Reminders of Him: A Novel
Reminders of Him: Chapter 32

The kitten slept in Kenna’s arms all night. Maybe it’s weird, but I like watching her with Ivy. She’s affectionate with her. She always makes sure Ivy doesn’t have an opportunity to run outside when she isn’t looking.

It makes me curious how she’ll be with Diem. Because I’m confident I’ll get to witness it someday. It might take us a while to get there, but I’ll replace a way. She deserves it and Diem deserves it, and I trust my gut feelings more than my doubts.

I move quietly as I reach for my phone to check the time. It’s almost seven in the morning, and Diem will wake up soon. She’ll notice my truck is gone. I should probably try to get home before they leave for Patrick’s mother’s house. I don’t want to slip out while Kenna is asleep, though. I would feel like an asshole if she woke up alone after last night.

I press a gentle kiss to the corner of her mouth, and then I brush her hair out of her face. She begins to move, and moan, and I know she’s just waking up, but her wake-up sounds are very similar to her sex sounds, and now I don’t want to leave. Ever.

She finally gets her eyes open and looks up at me.

“I have to go,” I say quietly. “Can I come back over later?”

She nods. “I’ll be here. I’m off today.” She gives me a closed-lips kiss. “I’ll kiss you better later, but I want to brush my teeth first.”

I laugh and then kiss her cheek. Before I get up, we have this brief moment of eye contact where it feels like she’s thinking something she doesn’t want to say out loud. I stare down at her for a minute, waiting for her to speak, but when she doesn’t, I kiss her on the mouth one more time. “I’ll be back this afternoon.”

I waited too long. Diem and Grace are already awake and in their front yard when I pull onto our street. Diem sees me before Grace does, so she’s already running across the street when I pull into my driveway and kill my truck.

I swing open the door and immediately scoop her up. I kiss the side of Diem’s head right when she wraps herself around me and squeezes my neck. I swear to God, there is nothing even remotely close to a hug from this girl.

A hug from her mother does run a very close second, though.

Grace makes it to my yard a few seconds later. She shoots me a teasing look, as if she knows why I was out all night. She might think she knows, but she wouldn’t be looking at me like this if she had any clue who I was with.

“You look like you didn’t get much sleep,” she says.

“I slept plenty. Get your head out of the gutter.”

Grace laughs and tugs on Diem’s ponytail. “Well, you have perfect timing. She was hoping to say goodbye before we left.”

Diem hugs my neck again. “Don’t forget about me,” she says, loosening her grip so I can set her back down.

“You’ll only be gone one night, D. How could I forget about you?”

Diem scratches her face and says, “You’re old, and old people forget stuff.”

“I am not old,” I say. “Hold on before you go, Grace.” I unlock my front door and head to my kitchen and grab the flowers I bought for her yesterday morning. I haven’t let a Mother’s Day or a Father’s Day pass without getting something for her or Patrick.

She’s been like a mother to me my whole life, so I’d honestly probably still buy her flowers even if Scotty were here.

“Happy Mother’s Day.” I hand them to her, and she acts surprised and delighted and gives me a hug, but I don’t hear her thank-you through the loud regret piercing through me right now.

I forgot today was Mother’s Day. I woke up next to Kenna this morning and said nothing to her about it. I feel like an asshole.

“I need to put these in water before I go,” Grace says. “Want to buckle Diem into the car for me?”

I grab Diem’s hand and walk her across the street. Patrick is already in the car waiting. Grace walks the flowers into the house, and I open the back door to buckle Diem into her car seat. “What’s Mother’s Day?” she asks me.

“It’s a holiday.” I keep my explanation brief, but Patrick and I trade glances.

“I know. But why are you and NoNo giving Nana flowers for Mother’s Day? You said Robin is your mother.”

“Robin is my mother,” I say. “And your grandma Landry is NoNo’s mother. That’s why you’re going to see her today. But on Mother’s Day, if you know a mother that you love, you buy her flowers even if she isn’t your mother.”

