He took a long breath as he stepped inside. His eyes escaped theirs only when he turned to pull the door shut behind him. He lingered, his fingers still touching the doorknob, and it went on too long for anyone to miss it.
It was too much, and he knew it. He couldn’t juggle so many different versions of himself in front of so many people. The person Leah expected, the person Rylee knew he was hiding, the person his mother remembered, the person his roommates had seen him become. The real Jonathan wasn’t even there anymore.
He couldn’t protect everyone, not anymore. If he had to start burning bridges, at least doing so would keep them safe. It had been a long time coming, and something had to give.
Resolve came to him with one simple thought: The hell with it.
Jonathan felt as though he wanted to laugh one of those hysterical laughs that only came when one was too tired to fight what seemed an unchanging inevitability. He wasn’t sure what he had given in to, didn’t know what he was about to say, but he wasn’t that worried about it anymore.
When he turned around, he said the only thing that seemed natural, “Mom! So nice to see you. But really, you should have called first.”
When Jonathan stepped inside, Evelyn saw him in the light. He hardly resembled the son who had left home for school. He seemed so much older, his hair cut short, shoulders thickened with muscle, face absent of its softness but cut now with hard lines. He looked more like his father when he’d come home from Libya.
In the past, catching glimpses of her late husband in Jonathan brought her a sentimental smile. There was no such nostalgia for the reflection of Douglas she was seeing now.
Jonathan came toward them, his face shifting between reluctance and acceptance, the feeling in his eyes becoming empty as he reached for the one free chair at the table. He pulled the seat out, turning it around to sit with the weight of his shoulders put onto the chair’s back.
Evelyn looked away from him for a moment, stealing quick glances at the two other women sharing the table. She had only briefly met them. The red head, Leah—her eyes seemed reluctant to wander from the table top. The foreign girl seemed to have the opposite reaction. She watched him as though eager for his eye contact.
“So, how was everyone’s day?” Jonathan asked.
Her son surprised her, and Evelyn found her face harden in annoyance when he made a blatant parody of normalcy.
“Pretty good,” Hayden replied.
“Same here,” Collin said. “Rylee and I went riding.”
And his buddies come to the rescue, Evelyn thought.
To be fair, Hayden had seemed genuinely oblivious, but she could tell Collin was following Jonathan’s lead. Evelyn sipped her coffee. Her son couldn’t keep his friends in the room forever.
“Collin, you have no sense riding one of those death machines,” Evelyn said, then looked over to Rylee. “What’s your excuse, dear?”
“To be fair,” Rylee said, “It’s only dangerous if you drive like Collin.”
The joke got a laugh, but it was cut short when Paige cleared her throat. “Where did you two go anyway?”
Collin and Rylee exchanged a knowing look. “Secret,” Collin said. “Mission of mercy…”
“Mission of mercy?” Jonathan asked.
Collin grinned. “We’ll tell you about it,” he said, clearing his throat as Paige had a moment before. “Later.”
The conversation broke off abruptly, and Evelyn wondered if the tension in the room was building for everyone, or if she was simply imagining it the longer the silence went on.
Paige drummed her fingers against the table, appearing annoyed, but she halted shyly, seeing the noise had drawn everyone’s attention to her. Jonathan opened his mouth to speak, but Leah beat him to it.
“So Evelyn, how long did you plan to be in town?” Leah asked. “Maybe the two of us could find some mischief while all these busy bodies are out?”
Her son blinked as he looked at the girl, but Leah avoided his eyes and kept them on Evelyn.
“I’d love that, dear. Not sure how long I’ll need to be in town yet, though,” Evelyn said. “Could be awhile….” She trailed off and glanced at Jonathan, expecting some reaction to the news that she planned to stay as long as it took. Somewhat disturbingly, her son was a blank wall. “And I haven’t checked into a hotel yet.”
“Oh, nonsense,” Paige said. “You can take my room.”
Evelyn smiled graciously as Jonathan tongued the side of his teeth. “So polite of you to offer, as it would seem my own son hadn’t thought to.”
