The last time he’d left Pretty’s front door he’d taken every back road he could find, hoping he might get lost. Postponing the inevitable of facing his mother, delivering the same confession he’s just given Pretty: admitting that after she’d boxed up his ring, refused to wear it in public, that he’d had a temper tantrum. Gotten piss drunk. Went to The Crank without her.
Slept with Shirl.
An indiscretion he’d instantly regretted. Had hoped to keep secret. But…
But he’d just had to tell Pretty what Shirl had told him.
“She’s…pregnant?” Pretty’s summer meadow eyes, big and baffled, had searched him. Not computing. Not believing.
That, more than anything, had made it feel like his guts were being ripped out through his heart. Especially when—“But I love you,” she said.
“I love you too. Pretty, I…” His voice had splintered. “I think I’ll only ever love you.”
To this day that was true.
But back then—and up till now—he had done the right thing. And that night, the right thing had looked like leaving her on her porch, not holding a flannel shirt but instead his ring. “Keep it,” he’d begged. “Don’t forget me.”
Then, like now, he’d landed at Classy Chassis—except back when he was seventeen his mom, Boss, had been there. He remembered the way his boots were so heavy as he dragged himself up to where she’d sat outside. Watching him. Smoking. And as she’d squinted through the cloud from her menthols, he knew that she already knew.
“Joseph,” she’d said. “You’d better sit next to me.”
He’d obeyed without hesitation.
“They say a man feels less threatened when you sit shoulder to shoulder instead of face to face.” She’d glanced at him through streams of her smoke. “And you’re a man now, they say.”
Who was ‘they’? Who had told?
“And I’d suspect you don’t need any more threat than what you’re feeling right now,” she added.
He had tried to form words but…none came.
Boss exhaled, a blue cloud. “What did your Pretty say, Joe?”
That had broke him and he’d had to stare straight ahead. Couldn’t so much as swallow. “She’s…not my Pretty anymore,” he’d choked, and remembered, to this day, how it sounded like he spoke through a mouth of ground glass.
“No,” Boss said quietly. “I guess not.”
Words had tumbled inside his head. Things like—I didn’t want this to happen. Didn’t mean it to happen. I was stupid and selfish and sorry. So sorry. He’d thought all of it, but said none of it. Why bother? It had all been so obvious by then.
His mother exhaled, a plume of smoke. “Whatcha gonna do now?”
He’d held his breath as if an answer he hadn’t thought of might fall from the sky. When one didn’t, he said, “The…right thing?” It had teetered out like a question and, looking back as an adult, he knew now that he’d been hoping somehow that his mom would tell him he didn’t have to.
But she didn’t. Instead—“So you’ll marry her then.”
His belly went black. Married. It was supposed to be Pretty. He’d proposed to Pretty. Still—“If that’s what Shirl wants,” he’d rasped.
“She does,” Boss said briskly. “But I told her and her folks that you’ll finish school first.”
So that’s how she knew. Shirl’s parents had been here. “Boss…” Shame gutted him. “I should have been here. Faced that music.”
His mom snorted, scattered smoke. “You were out having to sing a whole other song.”
Yeah. One that made his throat bleed.
“And you shouldn’t always have to dance alone,” she added, soft.
To this day, whenever he was stressed or lonely, he longed for the smell of menthol smokes.
“Joseph,” she’d said. “There is something decent gonna come of this. Something more than a horny teenage boy and a scheming little bitch.”
“Jesus, Mom!” He’d flinched. “Shirl—”
“Fifty-fifty, my bony ass!” Boss exploded then. “This one’s easily sixty-forty. Maybe seventy-thirty. And I’m not saying that ’cause you’re my boy. I’m saying it because of the self-satisfied smile she had on her goddamn face.” Boss exhaled, a fury of menthol. “You should have kept your damn belt buckled,” she snapped.
Oh, he knew.
“But that baby didn’t ask to be a mistake. Or to be unwanted.”
His Steven. His easy-going first-born who’d end up spending so much time with Boss that many of her gruff mannerisms—and love of smoking—would become part of the man he was today. Joe loved him deathlessly, and that night—“I’ll…be a good dad,” he told Boss, although this too had wobbled out like a question.
“You’ll be the best dad,” she said. “And I’ll help you.”
The sweet relief he’d felt from that promise…he wondered if Boss ever knew how much that meant to him. Maybe. Because as they’d sat there, silent, she’d reached for his hand. As she’d held it, his voice cracked. “It hurts, Mom,” he’d said.
She’d sighed, a minty cloud of blue smoke. “Nothing breaks like hearts or dreams, Joe. Not a single goddamn thing.”
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