Mrs. Avery

Chapter 14

There was an uncomfortable silence for a moment. Agnes felt like she was in her boss's office right after she had requested a different starting salary all over again. She hid her discomfort then too.

"I think the most obvious place to start would be Larry."

She waited, this wasn't what she expected, but she felt it also made sense.

"I don't want him around the kids."

"What? Why?" Agnes spat out being way more reactionary than she wanted to be. James opened him mouth. "Woah, wait. Let me try again." She said closing her eyes and collecting herself with that little hand gesture of bringing your fingers together. "Why?" She asked more calmly. Second time was certainly the charm.

James sighed puffing his cheeks in the process before saying, "I'm not trying to tell you to stop seeing him or anything like that, but I just don't want the kids around it. Relationships can be unstable and I don't want them getting attached to him." He kept his eyes on his tea after he finished.

"Wow." Agnes said calmly. "How awkward was that for you to say?"

"Very." James replied still looking at his tea.

"Well, have no fear. I'm not sleeping with Larry."

"Don't start this off with a lie." He said sternly.

"Excuse me." She returned just as stern, her eyebrows perking up slightly.

"I saw you two in bed together this morning." He let out a disgruntled breath and leaned back in the rocker to stare at the ceiling of the porch. "I came in to get you up for breakfast, but just walked back out when I saw you. I had forgotten that you went up together last night"

"First of all, he's my assistant. We travel together all the time and he's been my only friend through this. My boyfriend" She hated that word. It sounded like she was in high school. "lives in the city and I had zero intention of introducing the kids to him."

"You're going to tell me that Larry came to Momma's funeral, but your boyfriend didn't?" James asked, much too confident in his assertion.

Agnes opened her mouth to start, a small sound even escaped, but then she shut her mouth. He was right. Agnes had never thought of it that way, but her boyfriend wasn't exactly her emotional pillar. Their arrangement was one more intended for fun and need than prospective future. They were both so career oriented that they fit each other well. That wasn't to say that they didn't care for one another, even love each other, but it was to say that their relationship was very different. She thumbed through her phone for a picture.

"My relationship with Evan," She emphasized his name and handed the phone over to him despite her discomfort. On the screen was a picture of Evan and Agnes hiking together at Lake Tahoe. In the photo, they were wrapped rather closely together that it was easy to see they were a couple. "is unusual. I haven't dated like a normal person in..." she paused realizing her last fully developed, future oriented relationship was with James. "quite some time." She had started to want that with Evan, but had promised to back off. She was reaching too far and had been given a reality check.

James got a strange ache in the center of his chest as he looked at the picture. He wanted to be irritated with her, but couldn't when he heard the way she talked about it. He was immediately wrapped up in his own shortcomings in the same area of his life. None of his short-term attempts had ever met the kids.

He thought about pushing back on her and denying her story, but he believed her... against his own logic, he knew she was telling him the truth. He handed the phone back to her. Agnes broke the silence a few moments later.

"Larry is just going to help us. He's actually a personal assistant and his role is intended to help with these things." She paused. "He'll grow on you with time."

"I see a career in business has worked out well for you." James couldn't help, but look at her hair. His eyes had adjusted to the light and he was noticing the wave that had settled in from her shower, curls had form near the base of her neck just like he remembered. He used to twirl them in his fingers.

She shrugged her hair falling over her shoulder to her front. Her career had been the only thing that worked out well. She'd lost her entire family before thirty. A successful career didn't seem to fill those voids. They sat silently again for a time.

"Anything else?" Agnes asked. She was tired of keeping it together. She wanted to go inside and shower again... or cry... or something. She kept getting irritated with herself for being drawn back to his neck when her awkward eyes didn't know where to go. She used to nuzzle him there and he would wrap his arms around her. "What's wrong, digger?" he always used to say. He swore up and down, back then, that she only dug into his neck when something was wrong.

"Yeah..." he said dragging out the word. "Ahh..." He groaned. This was clearly going to be awkward as well. "When you talk to the kids... just don't... you know... promise them anything."

"Well this just keeps getting worse." She said.

"For fucks sake." James muttered. "What did you promise them?" The frustration was crisp on his voice.

"I promised them I wouldn't let them be separated or taken from you. And I promised them I wouldn't just leave."

"Agnes... come on." He stood up and walked the length of the porch. Agnes stood too.

"James, you come on."

"I get that you have good intentions, but you don't know that you can promise that."

"What makes you think I have no control over that?" Both of their tones were harsher.

"I think you mean well," He sighed and his tone softened as he continued. "but you don't know what options you'll have going forward. This may not be what you want forever." He said gesturing towards the house.

"I will always choose them. I've already proven that with this house even when I wasn't with them. The kids and I are not like you and I were. This is all different. Please just give me this chance."

"I'm trying." He said and then continued in almost a whisper. "But, I already know what kind of damage you're willing to do... even to your own family."

If there were ever words that could destroy someone, it would be those words just days after your mother had died. Agnes stopped dead and her eyes watered, but she didn't have anything to say. James waited a moment, ashamed of himself, and then he walked off the porch to his car and drove home. Agnes sat back down in the rocker and just cried. There's no other way to comfort yourself when it's true.