58. The Conversation

When I get home that afternoon, red eyes await me.

But instead of belonging to the undead or demon dogs, they belong to my mom and Uncle Robert.

Seeing him just sitting on the couch is strange. But seeing him in the same room as Mom is even stranger.

It seems as if I’ve interrupted something serious and heavy.

Mom looks like she’s been crying. Uncle Robert—I can’t tell if he’s been crying or drinking.

“Hi Chris,” he says.

My mom comes over and gives me a hug.

“What’s going on?”

“Everything’s fine,” she tells me.

I look at Robert.

“It’s all good. Your mother and I were just having a talk.”

“About what?”

“About life,” Robert answers.

“Did something happen?”

Did someone die?

“No. Everything’s fine.”

Uncle Robert stands and grabs his coat.

“You don’t need to leave,” Mom tells him.

“I should go.”

He looks at her, gives me a nod, and leaves.

“What was that all about?” I ask.

“Family stuff. Sibling stuff.”

“Did you know—had you seen him?”

“He visited me a couple of times in rehab. The second time I went in.”

“Seriously?”

Mom nods. I wonder if Uncle Robert did that in secret, or if Pastor Marsh and Staunch knew about it.

“What sort of sibling stuff?”

“The past,” Mom says.

“That’s pretty vague.”

“Chris, please.”

Here we go again. It’s the same old thing.

Aren’t we past the stage of not revealing stuff?

“It was a hard conversation to have,” Mom continues, brushing back her faded blonde hair. “About our parents.”

“Uh, okay.”

“About how they died,” she says.

I nod.

I’m curious, but I’m also not mean. At least, not now. Not with Mom. Not with everything’s she’s had to deal with.

“Robert just doesn’t want to hear certain things,” Mom adds. “But sometimes you have to get things out in the open in order to move on. And this—I believe—is one of those things.”

Mom doesn’t say anything more about the conversation. It makes me think of Jocelyn again, how she told me her parents were killed.

She believed they were murdered.

I wonder if my mom has started thinking the same way. Maybe Uncle Robert doesn’t want to accept that or hear that.

But he doesn’t leave. Mom is back, and yet he doesn’t leave.

It makes me wonder if he’s truly given up, or if there’s still some tiny bit of hope deep down inside of him.

Glancing at Mom, and the way she seems to be more there these days, gives me more hope as well.