Coming Up For Air by Megan Hart

Author:Megan Hart [Hart, Megan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Chaos Publishing
Published: 2022-03-12T18:30:00+00:00

nineteen

The storms kept up, on and off, for the rest of the evening. It didn’t seem to dampen anyone’s spirits. If anything, the game room that had been set up for the kids allowed their parents to hang out with drinks from the bar, and everyone seemed pretty pleased with the arrangements. Even my Aunt Lou didn’t seem stressed out that the after-dinner activities outdoors had to be cancelled. She and my dad and their other sister, Cass, had been rolling with laughter looking at old family photo albums.

I’d gone to get some chips and snacks. When I returned, Tom wasn’t at the table we’d been sharing with Hank, Shawn, Sandy and her husband Jorge, who’d been in Tom and Bohdan’s high school class. I didn’t have to ask where Tom had gone off to. Hank pointed discreetly toward my mother, who was speaking animatedly to him over near the bar. His expression was solemn as he nodded at whatever she was telling him. He put a hand on her shoulder. The next thing I knew, she had her face pressed to his chest.

My embarrassment must have shown on my expression. Hank gave me a sympathetic smile. “Do you need to check on her?”

“No.” I turned my back on the scene and kept my voice as neutral as I could. “She’s emotional, and she likes to have someone to talk to about it. I just don’t want it to be me right now. Does that make me sound like a terrible daughter?”

My cousins all shook their heads. I swallowed a lump in my throat and risked a glance in my mother’s direction again. She wasn’t wailing, but she was talking to Tom again, her mouth twisted into a hard frown. Her face was red. She’d taken both of his hands in hers.

“I guess she didn’t realize Tom had stayed after the wedding,” Sandy told me after a hesitation.

“She didn’t speak to him, or mention his name, for years,” I said stiffly. “She once told me that it should have been Tom, not Boh. Said it to him, too. Right to his face in the hospital room.”

“Oh.” Hank and his boyfriend shared a look. “That’s rough.”

Shawn frowned. “I hope she’s not saying anything like that to him now.”

“No, I don’t think so. But she is talking about Bohdan. I heard her say his name,” Jorge said.

I drew in an uncomfortable breath. “I guess I should go rescue him.”

Turned out I didn’t have to. Whatever Tom had said to my mother seemed to release him from her clutches. He made his way back to the table. None of us said anything about what had been going on, and Mom joined my father and his sisters to look at the album.

Later, though, when Tom and I had said our goodbyes and gone back to my cabin, after we had locked the door behind us and made sure all the curtains were drawn, and after we’d ended up together in my bed, I said, “You don’t have to let her do that to you.

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