She left the front door open and climbed the stairs. He wouldn’t follow her. He never came upstairs. Her room was her territory, and the basement was his. She needed to get away from that conversation and talk to someone else. But not her parents. Jack? She already knew that he would fully support Travis’s idea to keep his life uncomplicated. She wanted to talk to Wendy, but she had the feeling that Wendy would be on Travis’s side, too.
Travis followed her.
“What are you doing?” she asked at the top of the stairs. She glanced in her parents’ room and saw the familiar mound of her mother and prayed she was fast asleep.
“Trying to talk to you!”
“Travis, I didn’t even tell Gramma what we were doing today. There’s no way I’m going to ask her about leaving you here with her and Grandfather.”
“You don’t trust me?” He sounded equal parts offended and hurt.
“My head is spinning right now. I have never had to think about so many things in my life, and you throw this new option on top of it all. I need time to process it all.”
He confused her by waking up his phone. Within seconds, her phone buzzed with an incoming message, and details of the Glendale grandma unit. “It’s the perfect place for you. And if you don’t jump on it, someone else will.” He stalked out of the room leaving Kat to perch on the edge of the rocking chair in Ava’s room.
“Did I hear Travis’s voice?” Millie stood in the doorway, pulling on her housecoat.
“Yes.”
Millie dropped into the cushioned chair across the room. “Why was he up here?”
“Trying to talk me into renting this place.” Kat passed her phone to her mother.
Millie took off her glasses and rested them on her chest to study the pictures. “There isn’t room for both of you there.”
“No.”
“Hmm.” Millie put her glasses back on and returned the phone to Kat.
“What do you think?”
“I think there’s some vodka downstairs and we’re going to need two glasses.”
* * *
Kat picked up another piece of paper with the rental contact number on it. Travis must have made a whole sheet of them to place in Kat’s path throughout the week. She’d found one balanced on her toothbrush, another on top of the sodas in the cupboard, one on the driver’s seat of her car. When she discovered he had penned the number on the paper towels, she had to respond. How are you going to get to school? she typed.
His reply came lightning fast. Grandfather.
I can’t ask him to drop everything and be your chauffeur.
I can Uber.
You’d have to get your license.
Jack had been complaining about Travis’s lack of interest in driving for years. Though shuttling Travis was inconvenient, Kat insisted they let Travis decide for himself when he was ready to drive. She herself hadn’t learned to drive until she was married. She was the only one of her friends who used a California state ID to get into clubs instead of a driver’s license. Kat took the lengthy pause as a sign of surrender and set down her phone.
It pinged, and she opened it to find a screenshot of the DMV homepage, “New Driver’s License” circled.
Then a picture of the mother-in-law unit popped up. I call, you call.
You call, I call, she fired back.
Calling…
Would he really?
* * *
Mixed feelings swirled through Wendy when Kat’s number lit up her screen. Her body still tingled with the thrill of knowing that Kat was thinking of her, but then she reminded herself of how frustrating it had all been and was able to level herself out and answer as the supportive friend.
“Enjoying your day off?” Kat asked.
Wendy studied her voice finding that she still sounded excited but not the full-throttle excited she’d been on their last call. “I am,” Wendy said. Did she add that she wished her plans involved Kat? No, Jack’s wedding had shut that down. “I was throwing together a salad for lunch.”
“Oh.” Kat sounded disappointed. “I’m in Glendale and was going to ask if you’d eaten yet.”
“You’re right around the corner! Did you want to grab something together? I know a great deli.”
Kat didn’t respond immediately. “Could I maybe bring something out your way? I wanted to get your advice about something, but it’s kind of hard to talk about.”
“Kat, do you want to come here?” Wendy glanced around her house. It was presentable, but she hesitated. What would it mean to have Kat in her home?
“I didn’t want to invite myself over.”
“Should I make more salad, or is that too green for you? I could make sandwiches.”
“Are there croutons involved?” Kat asked.
“I could arrange that.”
“I can handle green in a salad.”
Wendy gave Kat her address and gathered more salad fixings. It was just waiting to be dressed when she saw Kat’s big SUV pull up in front of her house.
At the door Kat smiled broadly and gave Wendy a hug with warmth somewhere in between the professional welcome hugs she’d received at Kindred Souls and the passionate embrace they’d shared on the bridge. She told herself not to overanalyze whether it tipped more toward cool or hot and instead focused on how Kat looked like she had a lot on her mind.
“This is the cutest place I have ever seen. It’s like walking into a magazine picture.”
“Thanks. It was turnkey when I bought it, and my dad’s wife helped me a lot with the decorating.”
“She has good taste.”
Wendy marveled at the way Kat traced her finger over the chairs and table much like her dad did. If they ever met, maybe they would talk about furniture design. They made light small talk as Wendy dressed the salads, and then they sat down to eat. Wendy took it as a personal victory that Kat did not reject the baby spinach she’d mixed with the red leaf lettuce.
“My son thinks I should live here.” She pushed her phone toward Wendy.
Wendy looked at the address. “You were looking at it before you called?”
