Page 37

TRENT

I ’m handing my mother her pain pills when somebody knocks on the front door. That’s followed by the chime of Mom’s doorbell.

“Beck?” I lean out of her room and spot my cousin standing in the hall. “Can you see who that is?”

“Yeah.” He was on his way out, but he doesn’t complain as he heads for the door.

I don’t know what I would have done without Beck these past several days. My cousin has helped with everything from navigating hospital bureaucracy to starting the process for a restraining order.

“Thanks,” I shout after him, moving back toward the bathroom to fill up a glass with tap water. I return to Mom’s bedside and hand it over, watching her take it with her good hand. That’s the one not bundled in a bright-purple cast that wraps from her elbow to thumb.

“Who’s at the door?” she asks as she swallows the pills.

“Dunno,” I say, taking the glass. “Probably another casserole.”

“How kind.” It’s nice that she means it, but we’re running out of places to put all the food delivered by well-meaning people from church. “Could you help me adjust the blue pillow, please?”

“Sure.” Shifting her gently away from the headboard, I fluff up the big pile of cushions keeping her upright in bed. She’s been watching a lot of TV while recovering.

From what her own husband— my father —did to her.

“Thank you, sweetheart.” Mom reclines back on her pillow nest. “Are you and the team going wheels-up again soon?”

“Not yet.” I spoke with my commander a few minutes ago. “He approved my request for extended family leave.”

“That’s good.”

“Yeah.” At the rate I’ve been requesting, then rescinding, then requesting time off, I’m lucky the boss isn’t losing patience with me. “They’re basically just reinstating what I requested for the wedding and honeymoon.”

“Oh.” Hope lights Mom’s eyes. “Does that mean you and Sara might?—”

“No.” Saying the word steals the breath from my lungs. I feel like I ripped out a part of me when I left that island. Left Sara and Logan and everything we’d begun building together.

Mom must sense I don’t want to go there, because she quickly changes the subject. “It’s been nice having you boys home for a little bit. I’m…grateful.”

“I’m glad we could be here.”

“It was nice of Beck to handle the restraining order.”

I’m just glad she agreed. “It should be approved in a matter of hours.”

“Good. That’s good.”

She plucks a loose thread on her robe while I take a second to reflect on what’s happened.

My cousin and his husband have been here each day, keeping Mom’s spirits high and playing gatekeeper for well-meaning guests.

They rented a four-bedroom AirBnB down the block just to have their own space.

Even the kids have been helpful, fixing Mom sandwiches and flower arrangements with daisies they found down the street.

All this for the great aunt they’d never met until this week.

Mom’s gaze shifts to her nightstand, where three handmade cards sit propped against a big vase of flowers.

The one from Beck’s youngest has a hand-drawn stick figure with fuzzy white hair and a cast on one arm.

The other, from Lola, is an oddly lifelike drawing of an armadillo.

Sadie wrote her a poem about revenge, which might not be the healthiest theme, but mom seems to like it.

Tears fill her eyes as she studies the cards.

I love you Aunt Becks.

Get well soon!

Vengeance will someday be yours…

I’m not sure if it’s the cards or something else softening my mother. As her gaze shifts to mine, a tear rolls down her cheek.

“I didn’t understand.” She sniffs as I hand her a tissue from the box on her nightstand. “Everything with Beck?—”

“What do you mean?” My heart rate ticks up just a little.

“Cutting him off like I did.” Her mouth twists with regret. “I shouldn’t have done that. I thought—” She sniffs again, wiping her eyes with the tissue. “I don’t even know what I thought.”

I do.

She thought Beck’s “lifestyle” was a “choice” and a “sin.”

She also believed she’d tethered her life to an honorable man.

The same man who fractured her ulna in two spots. The man who tormented their son and their nephew for years.

But not anymore. For the first time, Mom’s taking steps to excise my dad from her life.

I don’t know what she discussed on the phone yesterday with Logan’s mom, but I’m glad she even took the step of talking to her.

He texted me her contact information while I was still en route to Portland, saying she’d help connect us with resources for victims of domestic violence.

My mom’s a magician at helping people come around to ideas they’ve resisted in the past.

I assumed he just meant the network his mother runs for women fleeing abuse.

But my mom has seemed different since that call.

As I study her face now, I see something new as she toys with the fringe on a blanket she knitted when I was eight.

My father made fun of its rainbow explosion of colors, calling it a “ fucking pride flag .”

Mom just thought the colors were pretty.

