Chapter 39

Summer

I'd taken Mom to my studio to show her around and it dawned on me how much time we'd already wasted. Over lunch, she had tentatively asked how I felt about her moving back to Wylie. The next day, she'd flown to Houston to make arrangements to put her condo up for sale. I'd spent the next two days idly, painting or cleaning or anything else to get my mind off of Ian.

At the cemetery, I breathed humid air and watched Jon Melbourne's tiny casket as it was lowered into the ground. There wasn't a sadder sight on earth than a coffin that size. I stood alone, behind the family as they mourned a child taken too young. A child who would never have a first kiss or fall in love. Who would never go to college or grow up and become a man.

How many years had I wasted being scared? How many years had I not lived? Loved?

Ian hadn't returned any of my phone calls. I'd tried to go over there to tell him about my mother and everything else, wanting to show I wasn't afraid to talk to him and,