Page 74 of His to Seduce
“Mostly odd jobs. She waitressed a lot and worked at a few banks as a teller.”
“She must be strong,” Lindsay said. She set her glass of wine down next to me, abandoning her half-made salad.
My mom was a survivor, but I wouldn’t necessarily call her strong. As much as I loved her, she was too flighty and lost too many jobs to be considered that.
I faced Lindsay, frowning. “Pardon?”
“I’ve always thought people who work in customer service or serving others all day long, and teachers, are the strongest people in the world. They have to be nice to everyone they meet even if they’re having a shitacular day.”
“Lindsay.” Betty’s tone was a warning. For the statement or for swearing, I didn’t know.
“It’s true, though.” She grinned and picked up her glass of wine. “Your mom must be incredible. Single mom, no parents, no family to help out, working every day smiling and helping others when she probably hated all of it, and she made you, and you seem pretty okay.”
I laughed despite myself. I had never been calledpretty okaybefore. “Thanks, I think. I guess I’d never thought of her like that.”
“Sometimes it takes a different perspective.” Betty turned back to the oven and removed the roast she’d cooked for dinner. The aroma made my mouth water. It smelled delicious and brought to mind memories of family dinners at Suzanne’s house. As an only child, her parents had always been close and they did family dinners every night. Going to her house was such a different experience from mine, where I learned from a young age how to boil water for macaroni and cheese or slap together a bologna sandwich.
I had a feeling David’s family had been much the same as Suzanne’s, only with more people and more laughter.
“What do you mean?” I asked Betty.
She slid me a sad smile, one that traveled to her eyes and made them water. “When I lost their father, everything inside of me broke. For months, I barely managed to climb out of bed. My kids were grown and gone; Lindsay was already married. They had their own lives and I was alone in this house.”
“Mom—”
Betty raised a hand and silenced Lindsay’s caring, soft voice. “But one day, I was crying over photo albums, looking through family vacations we’d taken, and I was struck by the happiness that always,alwaysshined in Geoffrey’s eyes and all over his face when we were together. There was nothing he loved more than his family. Nothing he loved more than this.” She spread her arms out wide. “Family, friends, grandkids running through the house…he would have loved to have all this, and that day, it became my mission to ensure thatIhad it…because he’d want it for me. I couldn’t do that sitting around, feeling sorry for myself.”
She sniffed, the sound echoed by Lindsay and myself.
“We had money, lots of it. We have more money than we’ll ever be able to spend no matter how much we give away and donate. It’s the truth of our life, what we continued creating after Geoffrey’s family started McGregor Motors. But do you know what, Camden?” she asked.
She was stripping me of my walls with her words and her tears. I didn’t know how much more I could take.
“What?” I asked, despite my fear, choking the word out.
“We could lose it all tomorrow. We could lose the house or the money or the trust funds or whatever else, and all I know is that Geoffrey never would have cared. As long as we had this family, these people who love us, the rest is all…just stuff…regardless of how pretty and fancy it’s packaged.”
God, she was killing me.
“I have a feeling your mom believed the same thing. Regardless of all the hard times everyone faces in their lives, I have a feeling your mom and I have a similar perspective.”
“What’s that?”
“That as long as we wake up in the morning, as long as we get to see another sunset, it’s one more day to live. One more opportunity to share our life with someone else, one more day to work to give the ones we love everything we possibly can.”
Tears dripped down my cheeks faster than I could wash them away. Everything Betty said made me remember how ferociously my mom had fought for me after Evan. How she’d stood outside lawyers’ offices, begging someone to take our case so we could lock him up. In those weeks and months and even years after he attacked me, my mom was a warrior.
It was something I tended to forget when I was feeling sorry for myself and lost in my lists and the haze of the past that shrouded every decision I made.
“What the hell did you say to her?” David’s booming, furious voice made me jump and I spun on my stool.
He hurried over to me, setting his beer bottle so harshly on the counter I was surprised it didn’t shatter. His arms wrapped around my shoulders. He barely scanned my face, swiping my tears before he scowled at Lindsay and his mom. “Why in the hell would you upset her like this?”
