Say You'll Remember Me(56)

I twisted my lips. “Maybe we should. I mean, now that I think back I could tell when she was getting worked up that one day. We could probably get ahead of the outbursts next time.”

We all stared at the cushion.

“She’s going to need diapers,” I said quietly.

“We knew she would,” Jeneva said.

We stood there in silence. Another layer of Mom’s dignity, stripped. One less thing she had agency over.

“Well, I’m getting her the cute ones,” Tristan said. “She’s not gonna be in some hideous old lady nappy.”

For once I appreciated my brother’s defiant energy.

“I’ll get the steam cleaner,” I said.

Tristan scoffed. “You think you’re cleaning that? It’s drenched.”

Jeneva lifted the cushion and winced. “Yup. Straight through.”

I looked back and forth between them. “So what do we do?”

She shrugged. “Get a new sofa? It’s not a bad idea, honestly. This one was so old anyway.”

Tristan crossed his arms. “Well, if we get a new sofa, we need to paint.”

I groaned.

The living room was the only room on the main floor that wasn’t being renovated. It was our last inside place to hang out.

“The carpet is pretty gross too…” Jeneva said.

“I know, but more remodeling?”

“I mean, the sofa’s done. It’s not like we have somewhere to sit,” she mumbled. “We could get it at Dad’s work, he’ll get his discount.”

I took a deep breath and blew it out through my nose. “Fine. Let’s vote on it tonight.”

But I had a feeling I knew what Grandma and Dad were going to say. The house was already chaos, why not just do the rest?

My phone vibrated with a picture.

Xavier. I smiled. I hadn’t seen him now in almost a month. As of right now, we hadn’t set a date for his next visit. He was thinking mid-November, but he was waiting to see if ticket prices went down.

He’d told me about his financial situation. He really did not have disposable income. Now that I knew that, it made the donation he gave Pooter all that more generous.

I guess I always thought “doctor” equaled money. I didn’t consider the realities of it, that medical school is expensive and practices cost hundreds of thousands to open and get up and running. He was a small business owner. That was risky and difficult. He was a hard worker—maybe one of the hardest workers I’d ever met. I don’t think he knew how to stop. When he wasn’t working, he was giving his time to rescues.

And now he was giving his time to me.

A long-distance girlfriend probably hadn’t been in his five-year plan. I got the sense he’d intended to put his nose down and grind for a while before he got into something serious.

And now he was in something a little serious. And it wasn’t going to be easy to navigate.

On one hand I felt bad for derailing his plans. On the other hand, he had come here under false pretenses to trick me into going on a date with him, so the guy had this coming.

My phone vibrated again.

“Who’s that?” Jeneva asked, watching me grin at my screen.

“The smoldering veterinarian of my heart,” I said. “My boyfriend.”

It was a selfie of him with a floppy-eared baby bunny. He was holding it against his chest.

“Are we dumping this or what?” Tristan said, looking annoyed over by the sofa.

“Sorry,” I said, sending Xavier a heart emoji and then setting my phone down.

My sister and I took one end and Tristan took the other and we carried it out to the curb. While we were walking, something slipped out of the bottom of the sofa and bounced down the driveway. I gasped. “Mom’s ring!” I set my side down and ran to pick it up. I held it, beaming.

“No way,” Jeneva said. “I searched this thing like a thousand times!”

“It must have really been in there. What if there’s more?” I said.

Tristan crossed his arms. “We should probably cut it open. Make sure there’s nothing else.”

And this is how we ended up knifing a pee-soaked sofa on the front lawn.

We didn’t find anything else.

When we were done we put the couch on the curb. Tristan and Jeneva went back in, but I stayed outside, sitting on the porch with Mom’s ring on my thumb, scrolling back through my text messages with Xavier.

I missed him.

I wished I could go to him instead. Give him a break. He’d flown here twice already, I wanted to let him catch up with his bills. But it was hard enough to leave everyone to deal with Mom, and to make them juggle the remodel stuff too just so I could see my boyfriend? I couldn’t do it.

Also, the travel wasn’t exactly in my budget either.

The remodel had gotten bigger than anyone anticipated and it was getting bigger still. At the time we’d all agreed to split it, the loans weren’t a burden. I didn’t have a car payment or any social life. I had the money, so why not spend it on a place I loved so I could use a dishwasher that wasn’t from 1972. But now I didn’t have extra to be flying back and forth to Minnesota all the time.

Xavier hadn’t been in my five-year plan either.

Dad pulled up. I watched him get out of the car. “Hey,” he said. He took a seat next to me and set his messenger bag down.