Page 32 of The Weight of Love

“Well, see, I found him on my walk this morning. His name is Leonard. Can I keep him?”

The blood drains from our collective faces.

“Oh, dear God, what is it?”

We gasp collectively as a three-inch toad jumps out of Leslie’s bony fingers and directly into Emily’s rather ample cleavage.

Yup. It’s a Monday, and these definitely are my monkeys, and this is my circus.

Chapter Fourteen

Clark

“Have you tried telling her how you feel?”

“I thought so. I mean, I don’t know what more I can do.”

We’re manning the snacks for the volleyball retreat and have been watching Graham’s daughter, Annie, bounce around with Stella’s daughter, Riley, from group to group. The two have become fast friends.

“Hey, Mr. H, how’s it going?” Riley asks as she comes up to get some more water.

“Doing good, Ry, how about you?”

“Oh man, I’m pumped. My Nana’s going to pick me up today and take me shopping. I haven’t seen her in a while.”

“Grandmothers are awesome. It’s good you have one who you’re close with.”

“Well, technically, she’s not really my grandmother. She’s my little brother’s, but she’s always been really sweet to me. She’s the closest thing I do have.”

“Huh, I didn’t realize your mom had been married more than once.”

Riley looks perplexed, and Graham throws a package of peanut butter crackers at me as a warning.

“Worried about some competition, Mr. H?”

“Oh! No. Just curious. We don’t get to talk about a lot. We usually go to the gym at the same time. I met her there. We…talk sometimes, but never really got to know about all that.”

“Ah, yeah,” Riley offers with a perplexed eye roll, “She loves the gym. Lifting heavy circles keeps her from killing Leslie.”

“Leslie is quite the character, that’s for sure.”

“It’s too bad even the gym isn’t enough to break her out of this mood she’s been in lately. Almost like someone needs to step it up and break her out of it.”

My confidence falls as she runs off, Annie pulling her by the sleeve. They whisper excitedly over some new piece of gossip. How much does Riley really know, or does she just suspect?

“Bro, you have got to chill. You can’t be getting information out of Riley. That’s weird.”

“Okay, but it’s valid. If that were the case, I wouldn’t have known that she has two different ex-husbands. It’s not like she’s been exactly forthcoming with information.”

Graham sighed with a deep sadness, taking over his normally happy face.

“There’s more to it than that, man. The only reason she fell in with Nick was that she was still trying to get over Anthony.”

“Her and Anthony were that couple in school who everyone assumed would actually make it in the long run. High school sweetheart thing. He got deployed early on after 9-11. Good Marine. We enlisted around the same time. They were engaged. He died when his convoy ran over an IED.”

“Oh God.”

“Yeah, Stella has been through some stuff. I’m honestly not surprised that she has survived by keeping people at a distance.”