Read The Bitter Season for Free Online

that didn’t stop him being her little boy when he didn’t feel well.
    In the shadowed amber light of the lamp on the nightstand, she took in his room. Posters of sports stars, a pennant from a Twins game, a shelf with trophies and awards he had won in football and hockey. His new passions were wrestling and Brazilian jiu-jitsu—also one of Kyle’s sports. Several family-room lamps had paid the price for witnessing their matches.
    Kyle was her neat freak. Everything in his room was just so, bed made, clothes put away. R.J.’s armchair was overflowing with laundry—dirty, clean, and borderline. Athletic shoes littered the floor.
    R.J. had inherited his father’s blond cowlicks. His dimpled smile was all Speed. He was going to melt a lot of hearts. Unlike his father, R.J. was utterly lacking a talent for lying. Everything was right on the surface with him. If he did something to get in trouble, he was the first one to say so, telling Nikki the story in great detail, admitting any and all culpability. He didn’t have a devious bone in his body.
    Nikki hugged him tight.
    “Feeling any better?” she asked quietly.
    “A little,” he said. She could sense the weight of gravity in his pause. “I wish you and Dad didn’t hate each other so bad.”
    Nikki winced internally. “I don’t hate your dad, R.J. We just push each other’s buttons, that’s all.”
    “I hate it when you guys fight,” he said with a hint of little-boy whine in his voice. “And you fight all the time.”
    Speed wasn’t around enough to qualify for “all the time,” Nikki thought, but she didn’t say this. She didn’t want to call attention to the obvious. At any rate, that would only open the “But you made us move away from him” argument.
    She
had
moved them away from their dad, leaving St. Paul for Minneapolis on the excuse of a shorter commute to work and Kyle’s scholarship to a top arts high school. In truth, she had not moved to keep Speed away from the boys, but to keep the boys from noticing that their father didn’t give a shit most of the time. The list oftimes Speed had disappointed them by not showing up was long. Nikki had decided it was better if they blamed her for moving than thought about how many times their father had let them down.
    “You fight because of us,” R.J. said, a little tremor in his voice. “Because of me and Kyle.”
    Nikki wanted to crawl in a hole. She and Speed at least tried to keep their voices down when they were fighting, as if that would keep the boys from feeling the pall of bitterness between them. Kids were so much more astute than adults ever gave them credit for.
    “Your dad and I love you both so very much. Don’t ever think we don’t,” she said, holding him close, wondering how much of his upset stomach was junk food versus the stress of hearing his parents argue. “We just don’t agree on how to show it.”
    “Well, I wish you’d figure it out,” he said with just enough petulance that it was almost funny. Almost.
    “I promise we’ll work on it,” Nikki said. “You know I lie awake nights worrying about screwing you guys up for the rest of your lives. I’m trying not to. You get that, right?”
    “You do okay, Mom.”
    “Thanks.”
    “And Dad does the best he can,” he said. “His best just isn’t the same as your best, that’s all.”
    Out of the mouths of babes.
    “I’ll try harder to remember that,” Nikki said, closing her eyes against the sudden rise of tears.
    “Good. Thanks.”
    “You’re welcome. You’re pretty darn smart, you know.”
    “I try hard,” he said. “That’s the most you can ask from a guy.”
    She thought her heart would burst with love for him.
    He drifted off to sleep not long after. Nikki stayed, sitting on the bed beside him, watching him sleep, listening to him breathe. She had always loved this part of motherhood when they were small,just being with her boys as they slept, when the house was quiet and dark and she could