She makes a face as if she agrees but won’t verbalize it.

My brows pull together. Dad told me he’d paid his dues and wanted to get on with his life, whatever that means. But is there more? What’s missing?

“May I ask what you think his problem is?” I ask.

“That’s the million-dollar question.” She sighs. “I don’t know, Oliver. I have suspicions, but they’re just that. I don’t feel right discussing those with you because they aren’t facts.”

“Well, at least tell me you got a good lawyer.”

She grins. “I’m not ignorant.”

My muscles relax a little.

The idea of being at my mother’s house—will it even be her house now?—without my father around or, worse yet, congregating elsewhere hits me all at once. Just like that, the tension in my body resurfaces.

“I want you to know that I didn’t make this decision lightly,” she says.

“But it was your decision, right? He didn’t spring this on you like he sprung his attitude on me last night, did he?”

“No. His attitude last night is what sealed the deal for me.” She picks up her fork again and spears a piece of lettuce. She doesn’t look at me. “I heard what he said to you last night. I was in the kitchen and didn’t mean to eavesdrop, but his voice carries.”

All of the things Dad said—“My wife is a pain in my ass”, “At what point do I get to live my life, huh?”, “I paid my dues”—ricochet through my brain.

My heart cracks open as I watch my mother fight hard for me not to see the pain in her eyes.

“Mom …”

She presses her lips together and shakes her head.

“Mom, really, I—”

“None of that was new information to me,” she says, her voice wavering. “I’ve been aware of this for some time now.”

“Then why? Why did you stay with him? Tell me you didn’t stay with him because of us.”

She pokes around her plate as if the Cobb salad will give her the words to use. All I can do is sit and wait and hope she’s really as calm about this as she’s making herself out to be.

Her strength in the face of such adversity reminds me of another stoic woman I know. My shoulders soften as I consider the similarities between Shaye and Mom.

Strength, for sure. Class. Grace. A respectability that is hard to find.

Mom lifts her eyes to mine. I’m relieved to see clarity in her irises.

“I’ve had an amazing life, Ollie. It was more than I ever could’ve dreamed. I had a great husband for the majority of the past few decades and still have the five most handsome, brilliant sons that God could’ve given me.”

I take a sip of water, mostly so I don’t interrupt her flow.

“Things with your father haven’t been great for a couple of years now. It was around the time that he had that falling out with Gamby—”

“Over Kendra and me.”

She nods carefully. “Something happened to him around that time. I don’t know what it was. I’ll never know. But he hasn’t been the same.”

I sit back in my chair and try to wrap my head around this.

“I kept telling myself it would get better,” she says. “And it wasn’t terrible. I’m not painting your father to be an awful person because he’s not. Our relationship just disintegrated, and I’ve flirted with the idea of separating off and on since Christmas.”

My foot taps the floor. My need to get involved in this and fix it is overwhelming. Talking myself down from launching full-force into the middle of this family drama and taking charge is one of the hardest things I’ve done in a while.

Almost as hard as not kissing Shaye.

The thought makes me smile in spite of the situation.

“I’ll be honest with you,” she says. “It felt like—feels like—a big risk to divorce your father.”

“Why would you think that? You’ll be fine.”

“Because staying married is the safe route. I know what to expect. I know the ways in which it can go wrong, and I know that I’d survive that.”

My jaw drops. “That’s no way to live a life, Mom.”

Her smile falters. “Well, I chose to risk it. To see if there was something even more wonderful on the other side of the fear.”

I listen to her articulate her thoughts—her sadness slowly replaced with a sense of excitement. Of possibility. By the time I’ve finished my chicken breast, she’s laid out her plan for me in precious detail. And I marvel. This woman is the epitome of resilience.

Knowing I need to return to the office is frustrating because I hate to leave her now. As Mom carefully places her fork on the table, I know she’s aware of the time too. Beneath her veneer of calm, though, is the fact that she hasn’t touched her lunch. And that concerns me.

Tags: Adriana Locke Mason Family Romance
Source: readsnovelonline.net