Diem crinkles up her nose. “Am I supposed to give my mother flowers?” She’s really been working through the whole family tree lately, and it’s cute, but also concerning. She’s eventually going to replace out her family tree was once struck by lightning.

Patrick finally chimes in. “We gave your nana her flowers last night, remember?”

Diem shakes her head. “No. I’m talking about my mother that isn’t here. The one with the tiny car. Are we supposed to give her flowers?”

Patrick and I trade another glance. I’m sure he’s mistaking the pain on my face for discomfort at Diem’s question. I kiss Diem on the forehead just as Grace returns to the car. “Your mother will get flowers,” I say to Diem. “Love you. Tell your grandma Landry I said hello.”

Diem smiles and pats my cheek with her tiny hand. “Happy Mother’s Day, Ledger.”

I back away from the car and tell them to have a safe trip. But as they’re driving away, I feel my heart grow heavier as Diem’s words sink in.

She’s starting to wonder about her mother. She’s starting to worry. And even though Patrick assumed I was just reassuring her by saying Diem’s mother would get flowers, I was actually making her a promise. One I won’t break.

The idea of Kenna going through the entire day today without her motherhood being acknowledged by anyone makes me angry at this whole situation.

I sometimes want to place that blame directly on Patrick and Grace, but that’s not fair either. They’re just doing what they need to do to survive.

It is what it is. A fucked-up situation, with no evil people to blame. We’re all just a bunch of sad people doing what we have to do to make it until tomorrow. Some of us sadder than others. Some of us more willing to forgive than others.

Grudges are heavy, but for the people hurting the most, I suppose forgiveness is even heavier.

I pull up to Kenna’s apartment a few hours later and am halfway to the stairs when I spot her out back. She’s cleaning off the table I lent her when she notices me. Her eyes fall to the flowers in my hand, and she stiffens. I walk closer to her, but she’s still staring at the flowers. I hand them to her. “Happy Mother’s Day.” I’ve already put the flowers in a vase because I wasn’t sure if she even had one.

Based on the look on her face, I’m wondering if maybe I shouldn’t have bought her flowers. Maybe celebrating Mother’s Day before she’s even met her child is uncomfortable. I don’t know, but I feel like I should have put more thought into this moment.

She takes them from me with hesitation, like she’s never been given a gift before. Then she looks at me, and very quietly, she says, “Thank you.” She means it. The way her eyes tear up immediately convinces me bringing them was the right move.

“How was the lunch?”

She smiles. “It was fun. We had fun.” She nudges her head up to her apartment. “You want to come up?”

I follow her upstairs, and once we’re inside her apartment, she tops off the vase with a little more water and sets it on her counter. She’s adjusting the flowers when she says, “What are you doing today?”

I want to say, “Whatever you’re doing,” but I don’t know where her head is at after last night. Sometimes things seem good and perfect in the moment, but when you get hours of reflection afterward, the perfection can morph into something else. “I’m heading out to the new house to get some work done on the floors. Patrick and Grace took Diem to his mother’s, so they’ll be gone until tomorrow.”

Kenna is wearing a pink button-up shirt that looks new, and it’s topped over a long, white, flowy skirt. I’ve never seen her in anything other than a T-shirt and jeans, but this shirt reveals the tiniest hint of her cleavage. I’m trying so hard not to look, but holy fuck, it’s a struggle. We both stand in silence for a beat. Then I say, “You want to come with me?”

She eyes me cautiously. “Do you want me to?”

I realize the hesitation pouring from her may not be because of her own feelings of regret, but rather her fears that I have regrets.

“Of course I do.” The conviction in my response makes her smile, and her smile breaks down whatever was keeping us separated. I pull her to me and kiss her. She immediately seems at ease once my mouth is on hers.

I hate that I even made her doubt herself for one second. I should have kissed her as soon as I handed her the flowers downstairs.

“Can we get snow cones on the way there?” she asks.

I nod.

“Do you have your punch card?” she teases.

“I never leave the house without it.”

She laughs and then grabs her purse and pets Ivy goodbye.

