Role Playing(22)

“My best friend, Tom, is having a birthday-party sleepover,” he said. “We’re gonna play Magic all night!”

“Or at least until they fall asleep,” Davy said, with obvious fondness. “You have your backpack?”

“Yeah.”

“Got everything?” Davy prompted. “Toothbrush? Birthday present?”

“Yup.”

“Pajamas?”

Bug froze, and Davy sighed.

“Go get your pajamas, Bug.”

Bug bolted back up the stairs.

Davy looked at Aiden. “Ah, the joys of fatherhood,” he joked, then winced. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be. I mean, sometimes I wonder what it would’ve been like to be a parent,” Aiden admitted. “Then again, sometimes I see shit like that kid who climbed a column right in the middle of an airport, or see those screamers running around in a restaurant, and I think—I could barely handle a houseplant, you know?”

Davy laughed as Bug returned. “Okay!” the boy said, out of breath.

“All right. Mount up.” He looked at Aiden. “Why don’t you talk to me on the way?”

Aiden grimaced. This was not something he wanted to talk about in front of a kid. “We’ll talk on the way back,” he said pointedly.

Davy winced. Then the three of them climbed into Davy’s big, shiny truck. There were perks to owning and running three of the most successful car dealerships in the Eastern Washington area, apparently.

Aiden asked Bug a bunch of questions about school and his friends, and Bug chattered away. Before long they were in front of Bug’s mother’s house. Maria was out on the lawn, watering some flowers with a hose. “Bug!” she called, then wrapped her arms around him. Between the two of them, Aiden could definitely see the resemblance, the Latinx genes popping to the fore. Then she glanced over. “Aiden? I haven’t seen you in ages!”

Aiden accepted her exuberant hug. “Hey, Maria,” he said. “How’re you doing?”

She winked. “All right,” she said. “How are you? I was so sorry to hear about your father.”

He sighed. Her relationship with his parents had been . . . tense would probably be underselling it, but it was close enough. “Thanks,” he said.

“And you’re still in the Falls?” she asked. “Wow. I don’t know how you do it.”

He shifted his weight from foot to foot, uncomfortable. “It is what it is.”

She looked at Davy. “So, you’re good for next weekend, right?”

“Aren’t I always?” Davy answered, then gave her a quick hug, before hugging his son. “Be good, behave, and I’ll see you next weekend.”

“Bye, Dad!” Bug said cheerfully, then scampered off with his mother.

Aiden climbed back into the truck. Now that Bug was taken care of and he had Davy in an enclosed space, it was time to get down to brass tacks. “Mom’s health is failing,” he said, almost before Davy closed his door.

“What?” Davy’s hand stilled on the ignition key. “The fuck, Aiden? Why didn’t you tell me! What does she have?”

Aiden sighed. “It’s not like that,” he explained. “It’s not like she has . . . just one thing. It’s not like cancer.”

It’s not like Dad.

“Jesus, you scared me,” Davy said with a scowl, starting the car. “Dude, she’s just getting old. It happens to everybody.”

“I know that,” Aiden said, with more bite than he had intended. He took a deep breath to calm himself down. “I worked in hospice, remember? And I was a nurse for the elderly for a few years before that. I’ve been in nursing homes. I know the drill.”

“Mom’s only, what, seventy-six?” Davy said with a shrug. “And she’s healthy. Ish.”

“She’s been falling. A lot,” Aiden emphasized. “She almost gave herself a concussion on the tile in the bathroom. Gave herself a black eye when she fell and hit the kitchen table. And the car . . .”

“Oh, right,” Davy said, with a snap. “That reminds me. She’s been bugging me, so I thought I’d give her a new car for Christmas. I mean, her old car is a piece of junk, always breaking down.”

“It’s not breaking down!” Aiden growled. “I told her that because I was afraid she was going to take out a fucking school bus full of kids!”

Davy sent him a quick, startled side-eye. “Seriously?”

“That’s why I’ve been texting,” Aiden said. “That’s why I’ve been calling. She’s having issues, and we need to deal with them. We can’t wait until the last minute. Remember what a mess it was with Dad?”

Davy rubbed the back of his neck with one hand. “All right.”

“I need you to come to the Falls,” Aiden said. “She’ll listen to you. She likes you better, anyway.”

“Aiden, that’s not fair.”

Aiden shrugged. “I’m not trying to be passive aggressive with that, or anything. It’s certainly not your fault. I’m just stating facts. She will listen to you. And we need to get her to understand that decisions need to be made. All right?”

Davy sighed heavily. “I have a bunch of stuff I need to deal with at the dealerships,” he grumbled. “And I’m opening the new one in Coeur d’Alene. Dammit, I don’t have time for this.”