I followed on her heels as she made it through the front door. It was the first really pleasant spring evening, in the upper sixties. Em left her jacket on the hook and ran out in her cooking clogs.
“Emma!” I jogged after her into the street. “Let me drive you.”
“I got it,” she said, but she was fumbling with her car keys.
I put my hand over hers. “Hey. Let me help. You’re shaken up.” Emma had that deer-in-headlights look, her lower lip trembling. She nodded feebly and I pulled her to my chest for a quick squeeze. “It’ll be okay. Let’s take my car. I keep some tools in there.”
Once we were in my car and headed for the highway, I reached over for Emma’s thigh, but she grabbed my hand and held it. Our fingers laced together.
“He’s okay,” I said. “We’ll be there soon.”
“Anybody could hit him,” she whispered. “People drive so crazy around here. He had to pull into the median instead of the shoulder.”
Her face had paled, her lower lip pinched between her teeth.
I decided to talk her through the facts. “What was happening when his car broke down?”
She blew out a shaky breath. “He said it flashed the battery lights and then just turned itself off. He barely got to the median. Probably the?—”
“Alternator,” we both said at the same time.
“I know the basics of cars, Harlan.”
“I know,” I said. “I don’t doubt you.”
She looked like she was trying so hard not to scowl. I was trying to be nice to her but old habits die hard. Once a know-it-all, always a know-it-all.
I tried to soften things. “I’m here to support you. If you need me to be here while you take care of stuff, I will. If you want me to take care of the stuff, I will.”
Emma opened a browser on her phone and I knew without a doubt that she was looking up how much an alternator costs. I put my hand back on her thigh. “Don’t worry about that part. Let’s just get Liam.”
“Harlan,” she tried, but her voice cracked.
“What’s the point of having a rich secret boyfriend if he doesn’t pay for a car repair or two?”
“This is what I was afraid of,” she said. “I can run my own life. I was a mom without you for twelve years before this.”
“Twelve?”
“Jeff and I split when Liam was five.”
“Ah.” A tense silence hung in the air. “I’m not trying to overstep.”
Emma sighed. “I know.” Her gaze fixed on the median when we got within a few miles of Liam’s car. “I should have called his dad to take care of this.”
“I feel like Liam called you because he wants you.”
“Moms always know best,” she mused, then took a deep inhale. “I don’t want you to regret giving me things later or hold it over me. And I know you probably don’t think you would, but other people have. When things turn sour . . .”
I snorted softly. “I know plenty about when things go sour. Things were sour outside my house the other night.”
“That’s true.” She rested her hand on top of mine, just above her knee. I already had my signal on when she pointed out the windshield. “There he is!”
Once we got stopped, Emma hurried to Liam and I popped my trunk in case I needed my tools.
Emma hugged Liam, and it was weird seeing the contrast between the two of them. Liam was a head taller than Emma,and their hug was kind of awkward between his lean frame and her curves. I never thought Emma looked old, but seeing her next to her teenage son made the difference more stark. It reminded me of hugging my mom at that age, but Emma was younger than my mom was when I was a teenager. Thoughts of high school graduations and hockey celebrations flashed through my mind. My parents sacrificed so much to get me where I was, and seeing Emma do the same for Liam put a new lens on it.
When did I go from the kid to the adult?