CHAPTER FIVE

 

 

Owen let himself into the two-story townhouse in Noe Valley and called out, “Anyone home?” as he hung his jacket on the pegs by the front door.

“Owen?” Bruce Spenser yelled from the living room. “That you?”

“Hey, Dad.” Owen wandered in. “How’s it going?”

“Great.” Bruce’s words were clear today and his color was good. He sat in his recliner, a small table placed alongside with the TV remote, an iPad, his cell phone, a jug of water and a glass lined up and within easy reach. “What brings you out here on a Saturday morning?”

“I was in the neighborhood. Thought I’d stop by for coffee. Maybe take a look at the gutters while I’m here.”

“Gutters.” Bruce rolled his eyes. “Janet called you?”

Owen grinned.

“The woman simply cannot not fuss. I told her I’d call someone next week. My ladder-climbing days might be behind me, but I am more than capable of hiring a guy to do these things. Look. Easy. I pick up the phone and—” He jerked and fumbled the phone, knocking it off the table to bounce on the carpet. “Shit.”

Owen bent and swept it up.

“That went well,” Bruce grumbled.

“I don’t mind helping out. I want to.”

“You should be doing other stuff on your weekends.”

“Like what?”

“Anything other than cleaning out your in-laws’ gutters. Which, between you and me? I don’t think need cleaning. I think she’s looking for an excuse to get you here.”

It did fit Janet’s MO. “Like I said, I don’t mind. My weekend is wide open.”

Bruce frowned.

Before he could start up with his usual fretting over how Owen worked too much—this from the man who’d worked sixteen-hour days until a stroke last year had put a brutally abrupt end to his career as a corporate lawyer—Owen said, “Mom in the kitchen?”

“Yep. Baking cookies. Now I know why. They’re for you. Just saying, though, I never got cookies for cleaning the gutters. Not once in the last thirty-five years. That’s over a quarter of a century scraping shit out of gutters, Owen. No cookies.”

“I’ll bring you a plate.”

“You do that.”

“Honey!” Janet called when Owen went through to the kitchen and stood, inhaling the delicious combined scent of chocolate and vanilla. “Perfect timing.” She straightened and set the sheet of cookies she’d taken out of the oven onto the countertop. She waved at them.

“I’ve told you before, you don’t have to bribe me with baked goods to keep me coming here.”

“Can’t hurt though, can it? And this isn’t bribery. It’s appreciation.”

Owen didn’t need cookies to know Janet and Bruce appreciated him, either. They always had. They’d appreciated him for being a solid and steady boyfriend when May had first brought him home from college. They’d appreciated him when he’d graduated from boyfriend to fiancé, and then from fiancé to husband. They’d appreciated him as an excellent son-in-law through the ups and downs of his and May’s ten-year marriage, and when May died, they’d turned themselves inside out to let him know that he would never stop being their son, no matter what.

A part of him couldn’t help wondering if they’d feel the same if he told them the truth about him and May.

Owen went out to the garage for the ladder and the spare pair of work gloves he’d taken to leaving there. He spread a tarp under the ladder and climbed up. He peered into the gutter that, according to Janet, overflowed every time it rained.

“You sure this is the one?” he asked Janet. She was standing at the bottom of the ladder.

“Absolutely.”

Owen gazed down at her.

She nodded encouragement.

Okay. He scraped the meagre handful of leaves and debris within reach toward him, then dropped it onto the tarp. He climbed back down the ladder.

“Was that it?” Janet asked.

“Almost.”

Owen slid the ladder along and ran up it again. By the time he’d cleaned the length of the gutter, there was, oh, maybe two whole handfuls of crap sitting on the large plastic sheet.

To be thorough, he filled a bucket with water and slowly emptied it into the gutter, checking for leaks, but what do you know? No leaks.

He tidied up and found Janet in the kitchen. She’d made a French press of coffee and had arranged the now-cooled cookies on a large plate. “All done?” she asked when he came in and washed up at the sink.

“Yup.”

“Thank you, Owen. Cookie?”

Owen sat at the table and selected a cookie, biting into it with relish. Any minute now, she was going to tell him why she’d lured him here.

“I have news,” Janet blurted.

A crumb stuck in his throat, and Owen took a hasty gulp of coffee to wash it down.

She continued, “I wanted to be the one to tell you. I thought it best we have this conversation face to face.”

“Why?” Owen sat up. “What’s wrong? Is it Bruce? Is it you? You’re not sick, are you?”

Janet’s face softened. “No, honey. It’s good news.”

Owen’s shoulders slowly relaxed. “Maybe lead with that next time?”

“Tyler and Greg are getting married!”

“That’s great!”

Owen already knew. Over the past week, Tyler had called him from San Diego a grand total of twenty-three times, struggling to get up the nerve to propose to his boyfriend.

Twenty. Three. Times.

Eventually Owen had called him at one in the morning when he’d gotten home after his shift, instructed his brother-in-law to roll over right now, Tyler, dammit, wake Greg up and freaking do it before he could psych himself out again.

Tyler had forgotten to hang up, and Owen had heard a panicked and shaky, “Um, baby?” before he’d disconnected.

“The wedding’s in August,” Janet said.

Owen frowned. “That’s quick.”

“Those boys have been living together forever. I’d say it’s slooooow. If I was stupid enough to say anything to my son or his lovely husband-to-be about it. Which I am not. Because I do not interfere in such matters.”

