Page 64 of Mom Com

I stand there for a long moment, not sure how to react.

“I’ve got him,” my mom confirms.

And the realization that I’m the one out of place in the room, leaves me feeling upside down. “Okay,” I say, trying to keep the upset out of my voice. “I’m here whenever you’re ready.”

I turn around, making my way into the kitchen, where I pace for the next twenty minutes, punctuated by shoving a cookie in my mouth and staring out the window uncomfortably. My thoughts flit to Liv and the will I’ve yet to obtain, wondering if maybe there’s a solution there that’ll make this easier. And by the time Mom and Spence show up in the doorway, her arm around his shoulder and Spence wiping his face on his sleeve, I’m dead set on that course of action.

“Spence?” I say, opening my arms, and he leaves my mother’s side, his head hanging, walking straight into my embrace. I bend down, holding him tight.

While Spence is mature, he’s also just a little boy, one who is deeply sensitive. And I’m his world. It’s been just the two of us his entire life.

I look up at my mother from where I hold Spence. “Mom, could you get the addendum for me? I want to be able to explain it to him.”

“Of course,” she says with a nod, and relief floods me. I asked her and we’re not having a blowup; at least there’s that.

A handful of seconds after my mother leaves, he pulls away from me, his face puffy. “I’d really like to talk to you now.”

“Great, because I really want to hear whatever you have to say,” I reply, motioning for him to sit with me at the small breakfast table.

He slides into the seat next to mine, taking a few seconds to collect his thoughts. “The thing is,” he says, “I really don’t want to leave my friends in California.”

I nod, my head dipping a little with the motion. “Totally understandable.” While the adult world isn’t fair, its blowback on the kid world is even less so. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you—”

“That really hurt my feelings,” he says with emphasis.

“I know, Spence. I feel terrible. I should have been up-front with you, even if I didn’t have a clear solution.”

“Grandma said that the bakery is really important to you because it was Grandpa’s and that you’d regret it if you lost it,” he says, and my hackles go up. Now she’s guilting my kid?

“Yes, the bakery is important to me, but that’s not something you need to figure out. That one is on me,” I assure him.

“And then there’s Dad,” he says with a pinch of hope that gives me pause. “I guess it’d be kinda great to live near him.”

I hesitate. It’s not that Jake hasn’t been showing up these past couple of weeks, but the chances of that lasting are slim to nil. I hadn’t put much thought into it, probably because I never seriously considered staying, but now that I hear Spence say it, it might be the number one reason to leave. While we lived in California, Jake’s absence could be written off as geography, but that excuse disappears when he’s a five-minute drive away.

“What I’m saying is,” Spence continues, “the more I think about it, maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to live here.” For a moment, I think I misheard him, but he continues, “Being near family actually sounds really nice.”

The air suddenly shifts and the room spins, my own opinion so deeply opposed to his that they don’t even share the same atmosphere. I stare at him for a long moment, trying to slow my galloping pulse. “I know moving isn’t your first choice—” I start, but he cuts me off.

“Actually, I think it is. I think we should do it.”

I freeze. I expected a lot of things from this conversation, but this absolutely wasn’t one of them. Shouldn’t I be relieved right now that I don’t have a crying kid who vows to never leave his friends? But relief is not what I’m experiencing—cold terror might be more like it. It squarely puts me in the “no” camp all by myself, with my mother, Spence, and everyone else standing on the other side of the line.

“Yes, well, it might not be as clear-cut as here or California,” I hear myself say, trying to regain my balance and searching for anything that will steady me. “There might be another option. I’m looking for one.”

His head tilts like he heard something that interests him. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, maybe we can go back and forth or maybe I can figure out a way to operate the bakery part of the time from California?” I hear the desperation in my voice, feel the resistance in my very being. Jake will disappoint Spence. I’ll be forced to live with my mother until I can get on my feet. The bakery. The guilt. The memories. My dad. This goddamn town. Wilder, a dangerous amount of Wilder.

“But how?” he asks.

“You remember Liv?”

“The woman whose car you hit?”

I nod. “I’m going to have her look at the will and see if there are any loopholes in the wording.” I don’t know why I’m telling him this; I know I shouldn’t get his hopes up before I know, but I can’t seem to stop myself. I’m like a large dog that sat down mid-walk, stubbornly refusing to budge, clinging to the sidewalk, and pronouncing it my new home.

But before Spence replies, his eyes move from me to something behind me, and my stomach fills with dread over what I just said because I know what I’ll find there, or rather who.