Nearly Broken (20 page)

“Just one more
day?”

“Just one more
day,” he parroted. He tried to give me a meaningful look, but
couldn’t hold it long enough, as he needed to focus on the road
before us.

Determined to stop
being a completely craptastic girlfriend, I encouraged, “So
tell me about your family. Did your dad really pass away?”

Eyes fixated on the
road, he solemnly replied, “Yes. When I was sixteen. Brain
cancer.”

“I’m so
sorry.” I pulled my hand free and used it to gently scratch the
back of his head, for which he immediately acknowledged with a soft
moan of approval. I was only fourteen then, so I knew he hadn’t
met me as Claire when that happened. “I wish I could’ve
been there for you.”

“Me too. Because
it came out of nowhere and took him fast. And I didn’t deal
with it as well as I should have.”

“Nick, there’s
no right way to deal with that. We just do it the way that comes
naturally, and that’s however our bodies require us to react to
get through it.” He simply nodded his head. I didn’t want
to push him anymore on the subject while he was driving, so I moved
on to something easier. “So is it just you and your mom? No
siblings?”

“Just me.”

Teasingly, I asked,
“Had you and quit, huh? You must’ve been a
real
terror growing up.”

“Or just so damn
cute they only had down to go,” he countered with a grin.

I chuckled, and the
release felt good, and by the smile lighting up Nick’s face,
the mood was definitely mutual. He spent the rest of the trip telling
me about his life pre-Claire: from playing baseball all his life,
from the arm he broke when he was twelve because he just had to jump
off a massive boulder with his skateboard and ended up tripping as he
landed, falling awkwardly on his upper body.

Time flew by and
suddenly, we were letting ourselves in through Nick’s childhood
one-story home. He closed the door behind us and called for his mom.
I heard a cheerful voice shout, “Coming!” right before
she appeared around the corner. Her face lit up and a cheerful grin
greeted us. Guess I now knew where Nick got those vivid green eyes
and woodsy brown hair color from. “Hi!” she called
excitedly, wrapping her son up in a hug and kissing his cheek. She
was about my height, so Nick’s six-foot-three height towered
over her a bit, too.

Then she turned to me
and her features softened. I had the feeling she was dialing down her
overzealous nature a notch for my benefit. “So I guess we’re
doing this like the first time, right?” She gently shook my
hand. “Hi, Megan. I’m Sam. It’s nice to meet you.
Again
.”

Call it instinct,
maybe even an unearthed memory scratching its way to the surface, but
I really liked this woman. She was clearly making fun of me, but at
the same time, not a drop of sarcasm tainted her voice, and a smile
naturally lifted my cheeks. “Nice to meet you too, Mrs. Ellis.”

Fake abhorrence
smothered her features. “Oh, no, honey. No, no. When someone
your
age calls me that, I feel ancient. Now I know you don’t
remember this, but you used to call me Mom. But if that’s too
weird for you, just call me Sam.”

Nick’s hand
reached around to snag my hip and pull me against him. I loved the
feel of his fingers splayed against my body, and the pressure as he
pulled firmly. “Okay,” I replied. “Then we’ll
start with Sam and go from there.”

“Perfect!”
she exclaimed, eyes wide as she clapped her hands together before
her. If this was her normal behavior, where in the hell did she get
all that energy?

“Mom?”
Nick asked cautiously. “Are you cooking?”

Whoops. There went her
ecstatic mood, her smile beginning to wilt as her forehead furrowed.
With a slight tone, she retorted, “Yes, Nickolas. I do
occasionally cook food in this house, but if you’d like to go
inspect it to make sure I’m not going to give myself
E.
coli
, knock yourself out.”

The way he pinched his
lips, I could tell he was really trying to stay put, but whatever the
thoughts were shouting off in his head, they won out. Once he was
gone, a quiet chuckle escaped Sam’s mouth. Then she winked and
beckoned me with a silent nod to follow her through the dining room
and into the kitchen.

Nick was standing over
the stock pot simmering away on the island, sniffing and tasting what
smelled like stew. “Well, it tastes alright, but it could use a
sprig of rosemary.”

Sam’s face
seemed to squish, turning her pressed smile my way. “A sprig.
Did you hear that? A
sprig
.” Turning her attention back
to Nick, she said, “If you’re not going to be calling the
health department on me, could you back away from the pot and let me
finish then?”

I tried not to laugh,
I really did. Nick’s hands went up in surrender and he stepped
off to the side. Sam took over at her work station, continuing to
chop carrots and skinned potatoes. “Hey. Since you’re
here, could you work your magic with the guest room toilet again?”

Groaning, he cried,
“Again?”

“Always.”

After rolling his
eyes, he asked me, “Will you be alright for a few minutes?”

Before I could even
form words, Sam swatted his chest. “Of course she’ll be
okay! What do you think I’m going to do to the girl? Feed her
my cooking?”

Deadpanned, he
replied, “Please don’t. She’s been through enough
already.”

I laughed as Sam
shoved her son a little harder, pushing him into motion. “Go
on. Get out of my kitchen and get to work.”

“Alright!”
Obviously trying to comfort me in case I was nervous, he added, “I’ll
be back in a few minutes.”

But seriously, what
was there to be nervous about? This woman was a hoot.

“Don’t
listen to him,” Sam told me once he was out of earshot, leaning
over the rectangular island that separated us. “Just between
you and me,” she said softly, “and Claire, because you
knew this before, too. But I can actually cook just fine. Some time
in his early teen years, he got interested in cooking. And the kid
was actually good at it! Call me a bad mom if you want, but I began
faking incompetence in the kitchen. I even threw together a few meals
I knew would stink to high heaven just so I could get him to take
over our family cooking full-time.”

