“You won’t know if you don’t try, Mom.”
She flinches.
I didn’t use the ‘Mom’ on purpose. It’s probably been since I was a teenager that I’ve called her anything but Mother or Audra. It strikes me as weird that it has come out now. Maybe because I wish I had a fuckin’ Mom.
She’s staring at me, blinking at me, looking ready to either bolt or bawl, I don’t know.
“I’ll give you a prompt, then. Why the fuck have you sent Sienna around me, tryin’ to pull matchmaking shit?”
Last night Sienna came in, trying her “Please let’s try it one more time” bullshit, thinking her grand gesture of flying to New York would magically make me change my mind.
I told her I have a girlfriend. She didn’t believe me. She told me she knows all about my inability to commit to someone, courtesy of my mother, and she knows it’s because I still love her. I laughed in her face and she turned on the waterworks. I told her to get out of my apartment, that I’m going to phone my girlfriend to say goodnight.
She stormed out and when I heard the door knock not two minutes later, I’d about had it with that bitch. I was very fuckin’ happy to have Carly there instead.
My mother sighs.
“Talk to me,” I say, sitting down on the couch. “Pretend you and I haven’t been at war for years. Talk to me like you give a shit what I think of you.”
She blinks the tears away. “If I talk, are you actually willing to listen, Aiden?”
“Try me.”
“I’m in love with Roger. We’ve been in love for four years.”
Love? She doesn’t use that word unless she’s talking about designer brands.
“What about Suzette? Your best friend?”
“Suzette… she’s… sometimes love just happens, Aiden. Or, you think it does. He won’t leave her. He’s running for office, so it would look bad. I thought I could convince him, but… yesterday told me otherwise.”
“You’re in love with Roger, but you’re sleeping around.”
She shakes her head. “To distract your hound dog.”
Wow. I blink. “You’re cheating on my father with his best friend and you’re cheating on his best friend with your personal trainer, the gardener, and the waiter at the country club in order to protect Roger?”
She says nothing. This woman and her logic…
“What’s the deal with Sienna?” I ask.
“She caught me at the house when Suzette was away, so I had to think fast on my feet. That was a few days before I had the Greers over for dinner.”
Well, that explains it.
“So, you pretended you were there to see her about getting back with me and orchestrated that dinner as part of it.”
She gives a quick nod.
I shake my head. “Well, here we are, then. Dad’s got Cancer and you upped the life insurance payout in case he croaks. You’re gonna have to go to court for assaulting an officer and a DUI. You slept through your daughter giving birth to your granddaughter because you were too drunk to move. You’re sleeping with Dad’s best friend ten years after your affair with his brother who killed himself out of guilt. What else have we got?”
“I think that’s about it,” she whispers. “I’ve decided to end it with Roger. This has been too exhausting. I met him yesterday to try to convince him we need to come clean now before he starts campaigning harder. He won’t give me a straight answer about leaving Suzette and he’s talking about my being arrested as well as my sexual dalliances being a potential problem. And he doesn’t want your father to know. So, ultimatum done, he’s full of excuses and that tells me all I need to know. I need to move on. I… I want to fix things with us, with your brother and sister, but especially you and I, Aiden, because our relationship is the one with the most damage.”
“Fix things?”
She nods. “I’m thinking I should ask your father for a divorce as a start. Maybe take some time to figure out how I can be happy again.”
“Let me get this straight. You came in here with venom in your veins, insulted my girlfriend, and I drop that I know you’re sleeping with Roger and now you’ve seen the error of your ways?” I’m shaking my head.