Total pages in book: 100
Estimated words: 95013 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 475(@200wpm)___ 380(@250wpm)___ 317(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 95013 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 475(@200wpm)___ 380(@250wpm)___ 317(@300wpm)
She continued to swirl her wineglass unnecessarily. “I know I shouldn’t make this about me—”
“It’s okay, Ma. I know you see his face every time you look at me.”
She suddenly sucked in a deep breath as her eyes began to smart. “I loved your father, even if he was a lazy piece of shit, and I was devastated when he passed. But it’s nothing like losing a son.” She tried to blink the tears away, but her eyelids couldn’t move fast enough. “A pain I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy.” She took a few breaths before she downed the rest of her wine, the only thing strong enough to pull her back together. Then she grabbed the bottle and refilled the glass once more.
“I’ve been thinking a lot lately, and ever since I knew I was going to be a father, I feel a lot closer to you.”
She turned her head to look at me, her dark eyes tinted with red, the skin underneath puffy even though she hadn’t really cried.
“I’m worried about someone who’s not even born yet. Worried about how they’ll do in school, if they’ll be able to make friends easily, if I’ll punch a kid if he says anything mean to them, if I’ll be able to let them learn to drive, if they should go to college, and if so, where? How I’ll react when they bring someone home for the first time, if my heart will break into a million pieces the day they move out. I worry about an entire lifetime every single fucking day. And it makes me realize how much you’ve put up with from all three of us. That you were a rock star of a mother.”
Her eyes started to water again. “Con . . .”
“That I hope I’ll be as good as you were.”
As if she couldn’t take what I said, she looked down into her glass, even though she’d never been shy, never been one to drop eye contact first.
“And . . .” My voice caught before I even said my sentence. “I’m so sorry that you have to carry this pain every single day, and I selfishly pray that I’ll never have to know it myself.” I hoped I would live a long time, to see as much of my child’s life as I could, and then die before them. I loved Aurelia more than words, but the love I already had for this nonexistent person . . . it was just different.
She was quiet for a long time, not responding to what I said, not consoling me or making me feel better like she normally did. Then she said my name, said it in a tone that made my arms break out in bumps. “Con.”
I stilled at the table, and somehow, I just knew what would follow.
“When I went to visit your brother the other day . . . it looked disturbed.”
Fuck. “The caretakers do their maintenance every so often. Perhaps it was that.” I’d done my best to level the ground and make it look exactly as it had when I’d first arrived. But she’d been there every single day for the last seven years, so she knew it better than I did.
“No. It wasn’t that.”
I prayed she wouldn’t ask me. But how could she think I had anything to do with that? I was being beyond paranoid but straight-up irrational.
But then she looked at me—dead in the eye.
Fuck.
She looked at my face like she could read it, like there were inked words on my goddamn forehead.
For the love of fucking god, don’t ask me.
“Con.”
No, no, no. I wore the best poker face I could, but I knew my hand was shit.
“Was it you?” She put me on the spot and asked me, watching my face with eyes that felt like microscopes.
I swallowed, unsure how to respond, knowing she wouldn’t have asked me the question if she didn’t suspect something deeper. I was a shit liar because it was something I never did, and I definitely couldn’t lie to my mother. So the words sat on my tongue but never left my mouth. I held my silence like it was the last defense I had.
She took in a slow breath, her chest rising as her eyes smarted once again. “It wasn’t a car accident . . . was it?”
I clenched my eyes closed when I heard her words—my heart shattering into shards like broken glass. I’d tried to protect her all these years, and the moment I put him to rest was the moment the facade was ruined.
She released a quiet yelp as her hand moved over her mouth. And then she cried quietly, cried over her wine with her hand still covering her mouth, the scars ripped wide open and the wounds bleeding fresh.