When we get downstairs, Kenna and I fold up the table and chairs and begin hauling them to my truck. It works out that I’m here today, because I’ve been meaning to move one of these tables to the new house.

I’m carrying the last armful of chairs to the truck when Lady Diana appears out of nowhere. She stands between me and Kenna and the truck. “Are you leaving with the jerk?” she asks Kenna.

“You can stop calling him a jerk now. His name is Ledger.”

Lady Diana looks me up and down and then mutters, “Ledgerk.”

Kenna ignores the insult and says, “I’ll see you at work tomorrow.”

I’m laughing when we get in the truck. “Ledgerk. That was actually really clever.”

Kenna buckles her seat belt and says, “She’s witty and vicious. It’s a dangerous combination.”

I put the truck in reverse, wondering if I should give her the other gift I have for her. Now that we’re here in my truck together, it feels slightly more embarrassing than when I got the idea for it, and the fact that I spent so long on it this morning makes it that much more awkward, so we’re at least a mile from her apartment before I finally work up the nerve to say, “I made you something.”

I wait until we’re at a stop sign, and then I text her the link. Her phone pings, so she opens the link and stares at her screen for a few seconds. “What is this? A playlist?”

“Yeah. I made it this morning. It’s over twenty songs that have absolutely nothing to do with anything that could remind you of anything sad.”

She stares at the screen on her phone as she scrolls through the songs. I’m waiting for some kind of reaction from her, but her face is blank. She looks out the window and covers her mouth like she’s stifling a laugh. I keep stealing glances at her, but I eventually can’t take it anymore. “Are you laughing? Was that stupid?”

When she turns to face me, she’s smiling, and there might even be burgeoning tears in her eyes. “It’s not stupid at all.”

She reaches across the seat for my hand, and then she looks back out her window. For at least two miles, I’m fighting back a smile.

But then somewhere around the third mile, I’m fighting back a frown because something as simple as a playlist shouldn’t make her want to cry.

Her loneliness is starting to hurt me. I want to see her happy. I want to be able to say all the right things when I tell Patrick and Grace why they should give her a chance, but the fact that I still don’t truly know her history with Scotty is one of the many things I’m afraid might prevent the outcome we both want.

Every time I’m with her, the questions are always on the tip of my tongue. “What happened? Why did you leave him?” But it’s either never the right moment, or the moment is right but the emotions are already too heavy. I wanted to ask her last night when I was asking her all the other questions, but I just couldn’t get it out. Sometimes she looks too sad for me to expect her to talk about things that will make her even sadder.

I need to know, though. I feel like I can’t fully defend her or blindly root for her to be in Diem’s life until I know exactly what happened that night and why.

“Kenna?” We glance at each other at the same time. “I want to know what happened that night.”

The air develops a weight to it, and it feels harder to breathe in.

I think I just made it harder for her to breathe too. She inhales a slow breath and releases my hand. She flexes her fingers and grips her thighs.

“You said you wrote about it. Will you read it to me?”

Her expression is filled with what looks like fear now, like she’s too scared to go back to that night. Or too scared to take me there with her. I don’t blame her, and I feel bad asking her to, but I want to know.

I need to know.

If I’m going to drop to my knees in front of Patrick and Grace when I beg them to give her a chance, I need to fully know the person I’m fighting for. Even though at this point she couldn’t say anything that would change my mind about her. I know she’s a good person. A good person who had one bad night. It happens to the best of us. The worst of us. All of us. Some of us are just luckier than others, and our bad moments have fewer casualties.

I adjust my grip on the steering wheel, and then I say, “Please. I need to know, Kenna.”

Another quiet moment passes, but then she grabs her phone and unlocks the screen. She clears her throat. My window is cracked, so I roll it all the way up and make it quieter in the cab of the truck.

She looks so nervous. Before she begins to read, I reach over and tuck a loose strand of hair behind her ear as a show of solidarity . . . or something, I don’t know. I just want to touch her and let her know I’m not judging her.

I just need to know what happened. That’s all.