Kat nodded. “It’s in my budget, and it does seem perfect.”
“Did you say that he thought it would be perfect for you, not the two of you?”
“He wants to stay with my parents.”
Wendy sat back, surprised. “I didn’t see that coming. I guess it makes sense that he wouldn’t want to be at his dad’s right now. But he’d really stay with his grandparents? How do you feel about that?”
“Scared. Self-conscious. Sad. But mostly scared.”
“What scares you?”
“Leaving him with them. I don’t know if they can manage these days. My mom’s so fragile, well at least mentally. And my dad… I told you we were at his boyfriend’s when Ava…”
“Yes, I remember.”
Kat pulled her hair over her shoulder and swiped a section of it across her lower lip, lost in thought. Finally, she took a deep breath and spoke. “My dad says it was the way she hit her head that killed her. It was instant. He has said over and over again that it wasn’t anybody’s fault. They told me it wasn’t my fault.” She noticed what she was doing with her hair and folded her hands in her lap. Wendy scooted her chair closer and placed her hand on top of Kat’s. “I had to leave Ava unconscious in the pool so I could run inside. They couldn’t hear me calling.”
“They weren’t with you?” Wendy asked.
“They were inside. They couldn’t hear me from the pool. It was late. Ava wanted to swim with the lights. Antòn’s pool had underwater lights, and she’d always wanted to swim there at night. Once I turned thirteen, we were allowed to swim together. The buddy system, you know? I didn’t want to go. I…”
“It’s okay,” Wendy said when Kat couldn’t seem to finish the thought. She put an arm around Kat’s shoulder. “You don’t have to say…That must have been…” She blew out a long breath. She couldn’t find the words, either.
“I did
n’t want to tell you any of this. I never wanted to tell anyone.”
“Why?”
“Because I thought it would make you like me less or make you reconsider wanting to be with me.”
“Why would I think that?”
“Because I didn’t stop her.”
“You were thirteen and your dad left you alone in the pool with your little sister. He trusted you.”
“He made a mistake.”
“I’m looking at you and wondering how you managed to weather it all as well as you have. You are amazing and wonderful, and your parents’ mistakes are theirs. They may have made some big ones, but they are their mistakes, not yours.”
“I’ve tried really hard not to make any mistakes, and now Travis wants to live with them, and I won’t be there to protect him.”
Wendy had been wondering when Kat said she hadn’t ever wanted to tell anyone, why she would have decided to tell her today. Now she understood that Kat was scared to leave her child with her father. “You don’t trust your parents?”
“How can I?”
They sat in silence as Wendy weighed all that Kat had chosen to share with her. “You made it,” she finally said. “He’s almost eighteen, isn’t he? And he’d only be responsible for himself. Don’t you think he’ll be fine?”
“You’re saying I’m fine?”
Wendy wasn’t sure whether she was supposed to say yes or no, and Kat’s expression was utterly serious. “Fine is the wrong adjective. I think you’re amazing. I think you’re strong. I think you’ve got a whole hell of a lot to work through, and if I can help in any way, now you know where I live.”
Kat laughed. “I don’t know how much of that I agree with, but thanks for your offer. I appreciate that you listened.”
“Anytime. I mean that. Anytime you need to talk, I’m here.”
“Do you think it would be a mistake to leave him? I feel like it would be so selfish of me to abandon him there.”
“Wasn’t it his idea?”
“Yes.”
“Then that’s not abandoning him. It’s treating him like the grown-up he’s going to be one day.”
“Some days I think he’s going to make it there before I do.” Kat looked like she was going to rest her head on Wendy’s shoulder, but instead she stretched and stood. “Thank you for understanding. About this and about what was happening with us. I think about you all the time.” Her gaze fell to Wendy’s lips, and Wendy remembered how delicious Kat’s body had felt pressed to hers. “Being with you was like being seventeen again, with no responsibilities. It was so tempting to give myself over to what I was feeling with you, but I didn’t get it right back when I really was a teenager. I need to get it right this time.”
“I meant what I said about how strong you are. You’re so much stronger than I even knew. You deserve the do-over you want.”
She hugged Wendy again, and then she was gone, trotting down Wendy’s steps and pulling out into traffic. Of all the things Kat had shared, the one that resurfaced was how she thought about Wendy. She thinks about me. A small smile ticked up the edge of her mouth. When she was young, she had played the “he loves me; he loves me not” game pulling petals off daisies. She’d learned so much since those days, that it was a she and not a he that captured her interest and that far, far before love was the question of whether Kat’s thoughts mirrored hers. Wendy had noticed the way Kat had looked at her lips, and she heard Kat’s words again. I think about you all the time. That made two of them.
* * *
Kat sat at the top of the basement stairs listening to Travis practice his guitar. He couldn’t hear her, and the way the chords came and went, she could tell he had his headphones on. She closed her eyes and waited for the pieces of the song to come together. She knew the number, and it didn’t take long for it to surface. “It’s been a hard day’s night,” she began to sing along softly, tapping out the percussion.
