Total pages in book: 100
Estimated words: 91937 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 460(@200wpm)___ 368(@250wpm)___ 306(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 91937 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 460(@200wpm)___ 368(@250wpm)___ 306(@300wpm)
“Yeah.” He gets up when he’s done, slinging his backpack over one shoulder while he grabs his baseball glove and ball. He’s walking out the door, missing his lunch box next to his glove.
“Buddy,” I call him, and he turns back to look at me, “your lunch.”
“Oh.” Smiling, he comes back, grabs the lunch box, and runs out of the house. I follow him, walking down the steps with the glass baking dish in my hand as I make my way over to the car, watching him toss in his bag and then get in. I place the pie on the seat before walking over to the driver’s side and getting in.
I start the car, looking in the rearview mirror. “Buckled?” I ask and he nods, looking out the window. I look both ways before proceeding. My eyes land on the red truck next door, trying not to stare too long. The nerves settle into me now when I think that in a couple of hours, I have to show up at his bar. When I walked out of the house, I had just spent the past ten minutes quietly sobbing in secret in the middle of the bathroom. Defeated by the whole situation, and wondering how much longer I could possibly go on like this.
“Can I play catch when we get home tonight?” he asks as I make my way over to his school. Walking out of the bathroom, after trying to get the redness in my eyes to go down, and seeing him outside talking to Brady was not what I was expecting to see. But he was there in the middle of the weeds, teaching my kid how to catch a fucking ball. Another reason I hate myself is that my son, who deserves it all, got nothing. He got a sorry excuse for a father, and a mother who is trying not to fucking drown in the ocean while rain pours down on her head.
“Yeah,” I confirm, even though I have no idea how the meeting today at ten is going to go. I pull into the parking lot, getting out at the same time as Wyatt. I put my car keys in the back pocket while I hold his hand and walk to the fence. Unlike the first day of school where he stayed with me, this time he runs into the playground area, going to a group of kids who are playing at the side. He joins them without a second thought. I watch by the fence like I do every single morning, listening for the bell before the kids all line up in their respective lines. One good thing that happened is that he made friends right away. It was as if they were always friends, Wyatt takes one more look at me before walking in and holding up his hand at me. I hold up my hand and refrain from blowing him a kiss, because only babies do that.
I wait until the brown door closes after all the kids go in before walking over to my car and getting in. Pulling out with the fifty other cars, I wait my turn before going toward Mr. Mendelson’s house. The beautiful white house with the perfectly manicured lawn and even better backyard. He’s sitting on the porch, rocking in his white rocking chair that he paints every two months, just to keep it clean. Leaning over after unbuckling my seat belt, I grab the warm apple pie. The smile beams on his face when he sees me get out of the car. “There she is.” He gets up out of his rocker to meet me by the stairs. “Was wondering when I was going to see you.”
“I was here two days ago,” I remind him with my own smile on my face before getting on my tippy-toes and kissing his cheek. “I brought you some pie.” I hold up the pie higher. “A thank-you for all those apples you got for me.”
“I’ll take that.” He grabs the pie from me. “And you’ll have a piece with me and a cup of coffee.”
“I have a little time,” I tell him as I walk into the house behind him. The pictures of him and his wife are scattered all over the place; the love for her so evident in all of the house. Things she placed there before she passed away are still in the same spots. The two of them were married over sixty years, and she passed in her sleep right next to him. Something he will never forgive himself for, even though there was nothing he could have done. She wasn’t even sick, which just made it that much worse.
He puts the pie on the counter, reaching over for a coffee cup before pouring me a mugful, handing it to me. “Go take a load off.” He motions with his chin to the table that overlooks the outside. I pull the chair out, sitting down, and looking out into the yard with all of the trees and his massive garden. He places a piece of pie down in front of me and then sits in the chair across from me with his own plate. “So tell me, where are you off to?”