Mrs. Avery

Chapter 37

When they finally peeled away from each other, Agnes wiped her face and said, "I'm sorry.... I'm sorry for all of it. I don't know how to make all those years right again. And I understand, if I can't." She hated that that was a possibility.

"It wasn't like I was alone." He said quietly. "I just thought you'd be there too. I don't know how I became the dad when I felt like our parents did everything."

Agnes sighed a small laugh at him. "I can." She said sniffling. "You loved them that way after Chris and Molly were gone. That's obvious to me." She paused. "You're a really good dad... even if you're not conventional."

They sat in silence for a time before Agnes spoke up.

"I'm going to grab a quick shower... see if I can wash some of the heartache off." She tried to joke, but neither really laughed. "Then we can try a few more beers minus the emotional turmoil of the past decade."

That did make him huff a laugh for her. "That does sound like a good deal. Mind if I wash off my trauma next?"

"What kind of host would I be if I made you carry your emotional baggage all night?" She stood and grabbed what was left of her beer. "I will get out some towels for you. Do you need a toothbrush?"

"A toothbrush? What time is it?"

"I don't know, don't ask complicated questions. I'll get one out and you can decide from there." She waved him off and made for the stairs.

He kept drinking on the floor before it dawned on him. "Oh my god... that weirdo still brushes her teeth in the shower. That's why she thought I needed one." He laughed out loud for what he decided was too long. He then tried to stand and confirmed that he was as drunk as he thought. He decided to take it easy on the beer until Agnes returned and instead resorted to cleaning up the bottles they already had across the house. When she came down the stairs she had her hair wrapped in a towel and she was wearing red pajama bottoms and an over sized t-shirt.

"Take a shower beer." She said, "It will change your life."

"I can't imagine that tastes good against the toothpaste."

"Listen rookie. You finish the beer and then brush your teeth. You're old enough to know this."

She sat down and cracked another beer to sip while toweling off her hair. When he came back downstairs, she was sitting at the kitchen table and her damp hair was hanging over her back with the ripples that came from not brushing it immediately after she got out of the water. She pulled it over one shoulder and started to towel it off again.

"Do you feel like a new human?" She asked.

"Oddly yes." He said trying not to watch her too intently. He smiled and then immediately tried to redirect his thoughts as he grabbed a beer and sat down across the table from her.

"I'm going to try to google that English thing that Juli had so that I can wrap that up with her tomorrow."

"We took care of that this morning." Agnes smiled. It was the very first one that didn't seem to have a manic tinge to it.

He paused lifting the beer to his lips and instead put it back down. "I'm not going to take the kids."

She froze from toweling her hair. "James, I- ... Are you serious?"

"Yeah." He said softly and nodded.

"But what about you?"

"Well, when I'm done with my residency and my schedule is normal, we can work this out to have them back and forth every other week, or whatever works then. But right now, we rely on you and Larry a lot and all this new place is going to do is displace them and add extra steps for you two. I want the next situation for them to be more permanent and, if it can't be quite that permanent then I'd at least like to not do this to them the same year they lost their grandma and almost lost their grandpa."