I understood his message loud and clear.***Later that night, my mother came home from work to find me lying in bed. I’d been dreading seeing her all day, because I knew I’d have to lie to her.
The first thing she said was, “Did something happen between you and Gavin?”
I straightened up against my headboard. “What made you ask that?”
“Well, when I walked by his room this afternoon, he was sitting at the edge of his bed with his head down. He looked very upset. I’ve never seen him like that. When I asked him if everything was alright, he just shook his head and wouldn’t say anything else. I let him be, but my gut told me it had something to do with you.”
I buried my face in my hands. “I broke up with him.”
“What? Why?”
“It wasn’t working out the way I’d hoped.”
I spent the next several minutes lying to my mother, giving her the same bullshit I’d fed Gavin. Regardless of how idiotic I sounded, my mother pulled me into a hug and held me.
“It’s going to be okay. You’re still young. It’s going to take a while for you to figure out what you truly want.” She held me tighter. “I know you think I’m going through a lot right now, but don’t keep your pain inside. I’m always here for you, even if it seems like things are overwhelming. You will always be my priority. There is nothing I wouldn’t do for you.”
I looked into her eyes. “There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for you, either.”
I’d just proven that.PART TWO* * *TEN YEARS LATERCHAPTER SIXTEEN* * *GAVINThis trip was long overdue. I’d used every excuse in the book to put it off. The truth was, I knew it was going to be hell facing my seventy-year-old father’s deteriorating condition and all the decisions to be made as a result.
After I pulled into the circular driveway in front of the house on Palm Beach, I sat in my car for several minutes. I looked up at the massive structure and thought about how everything looked the same. The flowers in the well-manicured garden still bloomed as they always had. The white pillars at the front of the house were as gaudy as ever.
But looks could be deceiving, because absolutely nothing was the same as it used to be.
About five years ago, our lives were turned upside down when my mother died after driving drunk into a tree. My relationship with her had improved over the years prior to her death. And while her loss was painful, I was relieved that we weren’t on bad terms when she passed away.
I lived with a lot of guilt, though, for never pushing her to get the help she needed. I often wondered how much of her miserable behavior when I was growing up had to do with her dependency on alcohol.
And if things weren’t bad enough after Mother’s death, about a year later, my father started showing early signs of dementia at age sixty-five. Things progressed fairly quickly from there. The staff in Florida called me constantly in London to say they were concerned about him. Weldon, who lived out in California now, was virtually useless. So the responsibility of handling Dad’s affairs was all mine. It eventually got bad enough that I had to arrange for 24-hour care.
It wasn’t easy handling all this from overseas. Due to a crazy work schedule, it had been over a year since I’d been back here. And it had been nearly ten years since I’d lived here for even part of the time.
I’d dropped out of law school after the first year and transferred into Yale’s MBA program. When I finished, I moved to London, and then a few years ago I started a robotics company with a couple of engineers. The robots we design perform an array of functions for various industries. We grew fast and now employed several hundred people.
I’d finally found my passion, and London had become my permanent home. But being so far away made it difficult to be there for my father. I felt guilty that it had taken me this long to come see him after learning his condition had worsened, and I vowed not to let it happen again. It was time to put him first for a while. I’d arranged to work remotely from the States for at least a month so I could assess the situation and come up with a long-term-care plan. I wondered if I could convince Dad to sell the house and let me move him to London. One step at a time.
Here goes nothing.
Letting out a long breath, I exited my car and walked toward the front door. I hadn’t called the staff to let them know I was coming because I wanted to walk in unannounced to get a feel for things exactly as they were. I didn’t want them to do anything that might sugarcoat the situation.