Chapter Nineteen

Zach put the finishing touches on the ocean sunset and cocked his head to the side. The color was close, but it just wasn’t…right. Maybe the sky needed a little more blue. He closed his eyes, trying to remember how the sky looked over the ocean. The exact shade of blue. The shape of the clouds in the sky. But behind his lids, all he could see was Jenna. And the expression on her face when she thought he’d betrayed her.

He swirled his brush through a darker blue and was working on the horizon line when he heard a knock at the door.

“Go away,” he said irritably under his breath. He hadn’t ordered any food, and anyway, all the usual delivery people had to know by now to leave it by the door.

Another knock came a moment later, and he tossed down his brush, wiping his paint-covered hands on his T-shirt before heading to the door.

“What?” he practically snarled when he jerked it open.

“That’s no way to talk to your mother, son,” his dad said.

Zach blinked, sure he was hallucinating, and looked again. “Mom? Dad?”

“Your brothers are getting some groceries,” his mom said, walking under his arm to enter his place. Immediately, she started picking up empty food containers and half-full cans of diet soda.

“Mary said it was bad,” his dad said, doing a slow, head-to-toe inventory of Zach. “But we had no idea.” He gestured at Zach’s shirt. “Groom?”

Zach closed the door. “Marcy,” he corrected his father. Marcy the meddler, as he’s started calling her in his head. He’d promoted the woman, given her and her kid the vacation of a lifetime. And all he’d asked was that she not bother him. Not meddle. Stop suggesting he do things like shower and leave his apartment. And stop telling him to call Jenna. That was number one.

“We’ll have you fixed up in no time,” his mom said, pulling a garbage bag out of her purse.

“You carry garbage bags with you?” he asked.

“Of course,” she said with a shrug.

This was all just…crazy. And he needed to get to the bottom of what the hell was happening.

“Mom, just…stop for a minute. Sit down.”

His mom set the nearly full garbage bag down and went to the couch. She brushed off the cushion before sitting, and Zach gave her silent props for not pulling out a mini vacuum or a can of Lysol.

He was so shocked to see them he didn’t know where to start. They’d never come to see him in the city. He didn’t even think they knew his address.

“Not that I’m not happy to see you—I am,” he began. “But what are you doing here?”

“You needed us,” his dad said simply.

There was more gray in his hair than Zach remembered. And in the thick, black mustache he’d had all Zach’s life.

“This is an intervention, hon,” his mom said.

“An intervention?”

“I was worried about you after that phone call from Florida,” she said.

“Why? I mean, how could you tell something was wrong?”

His mother smiled serenely and patted his cheek. “I’m your mother,” she said, as if that explained everything.

“And then Marcy called and told us what was happening. She said there was a woman and that…you’d spiraled,” she said. She glanced at the dozens of canvases and tubes of paint and brushes that littered the dining room table and floor. “She said we should definitely confiscate the paints.”

“Marcy doesn’t know what she’s talking about.” Sheesh. Give the woman a little power and now she thought she could run Zach’s life.

“She’s worried about you, son. And so are we.”

“Me?”

Zach was the last one they’d always had to worry about. He was the one who took care of people. Hadn’t he bought them a place in Phoenix, made sure they had enough money, healthcare, lived in a safe place? And his siblings. He’d tried to do his best to make sure they didn’t have to struggle. That they had a good education.

“Yes, you, Zach. Of all my children, you’ve always been the one I worried most about.” His mother reached for his hand.

That made absolutely no sense, and Zach had the uncomfortable sensation that he’d somehow fallen asleep and was dreaming this whole bizarre conversation.

“I don’t know why.” He had always been independent, tried not to ask for money when he knew it was scarce. Tried to handle his own stuff alone so as not to be a burden. He was fully aware his folks had three other kids and a limited income.

“You’ve always been a loner,” his father said. “Never asked for anything.”

“I would think that would be a good thing.”

“But everybody needs help sometimes,” his dad said.

“Not just money,” his mom said. “Lord knows you’ve got plenty of that, and we are so, so proud of everything you’ve accomplished.”

“We just feel that you’ve never really learned to ask for help,” his dad said. “You never came to us about girl issues. Problems with friends. Never asked for advice. Never asked for help with a situation you didn’t know how to handle yourself.”

“I can’t think of any situations that ever came up I couldn’t handle on my own,” Zach said. He recognized the defensive tone in his voice.

