I met her mom.” He shrugged, leaving her to wait while he rammed a cinnamon roll into his mouth, bit off a huge chunk and chewed.
Beth’s mom? That wasn’t what Paige expected him to say. Had the woman said something to upset him? She took a sip of the steaming cocoa and licked the marshmallow froth off her lip, waiting for the rest of the tale.
Finally, after a long beat of silence, Alex confessed. “I took Beth up to the door, and her mom was waiting. She was drunk, I think. And she started chewing out Beth, and I just…” He swallowed hard. “Felt so bad for her.”
“Me, too.” Paige knew Beth’s mom worked at the local motel as a cleaning lady, and rumor had it she was a woman with a sad life.
“Beth didn’t want me to see her mom like that, so she wanted me to go. But she said something to me.” He hung his head. “That I was lucky. To have you for a mom. And she’s right.” He attacked the cinnamon roll again.
Paige let the impact of his words settle. Her heart gave another tug. “You’re a pretty great kid, too, you know. I got lucky when the angels gave me you.”
“I know. I am a good kid.” There was that look again, The Eye, the one that made it impossible for her not to melt with adoration for him. He shoved off the counter, taking the cinnamon roll with him. “I got youth group stuff tomorrow. Did ya need help at the diner?”
“No, we’ll manage without you.”
“It’ll be hard, I know.” He was gone, bounding through the house, thumping and thudding as he went down the hall and into the basement where his bedroom was.
Leaving her alone. The warmth of the house, of her home, surrounded her as she sipped her cocoa. Alex’s advanced calculus and physics textbooks were stacked on the table, ready for him to do his homework when he caught a chance over the weekend. On the counter next to the microwave was the admission booklet and information from the college he’d be attending in the fall.
High-school graduation was just around the corner, in the last week of May, and then Alex would be getting ready to leave home. She’d be putting the diner up for sale and then she’d have all the time in the world to follow her own dreams. Paige had been planning for this time of her life for a long while. She deeply wanted this new future rushing toward her.
But maybe she wasn’t in so much of a hurry to get there.
She finished her hot chocolate, let the peace of the night settle around her and remembered to give thanks for all the good things in her life.
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