“You’re gonna come in here and ask for a couple grand, when you have that? You’re going to force me to keep buying clothes, food, and diapers for Keith, and you f**king have that!” Before she could say anything or pass me, I shot my arm straight out in front of her. “Key.”

Mom looked at me like I was nothing. Nothing to her, nothing to Charlie, nothing to Keith . . . just nothing. With jerky motions, she took the key off her key ring and slapped it into my hand. “It was a gift,” she snarled as she passed me.

“Yeah, I bet it was. If it’s from soon-to-be husband number seven, don’t bother telling Charlie and me about the wedding. We won’t be there.”

Without a look back in my direction, she climbed into the SUV and took off.

I slammed the door and locked it and stalked back to the couches, when my phone started ringing.

Grabbing it just before voice mail picked up, I answered without looking at the screen, and growled, “What?”

There was a pause before: “Wow. You’re doing worse than I thought you were.”

I glanced at the screen for a second and tried to talk normally as I began pacing. “Have you heard from her, Graham?”

“No, but Mom talked to her yesterday.”

“And?” I prompted when he didn’t continue. But from his dejected tone, I wasn’t expecting good news, and my anger quickly faded into the pain I had become so used to over the past month.

“She’s not coming home yet, but Mom said she sounded good. Actually her words were: ‘Grey sounded great, happy even.’ So there’s that.”

“Good,” I mumbled, nodding and dropping my head until I was staring at the floor. “That’s good.”

“You don’t sound like it’s a good thing.”

“No, it is. I want her happy. That’s all I’ve ever wanted.”

“I know it is. I think if she’s doing good, and it’s been this long but she doesn’t have plans to come back, it’s time you go to her,” he said.

I wanted to. I wanted to so damn bad that it took everything in me to force myself over to sit on a couch rather than grab my keys and leave for Seattle. But she was happy. “I can’t, Graham. You heard your mom, she’s happy. A month away from here and me, and she’s happy. I can’t take that away from her. When she’s ready to come back, she will.”

Graham sighed. “I had a feeling you would say that.”

“Then why call?”

“Do you still love my sister?” he asked after a few silent moments.

“Of course I do.”

“Tell me something: if she found someone else and you missed your chance because you were waiting for her to come back, how would you feel?”

I froze. Everything in me just stopped for tortured moments before I forced out, “What are you—did she—are you—Graham, is she with someone?”

“I don’t know. Honestly, I don’t. All I know is that she’s happy, and she doesn’t have any plans to come back yet. Whether that means she’s found someone already or not, she will eventually find someone. And if you want to be that guy, you need to go get her.”

“I will, I gotta go.”

After hanging up, I ran to my studio as I scrolled through the contact list on my phone. I had calls to make, and I needed to get to Seattle.

Grey

July 12, 2014

AT THE SOUND of the front door slamming, I jumped back from where I was standing in the kitchen making breakfast for Janie, her roommate, Heather, and me. I glanced over at Heather, and she shrugged as she leaned away from the bar to look toward the entryway.

“Grey, Grey, Grey, Grey, Grey!” Janie yelled as she ran through the apartment to the kitchen. She was out of breath as she set down the three coffees.

“Jesus, did you run to the coffee shop?” I asked, giving her a weird look before going back to the food.

She shook her head as she tried to catch her breath. “There was—I found—hold on!” Grabbing her purse, she dug through it for a few seconds before slamming what looked like a nice-looking brochure onto the bar.

“What is it?”

“It’s for some art gallery place,” Heather mumbled as she looked over it. “Huh. Random.”

Janie snatched it away from her and pointed it at me. “There was a stack of them at the shop, and I grabbed it because the picture on the front is all pretty, see?” She waved it in my direction for half a second before dropping it.

All I had seen was that the brochure was black.

“So I’m looking at it and decide I’m going to go see where this place is to see if it’s close so we could all go, since I love art, you know?”

“You love art?” Heather and I said at the same time.

“Since when?” I asked.

She looked at me for a few seconds before gesturing wildly with her hands. “Since always! That doesn’t matter! So I’m driving, and I find this place, and of course it’s closed since it’s, like, the ass crack of dawn right now. But there are windows, and there was an art piece in the window!”

“It’s an art gallery, you’d figure there—”

“It was of you, Grey!” she said excitedly, cutting me off.

I kept absentmindedly moving around the scrambled eggs, staring at her like she’d gone insane, until it hit me. I inhaled audibly and dropped the spatula. “Jagger,” I breathed.