She walked to the kitchen and grabbed the giant bottle of aspirin that lived by the microwave before she went to the shower to wash the pervasive smell of coffee and kitchen grease from her skin.
She’d done it to herself. She’d raised Jackson to be an independent kid, and he was. How was she supposed to know that one day she’d wish he was a clinger?
The front door slammed shut as Val was getting out of the shower, her skin exposed to the world like a raw nerve.
Unless she was doing chores, she tried to keep from wearing her gloves at home. She didn’t want the boys to notice and wonder about her turning into a germophobe or anything that might cause questions. She definitely needed them if she cleaned their room, but for the most part, her own small home provoked nothing but good memories. Those she could deal with.
Andy’s cheerful voice echoed down the hall. “Hey, Mom!”
“Hey, kiddo!” She rubbed a towel through her hair and thought about cutting it again. She needed a trim. She’d shaved the sides and back a couple of years before and never looked back. She kept the top long, but her hair was insanely thick and pin straight. Having the sides shaved let her do some fun things with the style and gave her neck a break. It also highlighted the tattoo work she’d gotten done on her upper back and neck.
She squinted at the foggy mirror.
You still got it. You’re still rock and roll.
Val reached in the medicine cabinet and grabbed a packet of the vitamins Monica had forced her to start taking when she hit forty. She downed the small handful in a single gulp. She was rock and roll. Headaches from not getting enough sleep and iron deficiency were not.
She pulled on a pair of yoga pants and an old concert T-shirt before she left the bathroom. She’d only been able to buy the house five years ago, and her parents had to cosign because she was self-employed, but she made every payment and it was hers.
Two bedrooms and one bath, it sat within walking distance of Misfit Mountain and the grocery store. It was more of a cabin than a house, but Val still loved it. She’d given her boys the larger room since they had to share and had taken the smallest room at the southwest corner for her own sanctuary.
“Hey, guys!”
Andy came barreling toward her. “Hola, madre.”
Val grinned. “I see someone had Spanish today.”
“Sí.” Andy adored school. He adored learning anything new. He loved languages and had a list of them he wanted to learn so he could visit far-flung parts of the globe. He got excited about group projects. He loved tests, for heaven’s sake.
Andy was an alien.
Val thought that probably one of Robin’s kids and hers got mixed up somehow, because neither she nor Josh were school people. Whatever. She wasn’t giving him back. Andy was too wonderful.
Dark eyes shaded by a fall of thick brown hair met her gaze from down the small hallway. Ah yes. Jackson was Val’s Mini-Me with his father’s good looks.
“Hey, handsome.”
Jackson cracked a smile. “Hey, Mom.”
“Any news I need to know about?”
The look on his face said there was news and she wasn’t going to like it.
“What’s going on?” she asked.
Andy disappeared into his room—probably to read Tolstoy or Austen or Aristotle like the lovely alien he was—and Val walked toward her oldest.
Jackson sighed. “I got my chemistry paper back.”
“And?”
His face said it all. “D.”
“A D?” Val’s heart fell. It was a huge project, and she knew it was a big part of his grade. She wasn’t the strictest mom, and she had no illusions about Jackson getting straight As—he didn’t like school and he’d always struggled—but he was also insanely smart and science was usually his strong suit.
“What happened?” She sat at the table. “I saw you working on it. Did you not—”
“Stupid shit,” Jackson muttered. “It’s not English class, so I don’t know why they’re being so picky about grammar and shit.”
“So what if it’s not English?” Val said. “It’s still a paper. Did you not format it correctly? Didn’t you edit? You told me I didn’t need to look at it because a friend was editing for you.”
“She did, okay?” The guilty look on his face told a different story. “Don’t be uncool. I guess she’s not as good at editing as you. It’s not her fault.”
Val held out her hand. “Let me see.”
A single touch of the science paper gave Val a flash of a very cute girl and her teenage son making out in a corner of the library. The paper sat on the table beside them.
Ew. No, thank you. Val dropped the paper.
This wasn’t Jackson not understanding, this was him not doing the work. Val rubbed her temple, trying to wipe the image from her head. “What the heck, Jack?”
He rolled his eyes and Val came to her feet. “I don’t think so. First off, lose the attitude.”
“Mom, it’s one paper. Don’t overreact.”
“It’s your grades. It’s your future. Next fall you start applying to colleges, and you cannot have Ds on your transcripts, kid. That’s not the way it works. You know you have to get scholarships, Jackson.”
“Or I go to community college. We’re not rich, Mom. You know that’s what’s going to happen anyway.”
“Not if you get scholarships!”
“Why do you care so much?”
“Because I don’t want you to end up like me and your dad, okay!”
The look on Jackson’s face killed her. “You think I’m like Dad?”
Why couldn’t anything they argued about be easy anymore? Val looked to the heavens and bit her lip hard before she responded. “You know that’s not what I mean.”
“’Cause”—he was clearly pissed off—“I’m the one who picks Andy up from school and takes him to soccer practice and tells him about shaving and does all that shit. So like, I’m already doing better than Dad.”
Val walked over and put both her hands on Jackson’s face. “Look at me and take a breath.” She could see the waves of hormones and anger rolling off him. He was sixteen and had been taking on adult roles since long before a kid should have to. “Deep breaths, Jack.”
Her son inhaled and got himself under control.
“Listen to me,” Val said quietly. “I am so proud of the man you’re becoming. You’re twice the man your father is, and the fact that you have any relationship with him at all is a testament to the man you are and not the man he is. Do you understand me?”
Jackson nodded.
“When I say I don’t want you to end up like me and your dad, I meant the options you have. I didn’t think school was important and so I blew it off, and when I needed some kind of foundation for being on my own, it wasn’t there. I had no degree. I barely had a high school diploma. I worked, but I had to work twice as hard to prove myself.”
“But you did,” he mumbled.
“Eventually. Yeah. But why make life more difficult for yourself if you don’t have to? And your dad? He’s a brilliant mechanic. He is an absolute artist with bikes and cars. But he has no idea how to run a business, so he’s always losing money. He didn’t get the training he needed to be successful. I do not want that for you.”