“I really would love it if you would stop prefacing her name with ‘that,’” he said, unsure where the comment had come from. “Please, ma’am,” he added by way of softening his criticism.
“All right,” she said, softly, not taking her eyes from his. “My apologies.”
“No problem.” A moment of awkward silence fell between them. “And actually no, she doesn’t know yet. I have to tell her. Today.”
“Oh, well, you’d best be on your way then.” She plucked the bottle out of his grip so fast he hardly saw her do it. “You and that...um, you and your fiancée have things you need to discuss as adults, and sober.” She plunked the bottle down on the goofy round table with the floor lamp sticking out of its middle that had occupied the space at her left elbow for as long as he could remember. He focused on it, dredging thoughts of simpler times from his memory banks.
“It is pretty young.” He attempted to shift the conversation, reluctant to leave while unwilling to stay. “The whiskey.”
“Yes, ’tis.” Lindsay kept her gaze on her mending. “Dominic said we needed a darker room, a warmer space, better barrels, I’m not sure. There were plenty of excuses but for the life of me I don’t know why he thinks it won’t sell.” She stopped and joined him in his study of the bottle next to her. “That boy is as stubborn as my daddy’s mule.”
“I know, Mama.” Kieran slipped into his role as soother-in-chief as if pulling on a worn and comfortable robe. He patted her knee, alarmed at how flimsy she felt under his palm. Lindsay Love had never been a large woman, but she’d been strong enough to help move kegs, hold two screaming, sturdy toddlers at once, or help shove a truck out of a ditch. The harsh realization, that for all intents and purposes she would be making her way out of his life forever, made his head spin. He tried to look away but she snagged his chin and yanked his head around.
“Listen to me now, son. I realize things haven’t really gone your way in the last few years—”
He snorted and tried to jerk out of her reach, but her thin fingers held him tight, painful, but in a way familiar enough to comfort him.
“I get it, son. Truly I do. Your daddy and I put way too many of your eggs into the athlete basket and we know that now, trust me. We did you a disservice in a way, getting swept up in all that ridiculous recruiting nonsense.” She shook her head and let go of him, leaving him hovering, his neck stuck out over the coffee table while she gazed out the picture window. “It’s so hard. Trying to enable your children to be or do what they want only to see them fall.”
“Mama, it’s fine. I’ll be fine. Don’t worry.” His ingrained urge to soothe her overpowered him. He’d spent too many years doing that very thing on late nights after loud and alarming fights with his brothers or sister or father.
When she looked at him, her eyes shimmered. But thanks to all the tears she’d allowed him to see her shed, he had no fear or dread of female emotion. A clear memory flashed through his brain, when he’d once admitted to her: When you cry it scares me something fierce. To which she’d replied: Oh my sweet, sweet boy, a woman’s tears water the garden of the universe. Without them, everything would just dry up and blow away. And then where would you all boys be?
But today, now, facing his final failure and her frailty, his gut clenched at the sight of her crying. Her cool, rough hand alongside his cheek did calm him this time.
“My sweet love, my Kieran,” she murmured. “You always were a bullshitter, but I appreciate how hard you work to keep me in the dark about things, truly I do.” She grabbed the bottle, pulled the cork stopper, and took a drink from the neck of it.
Shocked to his core, not by her consumption of brown liquor straight from the bottle but by her cursing, he wondered if the woman could have early-onset Alzheimer’s. She’d always set such a store by keeping their language clean, their butts in church pews on Sunday, their public selves as polite as polite could be. That sort of coarse language out of her mouth made his chest tight with anxiety. She smacked her lips, grinned at him, and stuck the stopper in before he asked for a slug.
“My daddy always did say a shot of whiskey set your mind straight. Too bad he died of liver failure.” She marched over to the liquor cabinet without a limp in sight, and he exhaled in relief. When she turned to him, jaw set in a way he understood it gave him a jolt of resolve. “Go on now, son. Go to your...woman. Talk it out. Y’all will figure it out. God knows your daddy and I always did.”