“Me? Please, don’t sound so proud of me. Obviously, I let you down. My failures show on you, I have no idea how, but I’m a disgrace.” I chuckle. “Me, the owner of one of the biggest telecommunications companies in the world. You sure know how to make me feel like a winner.”
“My parents expected more from me,” she continues, ignoring my sarcastic remarks. The woman is tone-deaf. No wonder I can’t get through to her when I try to have a meaningful conversation with her. “I had a child out of wedlock. My father forgave me because you were a boy, someone he could be proud of, but then…”
Her words are thin painful knives stabbing my skin, trying to reach my heart but only opening old wounds. I bleed. I drain all the hateful words she said to me when I was young.
It’s never going to be any different with her, is it?
What was I to her when I was growing up?
Right now, she sees me as her meal ticket. There’s never going to be more than that. I should just drop her, give her a credit card for the expenses, and say goodbye forever.
What is there to fix between us?
She’s never been there for me. Not when I was growing up or when I told her I was bisexual. She fucking shot at me for fuck’s sake. She’d rather kill me than love me the way I am.
“Why do you even bother calling me?”
“Because you are my son,” she answers, shaking her head with disapproval. I’m never going to please her, am I? “You are the man of this family. It’s your duty to take care of us.”
Just the way you did with me? I swallow the words before this conversation ends in bloodshed.
The phone rings. It’s Zeke. I don’t answer. A few seconds after my phone stops ringing, Clint’s buzzes. He answers with his headset.
“Yes?” There’s a long silence before he says. “I’ll make sure he calls you once he’s free. Yep, I’ll do my best.”
“Who was that?”
“Hutchence. He wants to make sure I’m doing my job,” he responds.
“Is this your assistant?” Mom points at Clint.
“No, he’s my bodyguard,” I reply.
“Have you looked into the house?”
“My people are working on that. I’ll get you moved out of New York within the next couple of months.”
My grandmother broke her wrist, not her hip. Just like when my grandfather died, she refuses to see me. I should remind her who has been supporting her for the last ten years. Since there’s nobody to bury or a life-threatening injury, I request a charter. The sooner I leave this town behind, the better.
Mother requests I set her up in a luxury hotel. Clint arranges that, except he places her in the Holiday Inn next to the assisted living facility where Grandma lives.
While I’m flying back to Seattle, I have a teleconference with Dante, my therapist.
“Why didn’t you confront her?”
“While we were in the car, I was under the assumption that my grandmother was ill or maybe dying. She manipulated me.” I huff. “She said broken hip while we were having a heated conversation in the car. Once we arrived at the hospital, I…”
I shake my head a couple of times and take a long drink of single malt. “This is why I’m not allowed to contact the assisted living facility, so that she can manipulate me.”
“How does that make you feel?”
“Angry, frustrated, and discouraged.”
“The first two make sense, but let’s discuss the last one. Why are you discouraged by the situation?”
“I’ve been toying with the idea of coming out to her—again. How can I do that when she’s still reeling about what happened when I was a teenager? She blames me for not being the child she needed. She practically called me a failure. I don’t know why I keep trying.”
He echoes the same question that keeps bouncing in my mind. “Why do you keep trying?”
“She’s my mother. I want her to love me, to be proud of me, but not at the cost of denying myself. It’s clear that no matter what I do, she’ll never love me the way a mother should love her only son.”
The frustration and anger block my windpipe. I’m almost choking. The lump that began to form when I was discussing my mother grows roots like a carcinogenic tumor. I have to extract it and my mother before they kill me.
“Do you think it’s time to deal with your mom and all the baggage that separates the two of you?”
I repeat his question in my head before answering, “She’s the one who separates us. I can love her and be a dutiful child, but nothing I do will ever be enough. I have to cut this problem from the root. What’s the point of trying to have a healthy relationship with her when she doesn’t care about it?”
She won’t accept me for who I am. She won’t accept Zeke or any other man that I date. What if I marry Zeke and we have children? She’ll reject them. My family and I don’t need her in our lives.
“I’m going to buy her a house in a 55+ community and set up a trust fund,” I announce.
“If that’s what you think is best for you,” he states. “You’re planning on pushing her away without having that important conversation. If that’s the way you want to close this chapter, I want you to be sure that you’ll be okay with it.”
Fuck, can he make this more complicated? After a long silence, I say, “I guess I’m not ready to write her off just yet.”
“That’s valid,” he says, scribbling something on his tablet. “I need you to remember your goals, though. You can’t fragment your personality to please everyone—again.”
I rub my chest. This evening was supposed to be different—a quiet dinner with my friends and hopefully a late nightcap with Zeke on his rooftop. Instead, I have an identity crisis, and I need to make some decisions I’ve been putting off.
“You’re right. I’ll approach my mother when her mom isn’t hurt and she’s in a better place.
He nods. “You know yourself best. I appreciate that you’re listening to your gut.”
But am I listening to it? Once I land, I head to my house and not to Zeke’s. My gut is begging me to visit him. To cling onto him until I’m better. I won’t because he doesn’t need my fucking baggage. He deserves better.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Ethan
After the trip to Texas and my conversation with Dante, I decide to cool things down with Zeke.
It’s not like they were going anywhere, but I was starting to build up momentum so I could ask him out on a date.
We never went out like a couple, except when we visited Luna Harbor back in the day when we hid our feelings and our relationship.
Since I don’t want anything to taint our future, if we have one, I stop flirting with him. I make a promise to myself to keep everything platonic between us until I’m ready to be whole.
By mid-November, my mother moves to her new home in Texas. It’s close enough to my grandmother in case she has to visit her. I’m not surprised when Fitz calls me to tell me how upset she is about the new grounds. She expected a family home in a gated community, and not to be shoved in a neighborhood with old people. She also wanted a pool for herself. There’s no space to put one in her small backyard.