Every Way (Brush of Love 4)

“And it is because of her unwillingness to guard herself purposefully that John is dead!”

I looked up and saw Ellen standing in the doorway. Her eyes were dripping with pity as she held a folder in her hands. Fuck. I’d completely

forgot about the lunchtime meeting I had on the calendar with her. I raked my hand through my hair as I sighed into the phone, knowing that there was only one course of action I could take.

There was only one other door I had to travel through in order to protect my family.

“If you don’t stop this sort of talk and evaluate what it is inside of you that’s creating all of this anger, Mom, then you won’t be allowed around the baby. Period.”

“What a disgrace,” my mother said.

She hung up the phone in a huff, and I allowed my cell phone to clatter along the top of my desk.

“Would you like me to come back another time?” Ellen asked.

“I’m fine. Just give me a second,” I said.

I heard Ellen come into the room as I swiveled my chair around. The disdain that had dripped from my mother’s voice was shocking. I had known her to be a cold and insensitive woman, but the anger she was holding inside was destructive. Her tongue was sharper than I’d ever known it to be, and I could only imagine the blowback my father was receiving from this. I had no idea how to deal with my mother when she was like this because I had never seen her like this. She had always been cold and emotionally removed.

But all of this was emotionally fueled, and I didn’t know what that looked like on my mother until now.

“Do you get along with your parents?” I asked.

Ellen drew in a deep breath before she sighed.

“I do now. But when I married my late husband, I didn’t.”

“Why not?” I asked with my back turned.

“They didn’t approve of how much older than me he was.”

I turned my chair around and met her stare as she offered me a light smile.

“Was it his death that prompted the rekindling?” I asked.

“No. They eventually came around.”

“Because they saw you were happy?” I asked.

“Because they saw they no longer had control,” she said. “Look, it’s not my place, but I did catch some of the conversation. I know your mother. Not well, but enough to know that she’s the one who runs that household. And for someone who needs control to feel important, it sounds like she’s spiraling out of it. The news of your brother’s death rocked this community, even though she didn’t want to acknowledge it. Now, she’s coming to terms with the fact that the only other child she has is no longer under her control either.”

“You make her sound crazy,” I said.

“In a way, it is. But it’s how people like your mother operate. I might be wrong, but it’s worth a spared thought anyway.”

It made sense, in a way. Growing up, my mother was the one who always made the decisions. Dad did two things. He worked, and he showed up somewhere whenever Mom said he needed to. There were times where Mom would even set out the tuxedo or the suit she wanted him to wear to a specific function. Maybe Ellen was right. Maybe this sense of control my mother exerted was her way of feeling grounded. And when she’d lost John, she lost that control. She lost the ability to control someone she cared about, so that control was blowing back onto Hailey and me.

Either way, it required professional help. And I still stood on the rule I laid out on the phone. She needed to apologize and take a good hard look at herself, or else she wouldn’t be around her grandchild. I had a responsibility to protect my growing family from any outside threats.

And right now, no matter how much it hurt, my mother was an outside threat.

“Well,” I said with a sigh, “I’ve got nothing but time. Are those the project budget folders?”

“They are. I know you also wanted to take a specific look at Anna’s project, so I’ve got a detailed breakdown of her finances in her folder.”

“Thanks,” I said. “Anything, in particular, you want to talk about?”

“Actually, yes. Anna’s breakdown of her project doesn’t line up with the budget.”