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“It’s a good thing I had the foresight to bring lunch.” She gestured down to the quiche she was arranging on plates. “Otherwise, we would’ve starved.” Her pointed and experienced gaze settled on me. “And you do not need to miss a meal.”
My mother spent a lot of time in Jupiter now that she had grandchildren here. Luckily, most of her time was spent with them, not one-on-one with me.
I didn’t like how aware of myself I was forced to be when it was just me and my mother. I felt uncomfortable around her, with her kind eyes, easy, loving smile. The distance I’d put between me and my whole family had guarded me in a way. I was home for holidays and birthdays, but I was buffered by the celebration of it all so no one looked at me too closely, seeing how little of my soul remained.
But my mother had arrived with coffee and pastries, and I couldn’t exactly close the door in her face like part of me longed to. It would hurt her. And despite how much I’d hardened to people’s pain, I couldn’t stomach my mother’s.
My father visited often too. Yet he did not come for one-on-one dates. How I longed to return to being the daddy’s girl I was before puberty hit and our personalities started to clash. Both of us were as stubborn as the other, refusing to cross thedistance between us, to mend the wounds obtained during my teen and young adult years. Actually, that was a lie. My father had tried. He’d come to New York with my mother, complained about the small portions at the Michelin star restaurants I took them to, fixed things that weren’t broken in my apartment, and murmured about the crime.
Yes, he’d tried. In his own way. And I had shut him down. Because I didn’t want to see the look in his eye when he realized none of his little girl remained.
My mother, though, was impossible to shut out.
We spent our time together drinking coffee, discussing safe topics, surface issues. Nora’s upcoming due date, Kip and Fiona … general gossip around Jupiter or how my other nieces and nephews were doing in school.
But I felt an undertone, all of her burning questions. She, like the rest of my family, nursed a hefty sense of concern and curiosity about my presence there and wondered what caused me to leave New York. I couldn’t fucking win. All they wanted was me closer to home, starting a family of my own—they were all unaware I physically couldn’t—yet when I came back, they were overflowing with unasked questions and trepidation. It was because they knew me well enough to be nervous about my presence there.
“Are you ashamed of me?” I asked my mother bluntly, if only to relieve the pressure of the tension in the air.
Usually, I was able to swallow those questions like a handful of jagged pills—if I let myself acknowledge them at all. I didn’t typically let myself think such self-indulgent thoughts.
But my night with Elliot had me unnerved, without my shields I lived behind. And then the ensuing weekend in Vegas had left me feeling dirty in a way that I never had before. Sure, I’d relished in the metaphorical sheen of filth that I couldn’t escape when I stepped into the underworld, but I was usuallyable to wash it off, shut my mind from it, justify my involvement. Partly because I had a powerful mind, and partly because I liked it. Enjoyed the rush, the danger, the power.
And I couldn’t stop thinking of that body in the grave staring up at me, which wouldn’t have been there without my decisions. But then Clara wouldn’t be recovering from a potentially life-saving treatment either. Though I’d never be able to think of Clara without thinking about her mother’s shallow grave, one she’d never know existed. Just how Jasper designed it.
My mother blinked in surprise, probably at the question, which was uncharacteristic of me. But she recovered quickly, as mothers often did.
Her eyes crinkled at the corners as she placed her hands on the counter. “How on earth could I be ashamed of you?”
I let out a snort. “I don’t know. You have a war hero for a son who is irritatingly obsessed with doing the right thing, risked his life for his country, and another daughter who popped out all these perfect grandchildren and is the epitome of a good mother and daughter. And then there’s me.” I sipped my coffee. “Who has none and will never have children to speak of. I’ve never done the right thing once in my life. I made my career and my life out of making the rich richer, knowing I’m the furthest thing from a hero a person could be.”
That was the truth I presented to the outside, and that wasn’t even the half of it. But even half of it sounded bad.
My mother did me the favor of digesting my words, knowing me well enough to discern that if she surged forward with platitudes, I was sure to respond with a knee-jerk reaction, shrugging them off.
She clicked her tongue, eyeing me. Her hair was dark like our entire family’s, though with liberal streaks of grey she was embracing. It suited her.
“Being a parent, being a mother, being your mother is the greatest thing I’ve ever done.” The wrinkles framing her eyes deepened with her grin. “But it’s the most painful thing too. I’ve watched you since you were born, Calliope. And from the second you came out, you were going to be who you were going to be. Strong. Stubborn. Not willing to take an ounce of shit.”
I smiled without humor since that wasn’t exactly a compliment.
“I have known that you will all face challenges and hurt, and that I wouldn’t be able to do anything about it.” Her smiled remained, yet her eyes became glassy. “And watching the pain Rowan went through, worrying every day whether he would come home or not, was hell. Witnessing your sister lose children, suffer postpartum depression… I wanted to fix it all. But I couldn’t.”
She picked up a fork, toying with the quiche on her plate. Her gaze was haunted, the only sign of the scars she bore from her children’s pain.
“And those struggles are not nothing.” She looked up, blue eyes shining with love. “Yet I knew that I’d be the furthest from your pain and struggles, Calliope.” She rounded the counter, her direction clear, my entire body tensing in preparation as she came to stand in front of me.
“Because you’re so strong, because you wouldn’t let me in. I knew that you were destined for a complicated life because you have never wanted easy. You were destined for a kind of pain no mother wants for their child. And I see it.” She reached out and stroked my face. “I know you’ll never tell me what happened to you in New York, what made you come home, but I see it. The pain. Cut down to the bone.”
She cupped my chin in a gesture that made me feel like a child again. One who did indeed want to seek solace in her mother’s embrace, as though it could fix anything.
“My darling, I know that even if I beg, you will not give me the burden of knowing what happened to you.” Pain leeched through her whispered words, even though she didn’t know the source of it. “Although I long to take some of that weight from you, I trust you know how to carry it.” She tucked her hair behind her ear. “As for the thought that you shame me…”
She shook her head, letting my face go.
“I know you’re smart, smart enough to have given yourself watertight reasons to think you’ve caused me shame.” Her hawk-like gaze saw far too much. “And I know that you’ll dismiss me. But you are not an embarrassment. It’s that simple. You are a wonderful aunt, sibling, friend and daughter. And if you doubt that, look at the people who love you. From all walks of life, all smart cookies themselves, and all able to judge character pretty well, don’t you think?”
I knew where she was going with this, yet I thought about my friends and family who had quickly become my lifeline here.