Page 13 of Sunny Undone

“We’re never gonna learn,” she mutters to no one in particular as she shakes her head.

Patty, our usual waitress, puts three cups of coffee down without even taking our order. “Morning, boys,” she says.

“Morning, Patty,” I reply.

“You’re new,” Patty says to Della. “Who are you?”

Della looks a little caught out by the question. “I’m Della. I live about forty minutes away.”

Patty nods as if the answer is perfectly sufficient. “I’ll give you a minute with the menus.”

The second she walks away, Della reaches for the sticky laminated menu. “Can I ask you some questions?”

Ridge picks up his coffee and snorts. “Ask away. Can’t guarantee answers.”

Before she can start, my phone rings. It’s Mom. And my stomach does the usual thing when I see her contact on my phone. It drops like it’s in free fall. She’s in trouble. Needs bail. Is high and needs cash. Shame is a funny fucker, and I decline without answering.

I hate that my mom knows exactly how to ask me to get me to do what she wants. I’m embarrassed I’ve given her so much while receiving so little in return. And, yeah, for years, I didn’t keep score. It was just always the right thing to do. To look after my mom. But the last few years have been tainted with a kind of bitterness about it. And for some reason, it matters to me that Della doesn’t know, for now, that I’ve been unable to fix what keeps my mom from me.

“Go ahead. Ask your questions,” I reiterate, trying to pretend everything is okay.

“Great. So, how does someone apply to be an Outlaw? I mean, do you apply? Who decides? And why motorcycles? Also, what makes a club legitimate, and are you one of those one percenters? And what’s a road captain and a tail gunner?”

I can’t hold back the laughter. Our feet brush against one another beneath the table and Della’s eyes meet mine. And I swear a prickle of…something…passes between us. She bites down on her lower lip, and I don’t want to look away.

“That’s a lot of questions,” Ridge says.

“This woman collects information like squirrels collect nuts.” I wink at Della, but she playfully rolls her eyes. “Bet you’re one of those people who can answer every question on TV quiz shows.”

I was a slow reader. At least, that’s what they said about me in school. I mean, one teacher called me stupid, and my mom, so drunk she could barely stand, screamed at the woman so hard, she ended up having some kind of meltdown and leaving the school district. Mom was banned from the school yard after that and could only speak to staff by phone. But it was one of the few times I felt there was a better mom inside her somewhere. Because despite being off her head on cheap alcohol, she stood up for me.

In her lucid moments, Mom always said it was because I was born on the very last day of December, six weeks early. Preemies can be a bit delayed, she’d say, and that I’d grow into my birth date. She also said I was sucked into the school system sooner than I was ready, since she had no choice because she had to work, but that I’d catch up with my peers.

And the truth is, I believed her for the longest time.

But as I’ve become an adult, I realize I’m not gonna catch up. It’s never gonna happen. I’m not a strategist like Knox or good with numbers like Lock. There’s no way I could be a medic like Reaper or memorize routes up and down the country like Ridge. I don’t even have the logistics skills to take care of our prospect program. Information never seems to stay in my brain very long, and I have to write things down if I’m gonna remember them tomorrow.

But I can fight. And I’m loyal. And no brother will ever feel alone for as long as there is air in my lungs.

Yet one thing sticks with me from those days of struggling with reading and comprehension. The librarian at my school, Mrs. MacInnis. She got me the best goddamn books. Pirate ships. Space aliens. Treasure seekers.

If a book had a map at the front of it, even better.

If I didn’t know what words meant, she’d patiently help me look them up and read the explanation. Best fucking explainer of anything, that Mrs. MacInnis.

I think about her and the books she’d give me to help me read. And how, somewhere along the way, I stopped worrying about how long it took me to read a book and disappeared into the story.

“I suck at quizzes,” I admit.

“I’ve been on Jeopardy!,” Della says.

“Of course you have,” Ridge says. “How’d you do?”

“I won six games.”

Ridge nearly inhales his coffee. “You won six episodes of Jeopardy!?”

Della frowns at that. “Ken Jennings won seventy-four. Six is, objectively, not that impressive.”