I expected mom to be angry and was ready to assure her that I was going to make my ex pay, but although she looked pissed and worried, the next words out of her mouth were not what I expected or hoped to hear. “I told you, you should’ve gone after her from the start.”
“What?”
“Son, listen to me. I know you’re stubborn as an ox, you get that from your father, and I know you haven’t listened to me since you were about six or seven, but please hear me out now.” I didn’t look very interested, so she changed tactics. “Okay, let’s try this. The account you opened for her when you got married and never closed after the divorce, has she ever touched it?”
“No!” I still don’t know why that is, but I’m sure the reason isn’t as noble as mom seems to think.
“All the expensive jewelry, all the designer clothes down to the shoes and bags, didn’t you say that she left them all behind?”
“Yes, so? She left me, and now it’s even worst. She had my fucking son and kept him away from me. Sorry!” I apologized for swearing since she was giving me one of her disapproving looks. Like she doesn’t light into dad like a sailor when he pisses her off.
“I’m telling you, something happened to her. That girl was too in love with you. I’m a mother. I know these things. There wasn’t a day after you first brought her home to us that I wasn’t one hundred percent sure of that. Now, what do you plan to do about my grandson and his mother? Come here, baby, come to nana.”
She reached for my son, and he went while looking back at me. I smiled to let him know that it was okay and wondered if all men felt this bond with their seed right away like I did. I wondered too about the ease with which the baby had accepted me and whether or not that was normal, and then my mind went to the reason why he might be so at ease with a strange man. If I find out she’s had someone else playing father to my son, I’ll bury her ass somewhere they’d never find her. Not for another thousand years.
“Uh-oh, I don’t like that look on your face. Just what is it that you’re planning?” I was so caught up in my new spate of anger that I spoke without thinking. “I’m going to take him away from her and throw her out on the streets. She’s never going to see him again. And before you ask, when he’s old enough to wonder about the bitch who gave birth to him, I’m going to tell him that she’s dead.”
“CALEN!” Mom looked horrified, and I was too upset to tell her that I was exaggerating the last part. I wouldn’t tell my son that his mother was dead, but I will do everything in my power to ensure that he never wants to see her again in this lifetime. It’s what she deserves after all for what she’d done. Mom didn’t seem to think so, though.
“You will not mistreat my daughter in law. I don’t care about the stupid divorce papers, so don’t mention them to me again.” She held her hand up to cut me off when I started to remind her of just that. She no longer has a daughter in law. “I know something happened to Giselle to send her running away from here, and if you’re too dense to find out what that something is, then I’ll be the one to do it. And heaven help you if it turns out that one of those money-grubbing high society snobs you call friends is behind this.”
As a high society snob herself, I’ve never understood mom’s blatant disdain for those of her ilk. I guess it stems from the fact that dad had taken her to some remote village in India ten years ago, and she got to see firsthand what true poverty and suffering looks like. Now she’s the champion of anything that even remotely looks like an underdog. She’s not playing footloose and fancy-free with my life, though; I’ll be fucked if I’m going to let my ex get off that easy.
“You seem to forget that she ran away with my son inside her, your grandson, and had no plans on ever telling me about his existence. Had Donovan not run into her by chance, I shudder to think what might’ve happened. She, for damn sure, wouldn’t have told me about my son. I wouldn’t have met him until he grew up and became old enough to search me out himself, that’s granted that…that’s granted she ever told him the truth about who I am.”
Just saying those words made me livid all over again.