Innocent in Her Enemy’s Bed
“It sounds like she was very young when she had you.”
“They both were. My father managed to stick around so I don’t see why she couldn’t.”
I got pregnant on holiday, Susan had told her, adding with a papery laugh, I don’t know how. Leander’s father was so shy he could barely speak to me, but we had a little fling. I felt so grown-up until I was forced to grow up. My mother told me I’d better hope he married me because she wouldn’t have an unwed mother in her house.
“I have to ask...” Ilona bit her lip. Her own mother hadn’t left her by choice so it wasn’t particularly fair to say this, but, “Would you be as judgmental if your father had gone away to pursue his career?”
“He involved me in it,” he said flatly, adding with scathing sarcasm, “But I take your point. My desire to star in musicals is nonexistent. It’s my fault I didn’t see her most of my life.”
Ah. Well, then. She looked into her drink. “She never asked you to join her?”
“What was the point? I would have been at school during the day. She worked nights and weekends. We wouldn’t have seen one another.”
He and Niko were so close, Susan had lamented. Leander wanted to stay here with his father so I didn’t fight for him. I don’t think he’s ever forgiven me for that.
Leander swore and squeezed the back of his neck. “I know it’s childish to resent her. You’re right. A father can absent himself without such harsh judgment, but she made a lot of promises to me that never panned out. She took the support my father sent her, but never took me. When I told her that Midas was offering to take our software to market, she encouraged us to trust him. She wanted the financial benefit of what Midas promised without having done any of the work to earn it.”
Not unlike Midas, Ilona inferred. And the promised benefits hadn’t arrived. Leander must have felt so foolish when he realized that Midas had tricked them. It was natural to look for someone to blame. He probably thought that if his mother had cautioned him, instead of encouraging him, he might not have lost everything.
“When I found—When my father died, she didn’t turn up until the funeral service.”
Found.Oh, no. She hadn’t known that part. “I’m so sorry, Leander.”
He shook off her murmur of sympathy.
“But—” Ilona frowned. “I was under the impression she arrived right away.”
“Is that what she told you?”
“Not explicitly. It was just an impression,” she mused, recollecting Susan’s anguish.
He didn’t cry, not even at the service, he was so traumatized. He didn’t say a word to me until it was all over.
“Then she wanted me to come live with her,” he said bitterly. “But she didn’t have anything to offer me, just a flat-share and a poorly executed dream. My father had had to stop sending her support after Midas’s trickery so we were both completely broke. The house had been mortgaged to finance the development of our technology. It was already in foreclosure. My father had legal bills from trying to sue Midas for what was ours. The stress and failure were so heavy on him...” He slugged back most of his drink.
He’ll never forgive me for not being here, but I didn’t love Niko. Not the way a wife should. Marrying so young, I felt cheated of the life I should have had. I kept thinking I would prove my dreams were worth the time I had invested in them, but I never have. Not in Leander’s eyes. Somehow, I turned into my mother. I caused my own child to resent me. By the time Niko was gone, Leander wanted nothing to do with me.
“Did your father love her?” Ilona asked curiously.
“Yes.” No hesitation. It was a fact delivered with a side of scorn.
Her heart felt stretched completely out of shape then, for all of them.
“He never looked at another woman and always said he wanted her to be happy. He let her disappear and keep his name and his money... But he was miserable without her. He didn’t say it, but I could see it. How could she expect that I would side with her when she had treated him that way?”
“She let him raise her son, though. It’s fine that you’re angry with her, Leander, but surely it counts for something that she didn’t make you live away from him? She said you wanted to be here with your father so she didn’t fight for you. That you never wanted to come see her so she quit asking.”
She could only see his profile, but his expression twisted with distaste.
“Is it such a crime that she wanted to live where she chose? On her own terms?” Ilona could relate to that; she really could.
His body seemed to bunch up with tension.
She braced herself to have her head bitten off, but he shrugged away whatever impact her remark had made.
“Maybe I would have had more sympathy for her if she hadn’t lived off my father all that time. Off of me.” He turned and jabbed his chest. “I sent her home with what I got from selling the little I had left. Then I hired on with a remote labor camp and sent her half my paycheck. I still support her. So tell me again how that makes her someone I should respect?”
“Don’t then,” she said, setting aside her drink and rising to her feet. “Your relationship with your mother is your business. But from my perspective, she didn’t mean to hurt you. She was young and idealistic and misguided. Maybe she didn’t show her love the way you wanted her to, but she does love you. I would have given anything to have had that much, rather than the mother figure I had in Odessa who destroyed my self-esteem. Enjoy nursing your grudge. I’m going to bed.”