Me and Mom Fall for Spencer by Diane Munier

Author:Diane Munier
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 2015-02-28T00:00:00+00:00

Me and Mom Fall for Spencer

Chapter Twenty

In the truck on the ride home we are quiet. Ned is drowsy, sitting on the floor between Spencer’s legs.

Spencer has a hand on Ned, a hand on my shoulder.

I want to remind him…no pity. I want to say that, but of course I don’t.

“I know it’s yours…but it’s not cancer?” he says finally.

“No,” I say. Not breast cancer. He knows this. He’s just circling. He’s waiting for more.

“Are you going to say?” he asks.

I look at him briefly, shake my head.

“It’s a wound. It’s a bullet,” he says, “or a knife.”

People get mad at other people’s wounds when they love them…or think they do. I want to remind him again…no pity. Pity is the cheapest form of love. And I’d welcome his indifference over that.

So we drive quiet, his hand on my shoulder…there’s nothing else but the way he touches me now. He holds on to me. What I know, he understands. I think he does.

When we get home, wet and tired, he comes around to my side. I am stepping into my shorts. He watches. “You’re twenty-seven, right?”

I pull my shirt over my shorts, leaving them undone.

“Come home with me. I want to hold you. Like in the water.”

“Why?” But I know why…some of it. It’s not right. And it’s not wrong. It’s me…it’s him. He’s telling the truth. I felt it back there, his arms, his hands…I felt it. I slam the truck’s door.

“I haven’t held anyone for a long time…kept someone afloat,” he says.

“You mean me?” He’s keeping me afloat?

“Come on.”

“To have sex?”

He laughs a little.

“I have to know,” I say because logic is surfacing. But logic doesn’t work here. There is no logic for swimming at night, letting him see…when I hardly know him…when he lives next door, when I have so much to do. There is no logic I recognize here.

“To hold you,” he repeats. He goes back to his side and lets Ned out. He slams the door. “Come on,” he says.

I can’t see it, but I know Ned’s leash is wrapped around his hand.

I put on my shoes. I look at the house. She isn’t home yet. It’s getting late…for a teacher’s…aid. Spencer stood them up…Mom…the others…and she stayed and tied one on. She showed him…maybe me. Mom.

“I’m twenty-seven,” I say.

He’s just waiting, maybe too wise to say anything more.

I move toward him and Ned.

“Hold my hand?” he asks.

I reach for him and his fingers close over mine.

His house is dark except for a light in the living room.

“Bedroom’s in there,” he says.

I nod. “I know.”

“Or the couch…if you’d rather.”

“Bed’s fine.”

“You can take a shower,” he says.

“If I went home I could get some things,” I say.

“What do you need?” he asks.

I look at my legs, grungy from the lake. I need everything. Or nothing. I don’t know what I need.

He is nervous I think. I’m not. I know I should be. I am worried about my work. “I need my laptop.”

“If you go over there and she comes….

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