“Yes.” Theresa’s eyes teared up and she nodded, then lowered her head.
BJ squeezed Theresa’s hand. “I think it’s time for you to admit that your husband is dead and that he’s not coming back, Mrs. Allen.”
“Get out,” Hobie hissed. “I want you to leave. Leave right now.”
BJ looked up with a sad expression and nodded. “I will if that’s what you want.” She turned back to the woman seated beside her. “But let me ask you this, Mrs. Allen. Is that what you want? Do you want me to leave?”
Theresa looked into soft gray eyes filled with compassion. BJ knew what she was thinking. She could see it in her eyes. Theresa realized that there was finally someone who knew exactly how she felt. At last, someone who understood what had gone on and how she had let it all snowball to this point.
BJ and Theresa looked over to where Mack and Hobie stood. Hobie was outraged, that was apparent. Mack shifted his weight uncomfortably from foot to foot.
BJ glanced again at Hobie. Hobie’s arms hung rigidly at her side, her hands balled into fists. Had BJ guessed Hobie’s thoughts at that moment, her own demise would probably have been high on the list.
BJ saw something then that she previously thought only existed in the prose she wrote. As she watched Theresa’s face, it appeared as though a veil lifted from her eyes.
Theresa looked between her two children, then turned to BJ.
“No,” she said so softly it was barely a whisper. Her voice grew stronger. “No, I don’t want you to leave. Hobie Lynn, where are your manners?”
“But I-I—” Hobie stammered.
“I think my behavior has gone on long enough. I thank both of you children, but I never meant to put you through this—”
“No, Mom, it’s okay.” Mack quickly moved to kneel before his mother.
“It’s not, but you’re sweet to say so. I can’t believe I’ve carried on for this long. Hobie—”
Hobie spun around and rushed from the room. Seconds later, the screen door to the back porch slammed.
“I’ll go get her, Mom,” Mack spoke up.
“No, Mack. I think I’m the one she’s upset with. Let me go,” BJ said.
“I’m sure not gonna fight you for it.”
BJ rose on her crutches, but before she could move away, Theresa reached out to her.
“Thank you, Baylor. It took courage for you to reveal that piece of yourself to me...to all of us. It’s amazing, really, after all these years that your words should be the thing to make me see. I don’t understand that. Maybe if you do the same thing with Hobie Lynn, she’ll be forgiving. She’s a very good daughter.”
BJ smiled and nodded, giving the older woman a wink before she walked away. “I know that, and I’ll try to take your advice.”
She looked through the screen door and saw Hobie pacing across the yard as Noah ran around trying to catch firebugs. He was oblivious to the emotional turmoil around him.
Taking a deep breath, BJ pushed open the door and walked onto the porch. The look of hurt and anger on Hobie’s face when she looked at BJ took any thoughts of fight from BJ’s mind. She simply deflated as she sat heavily on the porch swing.
Hobie turned toward the ocean and stood silently before stalking across the lawn. BJ prepared herself for one of their now infamous confrontations.
“Do you realize what you could have done?” Hobie asked in a tightly restrained voice.
“Yes, and I’m sorry, but I felt that I had to.”
“I asked you not to say anything. I specifically asked you not to interfere.”
“Yes, I know.”
“What is it with you? Do you always go around doing exactly what you want without any thought to the consequences for others?”
“Yeah, pretty much. Up to this point, anyway.” “That makes you incredibly selfish!”
“I know.”
“You’re impossible!” “I know that, too.”
Hobie abruptly stopped her tirade. She looked tired, as if it had been a great effort to hold on to her anger. She took a few more steps toward BJ. “How can I yell at you if you’re going to agree with every damn thing I say?” She folded her arms across her chest.
BJ attempted to look contrite. She wasn’t accustomed to answering for her behavior; rather, she was used to letting loose with her form of brutal honesty. Dispensing a truth tempered with compassion was something new to her.
“Would it make you feel better if you could sock me one? Go ahead. Just let me have it.” BJ closed her eyes, scrunched her face up, and prepared for a blow.
“Stop that.”
“No, really. I’m serious. Nail me a good one. I guarantee it will make you feel lots better.”
Hobie shook her bangs from her eyes and sat beside BJ. “You are so strange,” she finally said in exasperation, to which BJ grinned.
After a moment of comfortable silence, Hobie spoke. “I’m sorry,” she said, then blew a breath of air upward to push her bangs from her forehead. “I shouldn’t have gotten so angry, especially at you. I mean, look what you’ve done for my mom. In just a few minutes, you’ve changed our lives.”
“For the better, I hope.” “I think so.”
“Why did you get so mad then?”
Tears filled Hobie’s eyes, and BJ didn’t think she was ready for this. A month earlier, she had dumped a girlfriend and never thought twice about the jilted woman’s tears. Now sitting beside the tearful Hobie, she had the inexplicable urge to hold her in her arms. For some reason she couldn’t explain, she wanted to protect Hobie, wanted to keep anything bad from happening to her. The enormity of that desire hit BJ like a punch in the stomach. It was even stronger than on the day when Hobie had begun to cry after the Jaguar had a flat.
“Hey, it’s not worth crying over. I’m pretty tough. It’d take more than you yelling at me to hurt my feelings,” BJ said in an attempt to comfort Hobie.
Hobie wiped at her eyes. “I got so mad at you because I guess I wanted someone to take it out on.”
“Take what out on?”
“The fact that I suck as a daughter.”
BJ laughed aloud before she could stop herself. “What do you mean? Hobie Lynn Allen, you are a mother’s dream come true.”
“I’m not, though.” Hobie shook her head. “I’m angry at myself, Baylor. Don’t you see?” She looked into BJ’s eyes until BJ wondered if she was going to continue.
“I should have been the one. I should have been that honest with my mother. I should have had the strength to be that honest with her. I should have loved her enough to tell her the truth.”
“Should, should, should...that word can get you into so much trouble. Take it from me, I grew up as the should queen,” BJ said. “Hobie, if you wanted to tell your mom, why didn’t you? Were you just afraid?” She quickly continued, “Because I completely understand that. It’s much harder when it’s your own family.”
Hobie shook her head once more. “No, I think I could almost forgive myself if it was a matter of fear. What I did...” She looked over at BJ again. “I think that I stayed quiet out of selfishness. I’m selfish, plain and simple.”
“You are about the least selfish person I have ever met,” BJ said. “Why would you think such a thing?”
“Because it’s true.” Hobie took a deep breath and waited in silence for a moment. “I think a part of me enjoyed the fact that my mother lived in that little fantasy world where Dad was still alive and nothing about our lives had changed. It was like...” She lowered her head and her voice dropped to a whisper. “Almost like he was still here, you know?”
There it was, out in the open. BJ couldn’t empathize at all with Hobie’s love for her father, but she was envious.
“It was almost easy to believe that he wasn’t really gone when Mom would keep a plate of food warming in the oven for him or take his suits to the cleaner’s. I guess I didn’t want him to be gone, either, so I let Mom carry on. I was selfish. I should have been stronger.”
“There’s that ‘should’word again.” BJ reached out to Hobie. It felt awkward. Physical affection wasn’t something that BJ displayed easily. Sex was one thing, but a compassionate and tender touch merely offered out of friendship was something entirely different.