you don’t want,” Mary said. She wanted to make this as comfortable as possible for him. “A simple hello will be fine.”
They swayed anxiously in their stances. After a short period of time, she, at last, spotted her daughter. There was a man on either side of her, and she seemed to be talking to them both, so Mary wasn’t sure which one was Matthew. She had never seen him before, but she hardly cared. Mary had not seen her daughter in nearly three years, and she felt herself starting to cry.
Lilly spotted her, and her face lit up. One thing Mary noticed immediately was that she looked as though she had put on weight since they had last seen one another; in other words, she looked healthy. She was positively glowing. “Mom!” Lilly said, tapping the man to her right. He smiled up at them, but he grunted slightly in surprise as Lilly had shoved her purse into his hands before hurrying towards them.
Mary threw her arms around Lilly, pulling her into a tight hug. There was a time, when Lilly had really hit rock bottom, that she would have been afraid to hug her this way because of how fragile she had seemed from the drugs she had been taking. She was on the road to recovery this time. “Look at you!” Mary said, wiping her eyes as she looked her daughter up and down. “Baby girl, you look so good.”
Lilly smiled at her, and then her eyes fell on Tripp. She smiled brightly at him. “Tripp…” she said softly, clearly just as conflicted about how to interact with him as he was with her. She just stood there, smiling at him. “You look just like your daddy did at your age, you know that?” she said, allowing every word to test the waters between them and she saw that this brought a slight, prideful smile to Tripp’s face.
“Thanks… um… Mom…” he said, and the word clearly didn’t feel quite right on his lips yet, but he was smiling.
“I’m so glad you wanted to see me,” Lilly said, wiping her eyes—not daring to come too close to him just yet. “You have no idea. I’m so sorry about Christmas, Tripp. I am so, so sorry…”
“It’s okay,” Tripp said, more out of obligation than truly meaning it. “You�
��re here now, right?”
“Right,” she said and offered another smile dripping in guilt and a plea for a whole lot of forgiveness.
The moment seemed a bit forced, but at least they were both smiling at one another. Mary was glad for that. And, thankfully, the uncomfortable silence that befell their initial meeting was broken by the man Lilly had thrown her purse at. “So, this is the Hopkins family, huh?” he bellowed, and he gave Mary virtually no warning before giving her a giant hug. “So good to finally meet you, Mary!”
“Oh!” Mary yelped. “I see you’re a hugger,” she said, recognizing the man’s voice now. The devilishly handsome young man, she knew, was Matthew. He was in his mid-thirties and definitely Hollywood pretty. He was tall with broad shoulders but still seemed gentle and kind. His face and expressions matched his animated voice and welcomed bear hug.
“Sorry,” he said, stepping back and grinning. He looked at Tripp, his eyes glistening with excitement. “And you must be Tripp, am I right?” he asked, electing to stick his hand out for a guy’s shake as opposed to wrapping him up in his arms as he had just done to Mary.
“Hey!” a voice behind them called. “I know I’m technically your assistant, Matt, but I’ve known you long enough to tell you to shove it if you think I’m carrying all this crap by myself!”
Mary glanced past Matthew to see the shorter man Lilly had been walking with. He was attempting to carry a large duffle bag, a backpack, Lilly’s pink purse, and drag two rolling suitcases behind him that were each stacked with a smaller bag as well. “Oh, geez, sorry, Donnie!” Matthew said, laughing and hurrying over to the man to relieve him of some of his burden.
“Oh, here, we’ll help!” Mary said, walking towards the man and relieving him of some of the smaller bags. “I’m Mary,” she said to him.
The man nodded approvingly. “Donnie. I’m a good friend of Matt’s.”
