Chapter Nineteen
Serge's arm hung overAubrey's waist. His hand cupped her breast. Occasionally, he rubbed his thumb across her nipple, and she smiled for no other reason than pure contentment.
"Thank you," she whispered.
He kissed the back of her head. "For?"
"Checking up on Sia and Evie yesterday. I'm so glad the women's shelter had room for them, and they can get out of the elements and get medical care, even if it's for a short term." She snuggled her back tighter against his naked warmth.
"You can't save them all," he said.
"No, but I can do a small part of helping them, even if it's temporary."
When Evie showed up with Sia at the shelter seeking help, it was the first time someone with a child had approached her. The rules were posted outside the door, but Evie had done what most mothers tried to do when their child was sick. She came inside and asked for help.
It wasn't her determination that captured Aubrey's attention. Evie's obvious love for Sia intrigued her. How a woman who had nothing, not even a place to call her own, could still find the empathy and compassion to nurture her daughter made Aubrey resent her own mother even more.
Reflecting on her memories, Aubrey couldn't recall a time when her mother hugged her. She wasn't physically abused, but her mom never laid a hand on her head to smooth her hair out of her eyes or rubbed her back when she struggled to sleep after a nightmare. No, her mom hurt her through emotional distance.
Everything Aubrey had done somehow shamed her mother in a way she could never figure out. She failed at the simplest things. Cleaning her room. Styling her hair. Even walking through the house brought insults and declarations of disappointment.
Serge rolled her over until they were face to face, their legs entwined. "You've told me it was just you and your mom growing up. How did she die?"
"Brain aneurysm. A few years ago. Right before my twenty-first birthday." She rubbed her fingers against the whiskers on his jaw. "The doctor at the hospital says it can happen like that. One minute she was standing at the table and within seconds, she died."
"That must've been hard for you," he whispered.
"It was harder to deal with the aftermath. I had no experience dealing with a death, of course, but others helped me find my way." She shrugged. "It probably makes me a bad person to admit that things were easier with her gone."
He pulled back and looked at her. "You weren't close?"
She laughed bitterly. "We coexisted. She hated me, and I tried to stay out of her way. Once I got into high school, everything I did embarrassed or angered her."
His mouth tightened. She dropped her gaze. Growing up, she'd never told anyone about her mom and the treatment she received.
"Give me a few examples of things that made you an embarrassment." His deep voice quieted, making her second-guess her decision to open up to him.
"I babysat and worked at Taco Bell because she refused to help. Of course, that meant I bought my clothes at second-hand consignment stores, which insulted her and supposedly reflected badly on her as a mother. But the last thing that pushed her over the edge was when I volunteered at Food Depot. She believed my time was worth more than helping collect food donations for those with low income without receiving any form of payment in return. What bothered me the most was the contempt she had for me. I could see it on her face and hear it in her voice that my mere presence upset her."
"Are you fucking kidding me?" he said.
She dared a glance at him. "I'm serious."
"She sounds like a fucking bitch." He rolled and came off the bed. "Seriously fucked up. If she were alive, I'd kill her for what she put you through."
She sat and pulled the sheet around her. "What about you? You said you grew up on the streets because of your mom, but what about your dad?"
He stopped pacing. "I don't know who my father is. I doubt if my mother did either. She was a prostitute and a drug addict. It could be anyone."
Her chest tightened. "I'm sorry. I didn't know. You haven't shared very much of your past with me. Most everything I know, I learned from the internet."
"There's nothing to share. Mom never wanted kids, so she dumped us. I got pretty good at stealing cars when I was a teenager. By eighteen, I had a thousand dollars and started investing. Illegal shit at first. Then real estate as my money grew." He ran his hand through his hair. "You know the rest."
He left out everything. She wanted to know what it was like to live on the streets as a child and whether he ever felt lonely. Knowing she could never survive that kind of lifestyle, she sought to understand how he had the strength to support not only himself but also his brother.
"But your brother chose to go back to the street after you became successful?" she asked.