Lifting her gaze now, she draws a deep breath. “Trent?”

“Yeah?”

She flattens her palms on the blanket, covering stripes of bright red, orange, yellow, green, and blue. “What happened with you and Sara?”

A tight, hot knot twists in my chest. I have to take three shaky breaths to make the pain go away. “We don’t need to get into that tonight.”

“I can handle it, you know.” Mom looks down at my arm on her lap. “I’m stronger than you give me credit for.”

“You’re the strongest person I know.” God, my chest aches. “I still love Sara. I always will.”

“Then why?—”

“Because sometimes the visions two people have for their futures just don’t line up.” Two people or three. My chest squeezes again and I force myself to swallow. “I’m not the right person for her.”

Mom looks into my eyes. “Is that you saying that or Sara?”

“Does it matter?”

“It does, honey.” She touches my forearm, tracing the tight lines of muscle that, only a few days ago, had bunched as I moved over Sara.

As I made love to her the last time.

Closing my eyes, I see Sara’s dark hair spread over the pillow. I feel her moving beneath me, Logan kissing her neck as we cherished the woman we love.

“Trent?”

“Yeah?” I open my eyes to see Mom searching my face.

Wetting her lips, she looks deep in my eyes. “Whatever it is, I love you no matter what.”

“Ohhh-kay.” God, this is awkward. “I love you, too.”

But Mom isn’t done. “I know I was raised with some very strong convictions, and that’s how I raised you.

I thought—” She breaks off there, nearly as tongue-tied as I am when it comes to expressing emotion.

“It doesn’t matter now. What matters is that you’re my son, and I love you.

As long as you’re happy, that’s all I can ask for. ”

“Thanks.” Would she really say that if she knew?

If I showed up at Thanksgiving dinner with Logan on one arm and Sara on the other?

“Yes,” she says softly. “Whatever you’re thinking, I can handle it.”

“Okay.” Part of me wants to believe her. What if she really could handle it?

The mom I knew growing up—even the one I saw several weeks ago when I visited for my bachelor party—couldn’t have wrapped her head around a non-traditional marriage. Never in a million years.

But this mom? The one who’s had her worldview shaken, her entire life flipped upside down…? Maybe .

Shouts from the other room drag me back from this tender mother/son moment. I hear Beck’s voice raised in anger, and a second voice?—

“Is that—” Mom blanches. “Is that your father? ”

I jump off the bed, feeling my hands ball into fists. “Stay here,” I command, already storming out the door. I stomp down the hall and there they are: my father and Beck, squaring off near the edge of the couch.

My father stands, snarling and spitting, hurling homophobic slurs at the man I once watched eliminate six tangos with his bare hands.

Beck stands with his arms crossed, staring my father down with a look that’s almost like pity. I move to his side, glaring at Dad as my cousin and I form a wall between him and Mom’s room.

“What the hell are you doing here?” I don’t call him Dad, and he glares like I just called him dickhead .

“My fucking key didn’t work in the door.” He tosses his key ring on the floor like a toddler having a tantrum. “This is my goddamn house?—”

“Not for long, it isn’t.” Crossing my arms, I match Beck’s stance. “We’ve got a restraining order in progress, and it turns out you haven’t paid a dime toward the mortgage since I was six.”

Beck makes a tsk-tsk sound, shaming my father as smoke pours from Dad’s ears. “The government doesn’t take kindly to that.”

“So Mom’s getting the house,” I inform him. “We already gave you an hour on Thursday to clear out your things.”

“If you forgot something,” Beck says, “we’ll ship it to you.”

I expect Dad to fight for the house or argue against the restraining order, but that’s not the battle he chooses.

With blood in his eyes, he spits on the floor at Beck’s feet. “No one’s talking to you, fucking pansy-ass little fa?—”

That’s all he gets out before I shove him back against the wall. His head hits the plaster and he curses again, but I’m done hearing his insults. “We’re finished here. You’re finished here.”

My father’s eyes flash with hatred. “Don’t tell me you’re a sissy boy now. ”

“There’s nothing I need to prove to you.

” I know as I say it that’s finally true.

I’m done trying to win the approval of a man whose values I can’t respect.

“It’s time for you to leave.” Twisting the doorknob, I shove it open into the dark, starry night.

“And as long as I’m breathing, you won’t speak that way to people I care about. I’m done hearing you spew your hatred.”

Contorting his face, he snarls like a bear with its paw in a trap. “Who the fuck you think you’re talking to like that?”

The answer comes to me easily. “No one I care about.”