Page 55

THIRTY-THREE

COURTNEY

I will never ever look at the team bench the same way again.

The perma-flush on my face heats some more as I look up at the wall lined with hooks as I put my camera away and sling my bag over my shoulder.

I’ve had the rink all to myself today, it’s been an oddly quiet day.

Which means I’ve been too much in my head, thinking about all the things I shouldn’t be thinking.

Like how maybe I don’t have to give Auguste up at the end of my time here.

Of course, I know it’s impossible for me to hold on to him.

We’ll be a whole country apart with schedules that clash at every opportunity, but…

The rhythmic vibration of my phone preludes a loud jarring ring that echoes through the empty space.When I grab it from the bench, everything in my chest lurches at the name.

Mom.

I let it ring a couple more times, unsure I want to take the call. I’m still working through the fact that she kept my dad from me. I’m upset and I can’t see how talking to her right now is going to help how I feel.

Trudging through the tunnel towards the corridor to the exit, I take another glance at my phone and I don’t know… that little voice that reminds me this woman is my mom, cuts through all the rest. With a deep inhale, I answer the call and exhale slowly, quietly as mom greets me.

“Hi, sweetheart.” Her voice is light. Too breezy given we haven’t spoken in weeks.

“Hey.” I sit on the nearest bench, half-hidden behind a potted plant. My heart jackhammering in my chest .

“How are you?” she asks when I remain silent.

“Fine…”

“Good. Good . How’s everything in LA?”

She would know if she picked up my calls or replied to any of my texts. She hasn’t. Not once. Not one. Now, she’s acting like there isn’t a shadow looming over us.

As much as I want to tell her how badly she’s hurt me, I go for something less confrontational. Because the Libra in me always wins out.

“LA’s good. I’m busy… learning and… yeah… everything is fine.”

“Aww, you’re all grown up and learning what it’s like to be an adult.”

I’ve known what it’s like to be an adult for a very long time.

Her husband’s favorite words to me have always been “grow up”.

Again, I breathe through the anger cloying my chest and wait for the next question she wants to ask.

The next window she wants to try and creep through to my good graces.

And honestly, I think I’m all out of those.

I’m tired of making excuses for her. For the way she treats me.

Like I’m baggage from an era of her life she wants to forget. Maybe I am, but that’s not my fault.

“So,” she starts, pausing with a sigh like whatever she’s about to say is so blasé.

“So…”

The Stepford chuckle trills down the phone, making me cringe. “Your father told me he bought you an apartment in New Orleans.”

“No,” I say, immediately. “He didn’t buy it for me. It’s an investment for him .”

She tsks, and I can picture her thumbing her pearls in that silent frustrated way of hers. “Courtney, come on. Don’t split hairs. If your father bought the place and you’re living there, it’s yours. You’re set up. He bought it for you.”

I don’t bother arguing or telling her that the reason he bought it is because the rent was extortionate and his accountant advised him to invest some of his liquidity to help with his tax bill.

To be honest it’s none of her business, and at this point with everything I know, I don’t owe her any explanation.

So I go back to keeping quiet and letting her lead the call. No one’s crying this way.

“Well,” she hums, “it’s all very nice and generous of him. And you know, since you’ve got a place of your own now… Well, the house is superfluous to you.”

“The house… our house?” The Washington property that Dad let her ke ep by signing his half over to me in a trust to avoid uprooting me anymore than the divorce already had.

“Courtney, you haven’t lived here since you left for college and you’ve hardly visited… your room is empty and the house is just getting too big for me and Martin on our own. Now you’re moving to New Orleans…”

“I’m in New Orleans for ten months and then?—”

“And then you’ll stay because The Crescents will want to keep you,” she croons with a sickly sweet tone that is completely put on. “So, I went ahead and had Martin’s lawyer draw up the transfer papers for the house.”

I freeze.

“What?”

“You know, it makes sense. You’re never going to live here again, and it’s not like Martin and I?—”

“No.” I don’t raise my voice, but it’s firm enough for her to draw a line on the conversation.

That house was our home. There are memories beneath all the new decor she and Martin have done.

There are holidays and summer breaks and pancake mornings and movie nights on the floor with my dad.

There are trees that he helped me climb, and a pool he taught me to swim in.

There are memories. My memories. Good memories.

