I rubbed my chin, expecting to feel the whisper of a goatee there, but touching only smooth skin. “I need some time, Mom.”
She nodded eagerly. The promise of a potential reconciliation was enough at this point. As long as I wasn’t slamming the door shut in her face, it was better than she had expected yesterday.
“Take all the time you need. Lord knows I did.”
“I need to talk to Blake. I need to go over this with Lauren. I can’t jump into this without considering the impact that it’s going to have on everyone else.”
“I understand. Trust me; I weighed the benefits against the risks and it took a lot of going back and forth before I convinced myself to make that call to your wife. I’m still not sure what I’ll tell your father if and when we reach that point.”
“Me either.”
I couldn’t stop a trace of amusement from creeping into my voice at that, which she also seemed to appreciate. Somehow, I couldn’t quite picture a family tableau including Alan Snyder. It was halfway comical to think of the man I remembered for his designer suits - hell, he even wore them to my games - gathered around a picnic table with his extended family, Sadie and any other random grandchildren included. More than likely, even if he was remotely receptive to the idea, he’d still hole up in his home office after a few minutes of bonding.
“I suppose we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,” she announced, making it sound like much less of a monumental moment than it truly would be.
“On that thought,” I segued, “I really should be going.”
Her eyes told me no, though her actions agreed with my statement. She rose from her stool at the same time as I did, following me back to the front door. I hesitated, my hand on the doorknob, because I had no clue what to do next.
“Matthew?”
So she was going to decide for me, it seemed. I spun around at her use of my name. “Yeah?”
“Would it be too much to ask for a hug goodbye?”
Dumbfounded, I stood there for a few seconds, arms limp at my sides. Blake and I were huggers, and the reason why must have been repressed in those painful memories that I hadn’t accessed for years. We had to have gotten that tendency from somewhere, and here it was.
Since I didn’t trust my voice, I outstretched my arms and she walked into my embrace. I held her awkwardly at first, then felt the tension leave my body as I caught a hint of her perfume. It was the same as I remembered, and I sank back into my childhood. Though now I towered over her, it was exactly how it had been back then, a mother showing affection toward her son.
We held onto each other for longer than we would have had this not been a turning point in the tides. And when we broke apart, I found myself not wanting to let go. But let go I did, opening the front door and stepping out into the real world without so much as another word.
Chapter Nine
Blake
I opened the door to find Matthew standing on my porch, looking uncharacteristically at a loss for words. Since Chris and I had gotten married, he more often than not rang the doorbell upon coming over, refusing to use his key unless he knew for a fact that his best friend wasn’t home. His way of showing us respect and allowing us our privacy.
“Hey, dork,” I greeted. “What’s up?”
An unannounced visit did nothing to incite my curiosity. Him not taking my lead and responding with my nickname did. Couple that with the clean shaven, contact lens wearing version of yore, and my interest was piqued.
“We need to talk, Blake. Can I come in?”
Those few words caused my stomach to drop into my knees. What kind of a question was that? He knew as well as I did that my house was as good as his. He was always welcome.
“Yeah, but you’re scaring me. Is something wrong?”
I moved aside so he could enter my living room. He said nothing as he strode past me, on a mission as he headed towards my sectional. Chris was currently occupying it, the space beside him still warm from where I’d been sitting.
“Hey man,” Chris greeted, not yet clued into the alternate reality we were experiencing.
My husband stood to do one of those weird male bonding things, but froze in mid-stride when he also didn’t get the reaction he expected. At least it wasn’t just me.
“Is everything okay?” Chris and I asked at the same time.
Matthew appeared to come out of the trance he was in to answer us. The way he looked at his surroundings, it was like he was trying to determine how he’d ended up here. I exchanged a worried glance with Chris.
“We need to talk,” my brother repeated, the words directed at only me. “In private.”
“Okay,” I agreed, trailing out the final syllable well past its prime.
Chris took the bait, trying to make the best of the awkward situation. “I’m just going to go upstairs and finish watching this show.”
With that, he powered down the flat screen, tossing the remote control onto the cushion as if this was all normal. As he crossed past me to go up to the loft, he squeezed my shoulder. His brown eyes met mine, full of questions that I couldn’t begin to answer. I shook my head almost imperceptibly, not wanting to spook our guest.
Matthew waited until Chris had mounted the stairs, walked through the open area, and shut the door to Lauren’s former bedroom firmly behind him. Then he sank down on my sofa and I took that to mean I was to do the same. I obeyed his silent command, sitting near enough to him that our knees were touching. Impulsively, I grabbed his hands in mine, needing to cement our connection.
“What’s wrong with you?” I breathed.
A thousand scenarios flooded my head, none of them good. I hated to voice my concerns, each option worse than the last. Was something going on with Lauren? Sadie? Was he using again? The latter choice was laughable, considering the man that sat in front of me looked way more like a cover model for a men’s magazine than a junkie about to pass out on a street corner.
However, the latter choice was the one I was most afraid of addressing.
“Promise me that you’ll listen to me with an open mind,” he prefaced.
His words made my blood run cold.
“I don’t know if I can do that,” I allowed.
“Please try?”
