“I can’t do this. Not right now,” she objects, lifting her hands, palms out, toward me. As if warding me and the subject off. “Don’t—”
“You need to hear this,” I repeat. “Even if you were talking to Knox, he wouldn’t tell you because he loathes causing you any more pain. Dan won’t say anything because he wants to protect you from the world, even if that means yourself. And Simon…” I huff out a breath, shaking my head. “I can’t let Simon tell you because he’s too angry, too hurt himself. So that leaves me. We. Still. Need. You,” I reiterate. “You haven’t come back to us since Connor died. I can’t tell you how many nights I’ve lain awake wondering if I’ll get a call from Dan that you’ve…that you’ve…” I can’t finish the thought, fear and horror strangling me.
“No,” she nearly shouts. And instead of trying to back away from me, she shifts closer, cupping my face in her hands, forcing me to meet her gaze. “No,” she says again, vehemently. “I would never do that again.”
“Part of me knows that… Or at least I want to believe it. But the other,” I whisper and give my head a shake. “The other remembers how devastated and broken you were after Dad died. Every time I see you, I feel this overwhelming relief, but it’s not too long before the anxiety, the worry returns. You’re not you anymore. The grief, I understand. But the meanness. The lashing out. The spitefulness. That’s not you. The mother we grew up with would never blame her son for her other son’s death. Would never abandon him, disown him. The mother we knew would hold him, comfort him, release him from all guilt. Tell him he’s loved and forgiven.”
“I do love him,” she rasps, her hands dropping from my face, and she clasps them together over her chest. “I just… I can’t…”
“Eden’s pregnant, Mom.”
I drop that info and study her. Spy the shock, the sadness, andthank God, the flash of joy that’s so quick, if I hadn’t been scrutinizing her so closely, I would’ve missed it.
But I didn’t.
Hope surges within me before I tamp it back down.
“She’s pregnant?” she asks, a tremble vibrating her husky voice.
“Yes. She and Knox are going to have a baby. She andKnox, Mom. You have to ask yourself if you’re willing to cling to your grief and pain more than you’re willing to forgive and welcome back your son who has been the rock of this family for years. If you want to hold on to your grudge more than you want to hold your future grandchild. That’s your choice. But I know Connor, and he would have wanted them to be happy. However they could.”
I pull her into my arms again for a tight embrace, inhaling her fragrant, familiar scent and silently praying that when I return home, it’s to a whole family.
“I love you, Mom.” Placing a kiss on her cheek, I release her and walk away, leaving her with the man she’d once been willing to follow into the grave. Walk away, thanking God that she didn’t.
Moments later, I reach the parking lot and glance over my shoulder.
She digs into her purse and pulls out her cell phone. For several seconds, she stares at it. Then, she taps on the screen and lifts it to her ear. I’m too far to hear who she called, but damn.
Again, there’s that hope.
Chapter Fifteen
Cypress
Inhaling a deep breath, I hold it for a long, long moment.
Then I tap the laptop’s mousepad before my mind can yell out,“Hold up, hold up! Let’s think about this,”and hit send.
My application to Chicago State University’s College of Education quickly disappears, and the confirmation screen pops up. My belly flips like a goldfish tossed out of its bowl. Which is pretty much apropos considering at this moment, I’m like that gasping, scared, hyperventilating animal pushed outside of its safe environment into this new, terrifying world. Only I’m hoping my new world won’t kill me. God, that’s morbid.
And then again, my brain is probably hyper-focusing on that dark metaphor as a self-preservation tactic against my body going into shock.
Because I—magna cum laude graduate from USC Leventhal School of Accounting with bachelor’s and master’s degrees in accounting, former financial manager with one of the largest insurance companies in the nation—am going back to school. And not in finance, but education. A Master of Education in Curriculum and Instruction with a Secondary Education Concentration, to be exact. Yes. I’m going to be a teacher.
“I firmly believe you never should spend your time being the former anything.”I may not have agreed with Condoleezza Rice’s political affiliation, but she was right. I needed to stop doing drive-bys through the hood of my past and focus on where I’m headed, my future. It’s past time that I stop thinking of myself as an ex-financial manager who used to own her own stylish condo in one of L.A.’s better areas with the latest fashions in her closet, and the most expensive shoes on her feet. I’m Cypress Winters, temporary waitress at a dive bar, soon-to-be grad school student, future accounting professor who rules her own life, claims that life whether I succeed or fail, and who won’t ever allow another person to wield control over it. If I fall flat on my face, it’ll be because I tripped and face-planted. Not because someone snatched the rug out from under me and pushed me there.
Or at least, I’m walking the path toward that Cypress Winters.
Shutting down the laptop and slipping it into its case, I glance toward the front door of Jude’s apartment—and the three suitcases I placed there nearly an hour ago. My life packed not-so-neatly in three pieces of luggage. How sad is that? Not nearly as it should be. Or it would’ve been just days ago.
I slide my hand over the large, white manila envelope with the attorney’s name and address sitting on the coffee table. Inside, closing documents for the sale of my condo. All I have to do is sign, have them notarized and returned, and that part of my life will be over. Once I have the furniture I didn’t sell before I left shipped to me, California will be my past. In a matter of a week or two, I will have funds wired to my bank account here, and I will no longer be broke and homeless.
Sighing, I rise from the couch. For someone who stands on the verge of the start of a brand-new phase in her life, I’m almost…numb. Probably because the sight of the luggage at the door is eating a hole inside my chest.
I committed the ultimate cardinal sin.
I got attached.