“No,” I repeat, firmer now. “I’m not signing anything. I want to keep my half of the property.”

She goes quiet.

Then, sharp and bitter, she sobs, “Honestly, Courtney… you’re being selfish. That house doesn’t mean anything to you anymore, and you know it. But you’d rather be difficult and create problems than let it go. What have I done to deserve this? For you to treat me so… so…”

My breath catches at her high-pitched cry. The thing is, I’ve had a front row seat to manipulation, and while I hate confrontation, I’m not a pushover. I’m not stupid. I know what she’s doing, and that’s what cracks the damn of my silence.

“Why didn’t you tell me Dad called you every week for the last twelve years?” I ask, voice shaking. “Why pretend like he was always too busy to care?”

“I—”

“You’ve lied to me. For years. All this time.”

She scoffs. “Don’t be dramatic.”

“Don’t gaslight me,” I snap. “You made me believe I was his afterthought when all this time, he was trying to be there. He called every week. Every week , Mom.”

The silence that follows is suffocating. Whoever said that it’s better out than in is a goddamn moron. Because voicing all of this has made it all hit deeper and worse. She’s my mom… my mother. She’s meant to love me, protect me, nurture me.

Every emotion cuts through my mind, and all I can think about is dinner with Auguste’s family, the afternoon on the boat… how earnestly they care for each other. How tenderly they celebrate each other. Maybe they’re an anomaly, an exception… but I can’t unsee it. Pretend I didn’t experience it.

“You had no right,” I whisper. “You let me sit in that heartbreak. You let me think I was unwanted… a burden. That he left me when he let you go.”

“I was trying to protect you,” she hisses. The sweetness is gone now. Stripped bare. “You don’t understand what he put me through. What that life put me through.”

“This isn’t about you.”

“Yes, it is ! Everything I do is for you and all I get in return is judgment. I am your mother. And mothers and daughters are supposed to help each other. Stick together.”

Stick together .

“Stick together?” I breathe, stunned. “You didn’t even let me stick with my own dad. You ripped me away from him. And now you want to guilt me into giving up the last good memories I have of us? Grow up, Catherine.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Grow. Up. Mother.” Those words shouldn’t be too hard for her to understand.

Another sob and then— click —nothing. Silence.

She hangs up on me. Again.

Just like that. Like always.

I stare at the phone in my hand, the call history blinking back at me. The air buzzes faintly with background noise—voices, footsteps, laughter.

But all I hear is the echo of her silence. There’s a finality to it that sits wrong. A weight that threatens to crush me.

And yet, even though my heart hurts and my eyes sting, I’m proud of myself for not backing down.

For realizing that maybe all this time, she’s gotten from Martin what she’s given me.

And maybe it is a learned behavior. Maybe it’s the fallout from his bullying.

But I'm not her, and I won’t let her treat me like it anymore.

It took all of a few minutes after walking into the apartment for me to realize I didn’t want to be there on my own. To feel Auguste’s absence like a vice around my chest. It felt lonely and empty like the first time I walked inside.

That’s not what I need right now.

Instead of wallowing I change into my swimsuit, grab my kindle, and head up to the rooftop pool.

The elevator doors open into the indoor, greenhouse type garden.

The babble of the water fountain in the middle is a welcome distraction from the silence in my head.

I sit on the stone edge for a while, reading, listening to the trill of the water and breathing in the sweet scent of the flowers.

Until I grow too used to the peace and I’m reading the same words again and again.

I move to the pool, swimming as many lengths as I can, exhausting myself to the point that I’m doggy paddling, breathless.

My brain is focused on one thing and one thing only—not drowning—as I starfish on the surface of the water and watch the sky marl in dusty shades of lavender and gold.

Darkening like a bruise, achy and throbbing.

I’m so tired, I drag myself out of the water and sit on the edge of the sun bed, curled up in a towel that’s too small to shield me from the cooling evening breeze.

There are no distractions left as I look out at the city in the near distance. Lights twinkling to life here and there.

In my head, my mother’s words roll around.

You don’t know what that life did to me.

She acts like hockey ruined our family, but I’m not sure I believe it anymore. The longer I spend here, I’m not sure that’s true at all.

And somewhere deep in the hollowed-out parts of me, that’s what scares me most. That maybe I like this life too much. The people, the chaos, the adrenaline… the family I’ve found again.