“Clearly,” his mom said, glancing at the filth of his apartment again, “that has changed.”

Zach sighed and shoved a hand through his dirty hair. “I’m fine,” he said. “I just need some time.”

“You need your family,” his dad said in a tone that brooked no argument. “And a shower.”

Suddenly, all the air went out of Zach, and he was exhausted. Completely, bone-deep exhausted. He was tired of trying to put Jenna out of his mind and get over her while simultaneously trying to remember every moment they’d spent together, trying to get that feeling back if only for an instant. He was deep in stage four and wasn’t going to be able to climb out on his own.

“I know,” he admitted finally.

His mom went over and hugged him. Her familiar scent was comforting, and he squeezed her tight.

“It’s going to be fine,” she said like Zach was fourteen years old and experiencing his first heartbreak, which he guessed he kind of was.

“Shower first,” she said. “And burn that shirt. It reeks.”

“And then we’ll sit down and help you come up with a plan,” his dad said. “Help you get back on your feet.”

Zach didn’t have a better plan. No plan, actually, for the first time in his life.

“Okay.”

He went into his bathroom and stared at himself in the mirror. He had splatters of paint in various colors all over the “Groom” shirt he’d purchased in Florida, as well as flecks in his hair, under his fingernails, and all over his arms. And his mom was right. He was really pretty ripe.

Modern society had made it easy to become a shut-in if you wanted to be. You could have absolutely anything delivered, from tuna to toilet paper. How many days had it been since Zach had gone outside?

He stripped out of his clothes and started the shower. He hesitated for only a moment before tossing the T-shirt into the garbage.

The warm water sluiced over him, and he watched blue rivulets of paint diluting to nothing and spiraling down the drain.

It would be so easy to be mad at Marcy, but she was right. As always. Zach needed help. And that scared the hell out of him. And his mom was right, too. He didn’t know how to ask for that help. He didn’t know how to tell people what he needed, what he wanted. He hadn’t known how to tell Jenna that he was in love with her and make her believe it. And once Elliot had pointed out all the things that had happened, why would she? Zach hadn’t intentionally used her, but from her perspective, it looked really, really bad.

And why hadn’t Zach called her? Tried to explain? Because he didn’t know how to ask her to give him a chance. Deep down, he knew he didn’t deserve it. Didn’t deserve a woman like her.

Fuck. This was why he didn’t do this. Why work was better than people.

But then work hadn’t dropped everything and flown across the country based on one phone call from a very concerned long-term employee.

His family had.

Without question. Without a second thought or bitterness that Zach maybe hadn’t visited as much as he could. They’d come. They were here for Zach now. And would be here as long as he needed them.

This was what Jenna had been talking about when she spoke of family. People who had your back no matter what. People who pushed you and challenged you and made you a better person. People who picked you up when you fell. People you would do exactly the same for when the roles were switched.

Exactly the type of person he wanted to be. Exactly the kind of man he wanted to be for Jenna.

A bolt of energy reanimated what had become an empty husk of a person, and he quickly scrubbed his hair, twice. He washed his body then climbed out of the shower, shaved, brushed his teeth, and went into his bedroom with the towel wrapped around his waist to find some clean clothes. He settled on a blue T-shirt and pair of track pants. Baby steps, he told himself.

His brothers had arrived, and everyone was busily cleaning the apartment. His dad, Anthony, and Mike were bagging up the last of the garbage. His mom was at the sink doing the dishes. Zach grabbed a garbage bag and started tossing the empty tubes of paint and ruined brushes he hadn’t taken the time to clean.

“What the hell are those?” Mike said, coming up to look at the paintings.

“You must have been drunk when you painted that one,” Anthony said, indicating a starfish that looked, well, like it had been part of a nuclear experiment gone wrong.

“Stone sober,” Zach said.

Mike threw an arm around Zach. “Let’s get these down to the incinerator,” he said. “Fast.” They started gathering up the canvases.

“So what are you going to do about this girl?” Anthony asked. “Need a little bedroom advice?”

“Not from you,” Mike said, punching him on the shoulder. “God, she’d run away screaming. And what the hell is that on your ankle, Zach? A flower?”

Zach smiled, instantly fourteen again, sharing a bedroom with these two.

“Yes, it’s a flower. And I have no idea what to do about the girl,” Zach said. “I’m completely fucked.”

And then he laughed. For the first time in a month, he laughed.