Jonathan grinned, looked as though he was preparing an empty apology, when Paige interrupted him. “Well, in Jonathan’s defense,” she said, “he is already sleeping on the couch on account of Rylee.”
“Oh?” Evelyn said, reexamining the girl beside her. “But if Jonathan is already on the couch, then where will you sleep, dear?”
“Hmm. I don’t mean to impose on you, Leah, but maybe we could put Jonathan in your guest room?”
Evelyn stifled a frown—it seemed quite peculiar that Paige had not requested a bedroom for herself. Perhaps Evelyn was simply from an older generation, but it was improper to try and push a young man into the girl’s home. A look to the faces at the table seemed to indicate that everyone else felt the same, as Leah, Rylee, and Jonathan all appeared quite uncomfortable with the idea.
Though, as Evelyn looked at Leah, she noticed that the girl appeared more chagrined than uncomfortable when she smiled back at Paige.
“I’ll be fine on the floor,” Jonathan said.
“Evelyn,” Leah said. “How about you come stay in the guest bedroom tonight?”
“Oh dear, thank you. But please, only if it isn’t any trouble.”
“No, of course not, no trouble at all. It’s too late to send you looking for a hotel room and I never get a chance to use my guest bedroom anyway,” Leah said. “Come on, we’ll grab your bags and get you settled.”
It was hard to miss that Leah stared fixedly at Paige as she said the words. Evelyn stood to follow Leah, but found herself wondering if some sort of chess game had just played out in front of her. As she left the room, she watched her son. He looked away, shutting his eyes. They stayed closed until she was gone.
He hadn’t asked her along, but Rylee followed him into the garage. She hadn’t expected he would take so long getting home and they were overdue for a conversation more involved than deciding where everyone would be sleeping.
“Where have you been all night?” she asked.
Jonathan was lethargic, seeming to move slower from one moment to the next. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I meant to come home after work.” He sat on the edge of his bench and slouched, the fingers of one hand pressing against his forehead.
“Rough day, then?” she asked.
A breath escaped him like a sardonic chuckle. “Yeah. Long talk with Mr. Fedora.”
Rylee’s eyebrows raised. “There a problem?”
Jonathan drew in a long breath and nodded, his gaze still on the floor. She hadn’t seen him like this. It occurred to her that she was the only person he could allow to see him in such a state—anyone else would start asking questions he couldn’t answer. Rylee knelt in front of him, wanting her eyes to be what he saw once he looked up.
“I’m sorry, Rylee,” he said, shaking his head. “Too much is coming at me at once. My mother will be in here giving me the third degree in a few minutes.” He looked up then, and she saw he hadn’t expected to find her face so close. “I just … I need to get myself together.”
Her curiosity regarding the alien’s visit quieted when she saw the anxiety in his eyes. He looked like he needed a place to hide, like he wished time would stand still and give him a moment to think clearly.
She didn’t think Jonathan could know how deeply she had seen into him. After all, she was just as in the dark of what he had seen of her. Yet, she knew well the frictions he endured to find balance with the people in his life. Rylee unde
rstood it intimately. Jonathan was unceasingly at odds with the knowledge that all would be simpler if he let his attachments to people fade away. Rylee had thought that once, knew better now, and didn’t want to let him follow her down that road.
Life might be simpler, but it quickly ceased to be livable.
She said nothing as she stood, coming around to straddle the bench behind him. She reached out gently, putting her finger tips onto his shoulders.
At first he stiffened at her touch, and Rylee bit her lip, afraid that he would pull away. She felt his hesitation, wished she could hear his unspoken confusion. He didn’t pull away though, and she pressed her finger tips gently against the tension in muscles—lightly at first, but as more time passed in silence, the stiffness in his shoulders began to fade.
Neither spoke. She wanted to share his burden, so that it wouldn’t feel so heavy… he seemed to want to flee from it. Rylee feared that since no more than a day had passed since he’d found her staring at a bottle of pills, he would not think of her as a safe place to drop the weight.
