She rushes toward us, wrapping her arms around both of our necks. “I’m going to be a nana.” Mom steps back, tears now coming down. “Oh, I’m so happy. So happy for you both. I just wish ... oh, I wish your father was here, Everett. He would be so proud. He would be such a good poppy.”
My throat grows tight. I’ve been trying so hard not to think about him and the fact that he will never meet our child and that they won’t know the man he was.
So many things we’ll miss out on.
“He would’ve,” I agree, choking on the words.
Violet rubs my back, and my mother clasps her hands together. “Oh, no tears today. This is happy news.” Then she glances down at my hand. “Everett, are you married yet?”
I didn’t think about that one. “No, Mom.”
Her big blue eyes widen. “You’re not? Are you sure?”
“I’m pretty sure I would know that,” I say with a laugh. “We’re not married—yet.”
Then her gaze goes to Violet’s hand. “Where is her ring?”
I’m just stepping in holes everywhere I go. “I didn’t ... we ... didn’t ... you know.”
Mom huffs and shakes her head. “Do you love her?”
“Of course I do.”
“Then why aren’t you married or engaged?”
My parents were really old-fashioned. To them there’s a clear order on how this would go, and I’m in violation of that precedence.
I’m pretty sure Violet’s parents are going to be just as bad with it.
The only saving grace I have is that my mother will probably forget about all of this by the end of the day.
The bad part about that is I’m going to have to tell her again and again.
Fuck my life.
“We’re taking things slow. There’s no rush to get married.”
Also, Violet is still technically married to Dylan ... so, there’s that.
“I’m not sure how you getting her pregnant is slow, Everett Michael Finnegan.” She turns to Violet. “I’m very sorry, honey. He knows better.”
Violet fights back a smile and then nods, pulling her lips between her teeth. Once she has it together, she takes her hands. “He is doing everything right, Mrs. Finnegan. I promise this is what we both want. I don’t need to be married to Everett to know he will be by my side.”
Her words cut me to the core. It’s been hard for her to trust me, I get it. She’s been fucked over by her dickface of a husband. He left her for another woman and then left her again when he found out she was pregnant—well, in a way. All that she’s seen is abandonment.
Not to mention her parents basically have done it to her since she was born.
They’d take her on those damn expeditions, leave her to pretty much raise herself, then drop her off at her grandma’s house for the summers.
Mom doesn’t say anything. She just gets up and heads back to her room. Violet looks to me. “Is she upset?”
I sigh. “I have no idea. I’m assuming this is hard for her. There are a lot of questions that she probably can’t answer.” I get to my feet. “I’ll be right back.”
There is nothing I hate more in this world than the women I love being hurt or upset. My mother has been through enough hell in her life, and I don’t want to cause her more. As I’m getting ready to head there, she comes barreling out.
“Now, I know that I have memory issues and that sometimes, my brain doesn’t work right, but I know this.” The tone in her voice sets me back to when I was six and was about to get punished. “I know love. I have lived it, breathed it, mourned it, and I see it when I look at you.” She takes my hand, flips it over, and places something in my palm. “Don’t waste it.”
When I look down, there is my mother’s engagement ring. The one she hasn’t worn since my father died, because it was too hard.
