Things made sense now. Jessie. The men I’d slept with. The way he’d disappear from my life for days after them.
And Frankie. Frankie had been his attempt at… what. A normal life? Something that wasn’t me?
I didn’t like Frankie, I discovered. At all.
Three days. He let me have three days.
Three days of him smiling at me.
Three days of trying to figure out the hidden meaning of every text he sent me.
Monday and Tuesday, he was waiting for me on the dirt road as I walked home from work.
He said, “Hey, Ox.”
I blushed.
We walked home together, me trying to find the words to say this can’t happen and you deserve so much better than me and you were only ten, how could you do that, you were only ten years old, but unable to speak them aloud.
His hand often brushed mine and I thought to take it every now and then.
The third day, he wasn’t on the road.
I wanted to feel relieved.
Instead, I was disappointed.
Until I got home.
Mom had had the day off, the first in a long while.
So, of course, she was home when I got there.
And so was Joe.
Sitting at our kitchen table.
Wearing dress pants, a dress shirt.
And a bow tie.
Which, unbeknownst to me, turned out to be one of my greatest weaknesses.
I walked into the kitchen door at the sight of that.
“Huh,” Mom said. “Things are starting to make sense now.”
I rubbed my sore nose as I scowled at the both of them. “What’s going on?”
“Joe asked if he could speak with me,” Mom said.
“I brought her flowers!” Joe blurted out, sounding breathless and nervous.
“And he brought me flowers,” Mom agreed, tilting her head toward the vase sitting on the table, filled with irises, her favorites. How he’d found that out, I’d never know.
“Why are you bringing her flowers?” I asked.
“Because Mom said it was nice to do and would get her on my good side when I asked her if it’d be okay that I kept you for the rest of my life,” Joe explained. Then his eyes widened. “Shit. That wasn’t supposed to come out like that.”