She needed him to know she wasn’t fragile, that if he trusted her it would only make her stronger—but it was fairly obvious that this was not the moment to make her case. Right now, kindness was all she could give him. So, she pressed further into the tension in his shoulders, trying to calm him, help him through this moment that overwhelmed him.
She heard him swallow before he whispered, “Thank you.”
They both heard it when the front door opened and footsteps came toward the garage. She pulled away, standing to lean against a cabinet a few feet behind him. He wouldn’t have said that he was afraid, that he didn’t want the others to see her show him any affection. She knew, and it bothered her, but whatever was on his mind, getting caught with her hands on his back seemed rather small in comparison. She didn’t want to undo what little tension she may have relieved by giving him something he’d feel responsible explaining should the arc-welding red head walk through the door.
Jonathan took a long breath and stood, drawing himself up to his full height. A smile touched her face as she stood behind him and saw strength coming back to the surface. His shoulders drew back, his posture improved … and his face became a wall.
Then, it was as he’d said—Evelyn opened the door and walked down the stairs. She held a cardboard box in her hands. Her eyes had been on Jonathan, but they grew distracted as she took in the room around her. It was as though she’d walked in knowing what to expect and found that she didn’t recognize the place.
“Rylee,” Jonathan said. “I need to speak privately with my mother. Would you mind giving us the room for a moment?”
“Sure,” Rylee said, bowing her head slightly to Evelyn as she left.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
“WE BOTH KNOW why you’re here,” Jonathan said. “You’re wasting your time. I don’t have anything to tell you.”
His mother walked to a countertop lining one of the garage’s walls and set down the box. She lingered over it for a moment, her back still turned to him. “You owe me an explanation,” she said.
“If I had one,” Jonathan said, “I would have answered my phone.”
She drew in a long breath and exhaled before she turned to look at him. He was prepared to face her anger, but her expression caught him off guard. He only saw worry and it hurt him. “I was so angry driving up here. Furious. I couldn’t imagine you had the gall to ignore me. My son, he calls me, tells me he is dropping out of college, that he has purposely waited until there was nothing I could do about it. Then, he just stops answering his phone. What did you expect would happen?”
Jonathan didn’t answer her, and when Evelyn realized he didn’t intend to, she shook her head
“You’ve never rebelled, done something so immature. You’ve never just up and quit something like this.”
Again, she watched him, but he gave no sign that he planned to reply.
“I thought, there must be something else,” she continued. “That you must have gotten into trouble. Maybe it was drugs, or you’d gotten some girl pregnant. That you were too ashamed to tell me, to ask for help.”
She waited after the words, her eyes boring into his for some reaction. He didn’t so much as flinch, went on waiting for her to finish her piece. Waiting for her to realize that she couldn’t force an answer out of him.
“I was so angry for that more than anything,” Evelyn said. “To know my son needed help and wouldn’t tell me.”
Jonathan drew in a long breath as he listened, then let it out slowly. When she didn’t speak again, he stopped holding her eyes and turned away, beginning to busy himself with the disorder of the work out equipment around them. It gave his hands something to do while his mother’s stare bore into him.
“I called Paige,” Evelyn said.
That gave him a moment of pause. Paige hadn’t told him about this. He really shouldn’t have been surprised. It made sense really, and partially explained why Paige had been upset with him lately. Unfortunately, there were details Paige could have betrayed—his mother might know more than he had realized.
“I demanded she tell me what was going on. That poor girl, she tried to lie to me, tell me everything was fine. I’ve never been so angry with her. I could hear her trying not to sob on the other end of the line!”
People will get hurt, Jonathan reminded himself. You can’t keep going without burning a bridge eventually.
“Finally, do you know what she says?” Evelyn asked. “That you had forbidden her. That your friendship hinged on her not saying anything to me. I couldn’t believe my son would say such a terrible thing to a friend of his.”
