Ben was a good choice: brilliant at what he did and not afraid to take whatever action was needed to ensure our end goals were met. “Good.”
I stopped pacing, my mood shifting as control eased back into me. “Has my mother called?”
A frown creased his forehead. “No. Doesn’t she usually call your direct number?”
“Yes, but I just realised I didn’t hear from her yesterday. Figured she may have called you instead.”
Understanding flickered in his eyes. “I’m sure she’s alright.”
“I’ll phone her, make sure.” My mother phoned me every day, checking in and letting me know she was okay. She’d started doing it when Marcus stopped seeing her late last year. I’d been surprised as fuck when he’d made that move, and I had to admit I’d been waiting for the day he changed his mind. She’d been distraught when he’d stopped seeing her, and I knew she’d fall at his feet whenever he said the word. For her to miss a call made me consider the possibility he’d taken her back.
As he left, Merrick added, “You’re a good man.”
I scoffed. “Hardly.” What the fuck was up with people telling me this shit today?
“Sure, we’ve been through some shit over the years, but this work we’re doing now is good.”
“Don’t let it fool you, Merrick. The good doesn’t negate the bad. And it certainly doesn’t make me a good person.”
He raised his eyebrows, the look on his face one of irritation. “I see things a little differently from you, Blade.”
He walked out of the room, and I sat back at my desk. Surveying my office, I thought back to when we started doing this work. The day Merrick and I took matters into our own hands was burned into my memory. Ashley had been the catalyst of that, had shown me the truth of the lie I’d been living up until that point. It had been a bloody battle that day; a battle I hadn’t hesitated to take charge of and do whatever was necessary to ensure victory. Justice had been served to the one who had wronged so many. The fact Ashley wasn’t here to witness the results of everything we’d put in motion that day broke my fucking heart. But it just reminded me life had a way of taking the good and fucking with it when you least expected it. All you could do was savour what you had, while you had it, and hope like hell you kept it for a long time.
***
My childhood memories weren’t happy ones. As I watched my mother lie to me the next morning, I recalled similar situations from when I was younger. I’d lost count of the number of times I begged her to stop seeing my father, and I’d lost count of the number of lies she’d told me when she agreed she would tell him to go. I knew she didn’t lie to me intentionally. She lied to herself as well. There were a few times she did follow through and kick him out, but within a couple of months, he was always back.
Theirs was such a dysfunctional love. I could never work out why they clung to each other like they did. The moments where I glimpsed tenderness between them gave me hope, but it was always short-lived, until the day when I was a teen and I decided enough was enough. I decided there had to be more to love than false hope and bullshit promises. If the person you loved couldn’t be there for you always, they weren’t worthy of your time or your affection.
It had been over a year since Marcus stopped seeing my mother. She’d grieved the loss of him, and I hoped she’d grown stronger through that experience; strong enough to say no to him the day he showed up again, back at her door. He’d stayed away longer than I thought he would, but I was sure he was back now. However, mum was denying it.
“Why aren’t you telling me the truth?” I demanded, a lifetime of anger flaring up.
“I am telling you the truth! Yes, he came around, but no, I won’t take him back,” she pleaded with me to believe her. She’d cried wolf one too many times, though.
“What promises did he make you this time?”
She didn’t answer me. She just began folding the laundry sitting on the kitchen table in front of her. A dead fucking giveaway she was avoiding the truth.
I slammed my hand down on the table so hard it moved. She jumped, and the fear I saw in her eyes hurt like hell. I would never fucking hurt her but Marcus had, over and over, to the point where any little threat scared the fuck out of her. “Fuck!” I roared, “I fucking hate what he has done to us.” I rubbed the back of my neck and began pacing the small kitchen.
“Donovan, I know you think I’m weak and that I’ll go back to Marcus at the drop of a hat, but this time I won’t. Yes, I’m weak. I always have been.” Her voice caught at that admission and my heart broke a little more for her. She turned her distraught gaze to me an
d bared her heart. “He promised me he would leave her; finally, after all these years. And that he would stop being so violent. I’m not taking him back, but it feels like I’m walking away from something I put my whole life into, and just when I can have what I’ve always wished for, I’m saying no. Do you know how hard that is?”
She was so fucking close to freedom; if he screwed with that, I would fucking move the plan up and take the bastard out myself. It was, after all, what I’d always planned to do. And to watch my father suffer at my hands would fill me with the deepest fucking satisfaction I’d ever felt.
My voice was low and controlled when I spoke. If I didn’t control it, I would explode at her. “I want so much more for you, Mum. I understand that back when you had me, you had no family to support you, so you thought sticking with Marcus was the right thing, but now you have me. I can give you anything you need or want.”
“You can’t give me the one thing I need: the love of a man,” she whispered.
The roar between my ears was deafening, and I lost my fight to control myself. “Marcus wouldn’t fucking know love if it smacked him in the face!” I yelled, wild at him, at her, and at the fucking injustice of a world full of hateful people. “Can you not fucking see that?” I hated swearing at my mother but I couldn’t help it today. I needed to get out of here before I lost my shit completely.
She began crying, and I wanted to smash my fists into the wall. All the anger and frustration inside me threatened to spill over, and I clenched and unclenched my fists over and over in an effort to stop myself.
“I know I should see that, but I can’t bring myself to move past the feelings I’ve had for him for so long.” She was sobbing now. My mother had been fucked up by her father, and those sins had set her on this fucked-up path she couldn’t find a way out from.
I pulled her to me and held her. My hand smoothed her hair over and over as she clung to me. When her sobbing had subsided, I murmured, “If you need me, any time of the day, you call me. If he keeps harassing you and won’t leave if you ask him to, you call me. I don’t care what I’m doing; I will come to you if you need me. Yeah?”