Return To Me by Justina Chen

Author:Justina Chen
Language: eng
Format: mobi
ISBN: 9780316102551
Publisher: Little Brown Books for Young Readers
Published: 2012-12-20T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-One

As soon as we approached the main house, Grandpa oh-so-casually suggested that we take another circuit around the property so he could point out a few other sustainable features that might interest me. He didn’t fool me. I knew he wanted to check in on Mom, no different from the way Jackson was checking in on me with his most recent text: Call yourself a tea drinker all you want, but I know you’re sneaking in a cup of Kona….

“Good news?” Grandpa said over his shoulder when he noticed that I had fallen behind.

I grinned. “Great news. How’s your coffee?”

“Out of this world.”

“Really?” In my head, I automatically composed a response to Jackson, even though I didn’t send it: Reliable source says Kona is awesome. Stay tuned. Through the screen door, I spotted Mom tucked in the window seat with her computer. We hadn’t made a sound, but Mom must have sensed our presence, because she looked up immediately and motioned us inside.

Grandpa pounced on the breakfast basket I hadn’t seen at our feet, untouched on the welcome mat.

“You haven’t eaten,” he said, cradling the basket.

“I forgot,” Mom admitted.

“Well, come on, then,” he crowed almost gleefully. “I’ll make you something.”

At that, instead of touring me around, he ushered us straight to his house, where he pulled an aromatic soup from the refrigerator.

“Dad, since when do you cook?” Mom asked when Grandpa waved us to the rattan stools at the kitchen island. After pouring the soup into a pot, he filled heavy glasses with iced tea. I could smell the sweet hibiscus as the tea splashed over ice.

“Don’t believe the cynics who say people can’t change,” Grandpa said, and placed a tiny canister of raw cane sugar before us. He swiveled back to the cooktop to stir the soup. “And don’t believe breakfast purists for a second. Soup is the perfect morning food, a little protein, not too heavy. I hope you girls are hungry.”

“Better dig in, Mom, before Reid wakes up. You know he’ll eat everything,” I said.

Even more astonishing than Mom finishing the bowl of soup was her admission of truth: “Dad, Thom’s wiped out our savings.” A few weeks ago, that confession would have been a state secret if I were anywhere in earshot, but the boundaries of our relationship had blurred, no different from the weeks before graduation when teachers started talking to us as college students. Mom might not see me as an equal, an adult, exactly, but I was no longer a child who needed to be sheltered, either. I liked that.

Grandpa stopped chopping the spiny pineapple to give Mom his full attention. “What about your Synergy stock options?”

“We sold the last of them for the remodel, and the earlier options to diversify our portfolio. It takes a couple of bad investments before everything’s gone.”

“Bastard.”

“Dad!”

Grandpa set the knife on the bamboo cutting board and propped his hands on the counter. “How much do you need?”

“Dad, I don’t want your money.” Mom’s words were so sharp, her rejection so visceral, I could feel Grandpa’s hurt.

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