Fourth Comings_ A Jessica Darling Novel - Megan McCafferty [93]
My father, left behind. On his bike. Blindsided, bewildered, bereft.
She honked impatiently in the driveway. I sprinted down the stairs, grabbing my overnight bag with one hand and the shopping bag filled with supplies in the other. I made it to the SUV’s door just before she took off without me.
“Jeez, Mom,” I said, still buckling my seat belt as she backed out.
“There’s a lot of traffic at this hour,” she said. “You wouldn’t believe how congested Route 9 can get.”
Usually I couldn’t think of anything to say to my mother. Today I had too much to say, but no right place to begin.
“Well, I’m in no rush,” I replied. “I don’t have anywhere to be until tonight.” I waited for her to ask me what I was doing tonight, but she was too busy honking her horn at the Prius that was going five miles below the speed limit. “I’m going to this, uh, karaoke party benefit thing with my friend Dexy from Columbia.”
“Oh, to be twenty-two years old and so unfettered,” she breathily singsonged. “All that freedom….”
Normally I would have spat back a snotty response about how I’m plenty fettered, but in light of my last night’s revelation about how completely fettered she was at my age, I held my tongue. “But when you have freedom you want security,” I said. “It’s the dichotomy of desire.”
“The what?” My mom’s face would have wrinkled if it were capable. “Jessie, you think too much.”
How many times have I heard that this week?
“You know, Mom, there are some people who look forward to their retirement years so they can be so unfettered,” I argued. “Being twenty-two isn’t all that great. You’re romanticizing my age because…” Because when you were twenty-two, you were already a wife and mother. I stopped myself.
“You can say it.”
“Say what?” I asked innocently.
“I know your father told you that I was pregnant with Bethany when we got married.”
If I had been driving, the car would have screeched to a dramatic halt. But my mother was behind the wheel, so we continued to gas-break our way down Route 9.
“Dad told you? When? After he went to bed?”
“Contrary to what you believe, Jessie, your father and I do talk to each other.” The SUV stopped at a red light and she turned to look at me. “I think you need to explain why you never mentioned Marcus’s proposal.”
I shrunk in my seat. “Dad told you that, too?”
“Obviously.”
“I didn’t tell you,” I said, “because I wasn’t sure what to do about it.”
I still don’t.
“How do you feel about Marcus?” my mom asked.
“I love him,” I replied. “How do you feel about Marcus?”
My mom tapped the steering wheel with her palm. “I think he is shaping up to be a fine man.”
“And?”
“It really seems like he’s getting his act together. It says a lot about a man’s character to overcome addictions. And it showed real initiative for him to apply to Princeton.”
I pressed my hands to my mouth in amazement. “Oh my God.”
“What?”
“Dad said the exact same thing.”
“Really?”
“Like the exact same words.”
“Hmm,” she said, nonplussed. “I also think that if I try to tell you what to do, you’ll do the opposite. And if I try reverse psychology, you’ll outsmart me. Do you, by chance, remember that punk kid Bethany dated in high school?”
I couldn’t believe it. The conversation was following the same pattern as the one I’d had with my dad two weeks ago. My parents certainly had their differences, but after thirty-four years together, they worked as opposite sides of the same brain.
“When does Marcus get back from his