Owen threw back his head and laughed.

“Fine,” Janet said. “Sometimes I interfere. But only when strictly necessary. And I’m a mom. It’s my job. Which brings me to…”

Owen didn’t like the determined way she was looking at him. “What?”

“You’ll come to the wedding.”

“What? Of course I’ll come to the wedding.”

“And you’ll bring a date.”

“Of course I’ll— Wait. A date?”

“Yes.”

Owen scratched his jaw. “You don’t think it’s too soon?”

“Too soon for what? Dating?”

He dipped his chin in a small nod.

“Honey. It’s been almost three years. No, it’s not too soon. You’re a man. You have needs.”

“Mom.”

“Okay, forget your manly needs. I don’t care about that.” Janet surprised him, lunging across the table to grab his hands. “I care about you. I consider you my son, Owen. I want you to be happy.”

“I’m happy,” he forced out.

Janet gave him big eyes. “Boy, don’t even.”

“I’m happy.” It sounded more convincing this time. Slightly.

“Then I want you happier. And I think you’ll be happier if you start dating. If you open yourself up to love again.”

Owen studied her face. It was lined and lived-in, familiar and beautiful. Sincere.

He started to smile.

“And if you can’t find a date,” Janet said, “no problem. I’ll find one for you. I already made a list.”

Owen stopped smiling. “You are not setting me up.” He withdrew his hands.

“Why not? I know plenty of wonderful women who’d adore to meet—”

“No.” He poked the table with a stiff forefinger. “My mother-in-law is not setting me up with a woman. That is weird.”

“It’s my job—”

“It’s not your job. My love life is not your job. You’re a paralegal. That’s your job.”

“You’re being very prudish, Owen, and I think if you give it a chance, you’ll be pleasantly surprised—”

“I’m being very serious. I don’t want you pimping me out to strange women.”

“Strange women? It’s not like I signed up to a dating site and have been pretending to be you to get the ball rolling.”

Owen’s jaw dropped. “You’ve been catfishing?”

“I said I didn’t do it. Bruce wouldn’t let me. Moving on. These aren’t strange women, I know them all, and if you’ll take a moment out of your overreacting, you’ll see that it makes perfect sense. With the hours you work, how are you going to find a woman on your own?”

“I already found someone. I’m already… I’m dating someone.”

What are you saying?

It wasn’t a complete lie. He hadn’t heard from Chloe since he’d deliberated over whether or not to send her flowers as an apology/explanation—was it creepy? Was it charming? Would she like them?—so, technically, it was still possible that another date was on the horizon, and therefore he was, technically, in a theoretical state of dating.

“You are?” Janet was delighted. “What’s her name?”

Crap. “Chloe. Uh…Abbott. Chloe Abbott.”

Janet propped her elbows on the table and her chin in her hands. Her silver and black hair swung over her shoulder. “Mm-hmm,” she said. “How long has this been going on?”

“Not long.”

She waited.

“About a, um, week? First date was last Monday.”

“Monday?” She pulled a face.

“What’s wrong with Monday?”

What was wrong with Monday? Chloe had seemed surprised when he’d suggested it. Was there something about dating on Mondays that he wasn’t aware of?

“Of all the days in the week, Owen, Monday has to be the least romantic.”

“I’d say Sunday’s the least romantic. Work is a matter of hours away and—”

“—and you don’t care because you’re busy snuggling in bed with the papers, eating croissants and drinking coffee.”

“Wednesday. Middle of the week. That’s a dull—”

Janet shook her head. “Hump day.” She winked.

Owen shuddered.

“I assume the date went well,” Janet said, “despite being on an unromantic Monday, if you’re thinking about bringing her to the wedding?”

“Oh, yeah. Went great. It went great.”

Janet rolled her wrist. “Details, please.”

“How about no?”

Janet sat back with a disappointed sigh. “Fine. Don’t share.”

“I don’t intend to. Talking about this with you is as weird as letting you set me up.”

“I am aware you’re a man.”

He scowled. “That’s not the weird bit. You’re May’s mom.”

Janet’s expression froze.

Silence hung in the kitchen.

“Sorry,” Owen muttered, not sure what he’d said that was wrong, but feeling as if he should apologize anyway.

She waved it away. “I’m not angry, I… Just because my daughter…” She fixed him with her fierce dark gaze, so like May’s it raised the hair at the back of his neck. “Would I rather have seen you and May grow old together, give me grandbabies? Yes. Yes, I would. But that didn’t happen, Owen, and just because you’re not going to have it with May, it doesn’t change the fact that I still want that for you. I still want happiness and fatherhood and a strong marriage for you. I will always, always be sad that it won’t be with May. But I will always, always be happy for you to find it with another woman. May made you my son. That won’t ever change.”

Owen’s chair scraped over the kitchen floor as he pushed to his feet and scooped Janet up into his arms. “Thank you.” He pressed a kiss to the top of her head.

“You’re a jackass sometimes, Owen, I swear.”

“Yep.”

She meant it. Not the jackass comment—well, she wasn’t wrong, so maybe the jackass comment—but that she’d always consider him her son. She truly meant it.

It was the reason he couldn’t ever tell them how things had ended with May. He refused to expose May to censure when she wasn’t around to speak for herself, and he refused to take another child from Janet and Bruce.

Because, surely, things would change if they knew. Or perhaps they wouldn’t.

Owen would rather live with the doubt than find out.