My mouth fell open as
I gasped, but laughter was soon to follow. “That’s
horrible!” I yelled in a hushed tone, but with all the
giggling, the reprimand got lost.

“Yeah, it
probably was,” she conceded, “but hey, he may not be the
chef he is today if I hadn’t done that.” Oddly enough, I
couldn’t argue her logic. “Now that he’s gone, I
have to do my own cooking again. He thinks my turnaround is because
he taught me a few things, so he always likes to tease me when I’ve
got something cooking.” She threw a few handfuls of vegetables
into the pot, her face taking on a more saddened demeanor.

“You miss him,
don’t you?”

“Of course I do!
I know the two of you are only a few hours away, but still, I wish I
could see him more than just once a month.”

I leaned over the gray
Formica countertop. “You could always move to Portland.”

“I’ve
thought about it. And I know he’s considering finding a job
back here in Seattle, too.”

That stunned me. Say
what? “Really? He hasn’t mentioned that to me.”

“Then don’t
tell him I said that. He’s only considering it so you can be
closer to your family while you’re trying to reconnect with
them. He’s afraid seeing them once or twice a month won’t
be enough to help trigger those memories of yours.”

I sighed, long and
deep. It was sweet he wanted to take care of me, and I knew he had my
best interest at heart, but I’d hate for him to leave a job he
loved just to do that. Where was the fairness in that?

A moment of silence
ensued between us before Sam asked me, “So what are you going
to do now? Are you going to go to college?”

Shrugging and shaking
my head, I admitted, “I have absolutely no idea what to do with
my life anymore.”

Amused, she replied,
“Well, then college is perfect for you.”

“How so?”

“Where else can
you get a taste of every subject there is to offer? You don’t
have to know what you want to do to attend college. Take an art
class, a creative writing class, a business class. Whatever. Try
everything until you find something you like. And if you’d
rather work from home these days, go be a copy editor for those books
you like to read. Or a web page designer or a writer. Hell, go learn
how to write the code for those obnoxious video games the kids can’t
seem to get enough of. Don’t tell me those jobs can’t be
worked from home nowadays.”

“Sam, you are
just filled with excellent suggestions.”

She playfully shrugged
her shoulders and tipped her head. “Had to happen eventually.”

She winked just as
Nick came back into the kitchen, wiping his hands down with dark red
hand towel. “Alright, it’s fixed.
Again
. Just try
not to use it. The next time I come into town, I’ll rip out the
guts and replace them already.”

Her nose crinkled.
“Sounds gross. Is that expensive?”

“No. I can
probably do it for thirty bucks.”

“Oh, hell! If
I’d known it was that cheap, I would’ve had you do it a
long time ago!”

Turning his head, he
not so subtly muttered to me, “I was hoping to get out of it
but apparently, she’s never going to replace the damn thing.”

With a wink meant just
for me, Sam replied, “Oh, well, you know me. Helpless unless
you do it for me.”

My heart thumped as
Nick pulled to a stop in front of a white brick, two-story home. I
couldn’t help but grin over the thick, beautiful bushes of blue
hydrangeas that lined the front of the house.

“You ready for
this?” he asked me.

“Sort of. I want
to meet them, I just hope they’re not expecting too much from
me yet.”

“They’re
not. I warned them you still haven’t remembered anything.”

I nodded as I released
my seatbelt and slowly climbed out of the car. Nick was by my side in
an instant, already comforting me by squeezing my hand in his, like
he could transfer some of his confidence through our grasp. A young
boy rode up on his bicycle and came to a screeching halt when he saw
me. He was probably about twelve years old and just stood there
staring at me with wide gray eyes.

“Who’s
that?” I whispered.

“I think he’s
one of the neighbor’s kids you used to babysit sometimes. Can’t
remember his name though.”

I awkwardly waved at
the stunned boy as the front door opened and Mr. and Mrs. Whitaker –
uh, Mom and Dad – stepped out onto the porch patio. His arm was
wrapped firmly around her shoulders. If I wasn’t mistaken, it
was to keep her grounded, because she bobbed back and forth on her
feet, seemingly ready to bolt towards us.

“Relax. Your
parents are really great people.” That said, he pulled me up
the walk.

“What should I
say?”

“Whatever comes
to mind.”

I didn’t know
why, but I was absolutely terrified inside. The people standing
before me raised a daughter that was stolen from them, and the girl
coming back was completely different than the one they lost. I knew
they’d always love me, but would they ever love me as much as
they had Claire? How could they not long for the little girl they
carried around in their arms and tucked into bed each night?

And how could I ever
hold any of those feelings against them?

Two years, six
months, thirteen days since I was ripped from their lives, since any
memory of them began to fade into nothingness.

Those last few steps
were the hardest. I could now see their eyes clearly – calmness
coming from my father’s brown pair and elation beaming brightly
from my mother’s pair. My father was at least six feet,
somewhere in his fifties and had salt-and-pepper hair trimmed short.
My mother looked a lot like me, but with hazel eyes instead of brown,
and looked to be in her late forties.

Nick’s hand
released mine as he lifted it to shake my father’s, saying,
“Tom.” I think it surprised us all when he ignored the
gesture and wrapped Nick up in a firm hug instead, patting him loudly
on the back. I wasn’t sure what was said between the two,
because my mother was now free to sob, “My baby,” and
gently wrapped her arms around me. I breathed in her scent –
sweet vanilla. So overwhelmed, all I could manage was a simple, “Hi,”
in return and she responded by swaying our bodies right there for the
whole neighborhood to see.

A hand firmly rubbed
against the back of my shoulders. I expected it to be Nick’s,
but when I pried my head free from the death-grip my mother imposed,
I realized it was actually my father’s. My mother finally
released me and I was easily transitioned into my father’s
arms, who also leaned more towards a bone-crushing hug.