Total pages in book: 196
Estimated words: 186555 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 933(@200wpm)___ 746(@250wpm)___ 622(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 186555 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 933(@200wpm)___ 746(@250wpm)___ 622(@300wpm)
But seeing her car with Johnny’s, and then five other cars with various license plates, completely threw me off.
Rhodes wasn’t the kind of man who invited anybody over other than Johnny, and even that wasn’t often. His work truck and the Bronco were both there too, hours earlier than they should have been. He’d told me that morning as he’d gotten ready for work that he would be sticking around close by and would be home about six.
I parked my car closer to the garage apartment I’d barely spent any time in lately and grabbed my purse before crossing over to the main house, confused. The front door was unlocked, and I went in. The sound of several voices talking surprised me even more.
Because I recognized them. Every single one.
And even though I’d been crying a lot less recently, the tears instantly welled up in my eyes as I crossed the foyer and into the main living area.
That’s where they all were. In the kitchen and around the table. In the living room.
The TV was on, and there was a picture of my mom in her twenties scaling some rock formation that would have made me pee myself. The image changed to another one of both of us. It was a slideshow, I realized before even more tears boiled over, falling down my cheeks in absolute surprise.
I was overwhelmed.
Because in Rhodes’s living room, in his house, were my aunt and uncle. All of my cousins, their wives, and a couple of their kids. There was Yuki and her bodyguard and her sister Nori and their mom. There was Walter and his wife, and Clara and Mr. Nez and Jackie. And just beside Johnny was Amos.
Moving toward me from that same direction was Rhodes, and I don’t know if he pulled me into a hug or if I threw myself like I seemed to always be doing, but there we were a second later. With me tearing up in a bittersweet sense of joy, straight into him.
After a lot more tears and more hugs than I had ever remembered getting at once, I got to celebrate my mom’s life with the people I loved the most in the world.
I really was one of the lucky ones, and I wouldn’t let myself forget it. Not even on bad days. I promised myself that then.
And it was all because of my mom.
Chapter 32
“Good luck, Am! You can do it! You can do anything!” I yelled out of the car at the retreating figure we had just dropped off at the side of the auditorium of his school.
He waved but didn’t glance over his shoulder, and behind the driver’s seat, Rhodes chuckled almost distractedly. “He’s nervous.”
“I know he is, and I don’t blame him,” I said before rolling up the window the second he went through the double doors. “I’m nervous for him.” I almost felt like I was performing too. I might have been more nauseous than Am.
But I welcomed the butterflies I got for Amos because they weren’t bad.
The last month and a half hadn’t been easy, but I was surviving. More than surviving actually. I was doing pretty well for the most part. I’d been having good days, and I’d have days where this new sense of grief over my mom made it hard to breathe, but I had people to talk to about it, and that same hope I’d had in my heart for the future had resumed blooming, slowly but surely.
It had been Mr. Nez who had said something to me the day of her life celebration that had really stuck around in my thoughts. He’d said the greatest way I could honor her life was by living mine, by being as happy as I possibly could.
My heart hadn’t been ready to accept it in that moment, but my brain had. Slowly but surely the truth in them had seeped into the rest of me. It was a small, waterproof Band-Aid for a large wound, but it had helped.
“Me too,” Rhodes agreed before turning the wheel and heading back to the lot where we were supposed to park. Not for the first time, I noticed he glanced in the rearview mirror with a scowl on his features.
I loved all of his facial expressions, even if that one specifically I didn’t understand.
We were an hour early for the start of the talent show, but neither one of us had seen a point in driving all the way back home only to turn around fifteen minutes later. His phone beeped, and he pulled it out of his pocket and handed it over to me as he kept on driving.
“It’s your dad. He says he’s on his way and will be here in fifteen,” I told him as I sent the older man a reply.