To this, Jonathan did feel he needed to set the record straight. “I never said it—only implied it.”
“Why would you put her in a position like that?”
Jonathan let out a long breath, knowing he should have remained silent. He should have let her realize that he would allow the silence to continue until she had her fill of it.
“Why are you acting this way?” she asked. “What could be so important that you would let me worry like this? Do you think you’re being a man? Why does your face look so…?”
Jonathan felt the dull hurt of her concern as she trailed off, felt the pressure of it push against the wall between them.
“I know that look, Jonathan,” Evelyn said. “I lived with it for years after your father came back from the fighting. I would rather see you drop out of college a hundred times before I would have you look at me that way.” She choked on a sob.
You can’t, Jonathan thought. You have to let her cry.
“He was a grown man, Jonathan! He’d been in a damn war! I never demanded he tell me what had happened, what could have changed him so much. What I imagined was far worse than the reality could have ever been.” The silence continued, until it became too much. “What makes you think you have the right to look at me like that!”
Finally, he turned to face her, knowing that the very face she said he had no right to wear was what she would see. He saw regret creeping over her. She had been trying not to yell, but she’d slipped.
She bit her lips and looked away from him. “Jonathan, I can’t just leave it alone. What could have done this to you? What could hurt you so much that it’s like you aren’t even there anymore? That you just don’t care how much this is hurting me?”
A trickle of guilt slipped past his barrier. He retracted from it as though she had placed his hand in a fire. He closed his eyes and drew deeper into himself before he opened them again. Disgust had replaced the wall he had held between them. Good intentions or not—guilt was the last weapon his mother should have tried with him.
He knew guilt. Had a profound relationship with it. Guilt that seldom let him sleep through the night. He had been looking into the dead eyes of a child for months. He’d been a coward while she had been torn apart. He couldn’t make his peace with it; he couldn’t allow himself to forget the lessons it taught him
. In the next few days, he was going to tell Rylee to leave, knowing full well what it might lead her to do to herself. Adding the guilt of his mother’s concern was like a soft rain over a roaring ocean. He was surprised he’d felt it at all. There was a pause as he thought these things, and when he spoke, his voice had become a cruel whisper.
“You never asked Dad what he’d seen,” Jonathan said. “You were right not to bother. He wouldn’t have told you.”
Evelyn’s expression wavered, seeming not to know how to react to the chill in his voice. “Why?”
“Some things get worse when you share them,” Jonathan said. “Dad was wise enough not to forget that.”
Evelyn looked at him and waited, seeming to hope that if he had said this much, he might say more.
“Mother,” he said, “there is not enough guilt in the world to make me forget it, either.”
The soft tone he used made her shiver and retract as though he had yelled at her.
They stared at each other for a long while. Jonathan watched as gears moved in her head. He saw a measure of defeat come over her, his defenses dropping a bit as she saw this conversation drawing to a close.
His mother started to turn away. “Douglas didn’t look like that forever,” she whispered.
She hadn’t been looking, didn’t see that her words had made him flinch.
“It’s not the type of thing you tell your son,” Evelyn said. “Your father, he may not have told me everything, but eventually, he stopped hiding behind his face. It took time, but he brought himself back from it. I remember the day I started to see my husband again.”
Jonathan wanted to deny it, pretend he wasn’t desperate to know what his mother was hinting at. The tightness in his jaw unclenching, he swallowed before he spoke, “What are you…what are you getting at, Mom?”
“We had always talked about having children, Jonathan,” Evelyn said. “But when he came back, he had changed his mind.” She smiled sadly as she recounted the past. “He started saying the oddest things. Things he’d never had on his mind before. That the world needed more parents, not children. That it was narcissistic for us to need to see ourselves in the child we raised. He said, ‘It’s not life you should give a child, but a way of life.’ That he didn’t need a child to be his to call him son, to teach him about the world. He suddenly had a hundred reasons that we should adopt.”
The Never Paradox (Chronicles Of Jonathan Tibbs Book 2) Page 32
