Chapter Text
Pie didn’t bring any answers and neither did eating lunch so now she’s kneading dough for the seven-grain bread recipe that Dicky swore she just had to try for Ricky’s sandwiches.
Now, what is she going to do with his old room?
The guest room with its queen bed and lovely handmade quilt is also her sewing room and it’s getting awfully cramped. Dicky’s old room is bigger. If she swapped beds, made his room the guest room and did it up all nice, set up his old twin as a day bed in her sewing room just in case they had lots of people, she’d have more space of her own, be less likely to have to tuck away an entire project just because they had sudden company. Why, if they have 2 people stay on the queen, another on the twin, another on the sofa bed, their house could be bursting with loved ones one day. Noise and sound and laughter and bustle like this house hasn’t had since Dicky’s high school hockey friends last visited.
Now, how should she paint it? Decorate it? She had to-
No. This is not what she had to be doing.
The bed was not the issue.
Dicky was the issue. And she had to do something.
For so long she had watched from the sidelines. Fussed and encouraged and baked and questioned but always held back, always been a spectator.
Sat back and watched as he researched colleges and sent in applications, committed to Samwell despite all her protests and worries but no real interference, waved and cried and watched as he left for that first semester, came home, left again.
Listened and waited as he told her not quite everything about his new life, didn’t try to find his vlog or his twitter or wherever else he was sharing his real thoughts those days.
And where had it got her?
Looking like a fool the day after the Cup with no answers and no word from her boy.
Still waiting, for him to call, for him to explain, to give answers, to open up so she knew what she needed to say to let her baby know she still loved him. And since then, waiting for when he had time, waiting for when he was up for talking, not utterly worn out with being a senior and being captain and being out and being the boyfriend of a famous athlete and so many other things she would never fully understand.
No, no more waiting.
She had to do something. Had to show him- him and Jack- that a mama’s love was forever and she was so, so proud of them both. That Jack was a fine boy and was welcome anytime, welcome to stay forever, be a part of the family even.
Show him that she could be a proud grandma one day- if they were thinking along those lines, if they might think along those lines in the future, if they’d listen to her if she dropped hints about wanting grandbabies.
She had to do something.
Just- not public. Not yet.
It was hard enough slipping into the basement of a church 25 miles away for PFLAG meetings every month. She knew the Atlanta Pride Parade was in 3 months. The rest of the group was going and had even given her a “Proud Mom of a Gay Son” shirt in case she changed her mind.
She wasn’t ready.
Private steps were easier. A picture of Dicky with Jack in her wallet. A family picture on the wall from last July that was taken with Jack’s camera on a timer so he could be in it.
But it had to be big. Something real. Something the nasty busy-bodies would never see.
The room. Dicky’s room. That was it.
She hurriedly gave the bread a few more kneads before tossing it into her big greased bowl, sealing it, and scraping and scrubbing urgently at the dough on her hands before whisking upstairs.