Hoping he wouldn’t feel like she was invading his space, she descended and sat down at the drum kit. He may or may not have heard her footfall on the stairs, but when she synched to his rhythm with her kick drum, she heard his slight hesitation. He was reaching the end, but Kat hoped he would keep playing as she added in the snare and cymbals as best she could.
He stopped and pushed back the curtain that separated his room from the storage space at the bottom of the stairs. “You need to practice, Mom.”
“If I’d known you were learning something I could actually keep up with, I would have been!”
He shrugged and sat down on the basement stairs. He started back at the beginning of the song, and Kat joined him, singing along easily.
His mouth pulled to the side the way it did when he was pleased but didn’t want her to know. Once they had limped through the song, she asked if they could play another. He surprised her by laying his guitar flat on his knees. “Have you thought about it?”
“Only every single day. I worry, you know. What if something happened and I wasn’t here?”
Travis practiced a finger-picking pattern on random chords. “You can’t protect me every minute of every day. You never could. And I’m almost an adult. What’s going to happen when I’m eighteen? Are you going to go to college with me to make sure I’m safe there?”
“There’s an idea!” The cowlick she had fought with since day one spiked straight up from his forehead, and Kat resisted the urge to pat it down.
“I’m not asking to live by myself, Mom. I’m asking you to let me stay here so I can finish high school with my friends. I’ll be living with two…at least one capable adult.” Before Kat could decide which grandparent he meant, he added, “Between the two of them, I have what I need, and that isn’t much. I can take care of myself.”
“You can’t cook.”
“Neither can you!”
“I can at least go buy food.”
“So you can come by once a week to stock us up on food. And Gramma has her phone. She won’t let us starve.”
“You make it all sound so reasonable, and it’s a seriously cute place. I went to take a look.”
“What? I thought we’d go together.”
“This is my place, remember?”
“Oh.” He looked down at the fret, but then his head snapped right back up. “Wait! Your place? Does that mean you rented it?”
“I said I’d call tonight to let them know.”
Travis jumped up and high-fived her. She could not imagine how a child of hers could be so confident and self-assured.
“So I should call?”
“Right now! And then pizza to celebrate!”
“Let’s run this idea by Gramma while I cook dinner.”
“Wait. You’re cooking?”
“Don’t get too excited. I just picked up some spaghetti sauce and noodles.”
“You know how to boil water?”
“If you’re trying to make it easier to leave you here, it’s working!”
She followed him up the stairs relishing the sound of his laughter.
Chapter Twenty-One
May began with Kat signing the lease for her grandma unit. For the first time, she stood there alone. From the outside, it didn’t look like much, a square tan box behind the main house. The gate opened to a small patch of dirt carpeted in the purple blossoms of a giant jacaranda in the neighbor’s yard. Kat was relieved that the place would require no gardening expertise. The living room windows faced the street, and the door faced the front unit, though the houses were separated by a six-foot wooden fence. She pictured a bar table and stool she could use to enjoy an evening meal outside.
Inside, she was not in the least bothered by the stacks of boxes that surrounded her. She smiled remembering Travis’s offer to help her get settled. He had been ready to reassemble her bed frame or put her dishes away, but she’d only allowed him to help her move the couch and the bamboo TV cabinet. He had wanted to connect the TV, but she assured him that it could wait. As excited as she was to have the move c
ompleted, her chest had hurt driving Travis back to her parents’ house. “It feels too far,” she said as they crept back over the Sepulveda Pass.
“We talked about this, Mom. You don’t want to fight traffic every day to get to Pasadena. It’s going to be fine.”
She had to laugh at the role reversal. Kat had only ever moved twice before, to the house with Jack and back home again. Jack had coordinated the first move, and Kat remembered consulting him at every step as they settled in. Moving back into her childhood room, she’d been so overwhelmed that her father had done most of the work fitting in the pieces of her married life. He had simply made it all happen as she stumbled through her days.
Now every choice was hers, including where to start. She tucked her scallop-edged round table by the couch and pulled out a lamp that had stayed packed since her move back home. She searched through her jewelry box for the tiny iron frog. When she found it, she settled onto the couch and balanced it on the tip of her pinky.
When she and Ava were young, they loved to listen to the Smothers Brothers tell Aesop’s fables. Kat’s favorite was the story of the two frogs, one impulsive and one who always looked before he leapt. Kat had always thought the older frog was so wise and identified with it. Having spent her life refusing to leap out on her own, Kat now saw the wisdom in taking a risk.
Her phone startled her out of her reminiscence.
“How’s the move?” Wendy asked.
“Exhausting, but I’m home now, and I’ve started to unpack.”
“Do you have food?”
Kat frowned in the direction of the kitchen. “My mom sent me with the staples.”
“Dare I ask?”
“A case of Diet Coke, a loaf of white bread, butter, sugar.”
Wendy’s rich laugh filled the line. “Stop! Stop! That is insanity.”
“It’s her version of being supportive.”
“Would you mind if I supplemented her staples?”
Though her stomach growled, Kat hesitated. She still very much wanted to set up her place without help. But it would be rude to turn down Wendy’s offer. “That would be great,” she said.
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