“Only a sorry excuse of a mother would participate in a scheme to tear two people apart who love each other. Then, you dishonor my wife while propping up the woman that you drove looney by your interference. Now, Justine’s life is ruined and Rick’s is gone. That hurts me deep, but what hurts even more is that the mother of my child, and your grandchild, is distraught because you kept allegiance to Justine, after she attacked her.”
“Destiny is pregnant, too?” Mom asked in classic fashion. She was more concerned with who would be the heir of Turner than all her dirty shenanigans that had ruined so many lives.
“Yes, she is pregnant with the only rightful heir of Turner Enterprises. If Justine tries to drag me into a paternity battle, I will have no recourse than to expose her for the sperm stealer that she is.”
“If her child is yours, then he or she will be an heir, as well. We will take care of her baby and love it, because we take care of ours, plain and simple.”
“Yeah, like you have taken care of me, Mom? No thanks.”
“What exactly are you trying to say?” she asked incredulously.
“You spend too much time caught up with what other people think, you always have, and you never took the time to see what we thought about you or you about us. You just care about appearances. But that appearance you imagined for our family is over. Dad’s gone, and soon I’ll be gone too,” I said, certain she wasn’t going to change her ways, and I wasn’t about to change my world view either. Which meant there was no way for us to go but in separate directions.
I had to look out for what was important to me and stop trying to feed plants that were dead at the root. Now, that’s a hard pill to swallow about my flesh and blood, my mother, the first woman I ever loved. But when you know better, you do better. What I knew was Mom’s love didn’t flow like a fluid river both ways, and I would die of thirst waiting to be nourished by it. I refused to die. My river was flowing in Atlanta. With my seed growing in the woman I loved, there was a waterfall of love that I’d miss out on if I kept holding on to the past.
I didn’t have anything holding me in Miami. With Destiny gone, Atlanta was the only place I wanted to be.
“You know I really loved your father,” Mom cut into my thoughts.
“You had an odd way of showing it, Mom.”
“I may not have shown it the right way. I’m different than other people, but it doesn’t mean I don’t have love in me, Son. Your father was the love of my life. I'll never find anyone else quite like John.”
“Dad is a good man,” I agreed. “But his heart was someplace else, Mom. The last thing a man wants to do is live his life knowing that his heart is in another household. It hurts deep, and it’s something the wrong woman can never repair.”
Mom gasped as hurt filled her hardened features.
“I understand that better than you think I do, Son. I only brought up your father to tell you that I love you, too. I just love in my own way.”
I didn’t care about her differences in loving. She never cared about how badly I’d be hurt by her constant backing of Justine’s mess. She didn’t care enough to respect my heart, which beat inside of Destiny’s chest. Therefore, I was done with it all. It was time for me to move on with my mind and conscious clear of people who I once loved to no end, but who had disregarded and disrespected my love life.
“Jacob.” She continued as she sat on the sofa and folded her arms around her knees. She looked out at sunset through her wall-sized open window. “Maybe I pulled so hard for Justine because I knew how she felt.”
“So, you sympathized with her more than you did your own son?” I asked.
“Your father loved that woman,” she ignored my question and continued. “I always knew about her and the way he felt about her. Sometimes, he would say her name in his sleep in the most endearing way, he would also smile at the dinner table as he looked through me. I knew he was thinking of her. The story about how they fell in love and ended up being forced to break up by his father was no secret to the locals back in the day. I filled in a time and a space for him, like Justine was filling in a time and place for you, until you met the right one. The one that set your soul on fire, like John said about Clara.”
“What you’re telling me is that you felt sorry for Justine, because you felt that she was a younger version of you?”
“Yeah Son. I know it wasn’t right, but that’s how I felt.”
“Well, Justine did something that I may not be able to repair. To be honest, I don’t even know if I can come back from this.”
“So what if you slept with her. She told me the day after it happened about you guys making love in your home,” Mom said waving her hand dismissively while speaking in a tone that minimized Justine’s actions. “The poor girl came over here crying her eyes out, saying that you choked her after you had sex with her and put her out of your house.”
“That’s because she was an intruder.”
“Oh, Son, you can’t help the feelings you still have for Justine. I know they are there. Justine knows they are there. You are the only one denying it while trying to bolster up Destiny who must not have been satisfying your needs. If she were, then there would have been no way for Justine to seduce you.”
I punched my right fist into my left hand and roared to release the steam growing inside of me and about to bubble over. “You don’t know anything about me and you never have. I had no idea I was ‘making out’ with Justine. It was pitch black in my house and she pretended to be Destiny.”
“That’s not the way she described it to me, but—”
“Come on now. Wouldn’t you agree that all of her credibility is shot right now, since she’s facing hard time for being a soulless criminal?” I asked, not entirely sure why I was still trying to reason with her.
“She’s still our Justie, Jacob.”
“No, she isn’t. She turned into a monster, which apparently is what happens when people meddle in places that they shouldn’t. If I lose Destiny for good after all of this is said and done, I’m going to lose it too, Mom.”