Suddenly, it was as if our roles had reversed yet again and I was his mentor. It wasn’t necessarily a place I wanted to visit, the one where I oversaw his every move and he begged me for permission or forgiveness, depending upon the circumstances. What in the hell was he about to dump at my feet?
I decided not to pump him for information. Better to let whatever it was come organically, right? God, I hoped so. So I nodded, giving him at least that much.
“I saw Mom today.”
My fingers tightened against his, squeezing to the point that it caused me pain. Since his face was already contorted, I didn’t know if it hurt him, too. No matter, because I didn’t loosen my death grip.
I wanted to ask him to repeat it. Certainly I hadn’t heard it correctly, even though I knew I had. But he had said it quietly, mumbled it a little bit, so I could have misunderstood. I wanted to have misunderstood.
A couple of seconds lapsed before I realized he was waiting for me to say something. His hands shook in mine, and he hadn’t taken a breath since he’d dropped the news. Neither had I. Before we both passed out and needed Chris to rescue us, I had to do something.
“I’m surprised it hasn’t happened before,” I stumbled, shocking myself at what sprang to mind first. “So where was this? At the grocery store? The gas station? Did you pull up beside her at a stoplight or something?”
Instead of putting him at ease, my questioning made him tense further.
“At her house.”
“Excuse me?”
“I went over there to talk to her.”
“Why the fuck would you do that?”
It was a valid question. Never in the time that had elapsed since our parents disowned us had Matthew even mentioned the possi
bility of trying to make amends. As far as I was concerned, the break had been clean and permanent.
“She visited Lauren at work. She was digging for information. She feels bad about what happened and she wanted to let us know.”
“Well, thanks for the news flash, I guess.”
“I filled her in on the bare minimum. She knew you and Chris were married, but she could have gotten that from public records. She knows that you own your own business, but again, she could have done an internet search to find that out. I didn’t tell her about the baby, and neither did Lauren.”
Thank God for small favors that some things weren’t public knowledge. The miscarriage wasn’t something that I was ashamed of any longer, but I also didn’t want to play the I’ve-lost-a-baby card for sympathy, either. Though perhaps it would have worked to my advantage to have someone share that tidbit with her. Look what you missed, Patricia. Your daughter lived through a terrible tragedy mere weeks after you wrote her out of your life. You lost your first grandchild long ago and didn’t even know it.
“It’s no one else’s place to tell her that,” Matthew continued.
“If you’re insinuating what I think you are, it’s never going to happen.”
Sure, he hadn’t yet put his request into words, but I knew what he was asking. We had an insane talent for clearly communicating with one another without words. We’d been known to have entire conversations built solely upon nods and facial expressions. They had a habit of driving everyone else crazy, especially Chris and Lauren, who were most often to witness them.
But this wordless communication was about to drive me nuts. Because I knew exactly what he was trying to convince me to do. And the pleading nature of his eyes, the lack of words coming from his lips, confirmed that I was correct.
“I’m not talking to her, Matthew.”
“Blake.”
His fingers tightened upon mine, as if by sheer force of will I would do his bidding. I yanked my hands away from him, jerking back against the couch violently with the force of the motion.
“She decided that she wanted nothing more to do with us a long time ago. She doesn’t get to renege on that when it’s convenient for her.”
“I think that maybe we should give her the benefit of the doubt. You’ve got to understand her position on things. Our father controlled her; she was dependent on him for everything. Hell, she still is and she’s taking a giant risk to even consider reaching out to us.”
I crossed my arms over my chest. “You seem to forget that once upon a time both of us were also solely dependent on our father. And look where that got us. Don’t fall for her sob story, Matthew. Patricia Snyder had a choice, just like we did. She made her loyalties clear.”
“And you seem to forget that I told you to stay at home.”
“I wasn’t about to do that and you know it. You needed someone on your side, and I was it.”
“I had Chris. And if you had followed through with my plan, you might have had him that entire time, too. Instead, you became bitter and resentful because you pledged your allegiance to me.”
“I did what was right, Matthew. I stood up for you, because the people that would were few and far between. And me staying at home wouldn’t have changed things. I would have gotten disowned when they found out I was pregnant, and Chris and I were on the outs anyway.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I don’t? I know that our dear father never thought Chris was good enough for me. Do you really think him impregnating me would have been viewed as a blessed event? And the night you got arrested the second time, I felt the shift in my relationship with Chris. Maybe it had nothing to do with you, maybe it was just growing pains, but we began the end that night. And I hammered the nails in our coffin when I decided I was going to fix your mess without discussing it with him first. Why are we even talking about this? It’s not like we can change the past.”
“But we can change the future.”
“No we can’t.”
“Aren’t you the least bit curious? Don’t we owe her an audience, just once? We’ll go there together, put up a united front.”
“We aren’t united. Not about this.”
Matthew made a move towards me, and I countered by rising up from the couch and stalking toward the picture window that looked out upon the cul-de-sac. Without looking, I knew he had followed behind me, but I remained with my back to him. Closed off.
“Will you at least think about it?” he pleaded. “I know it’s a lot to digest. It took me a minute to come around when Lauren told me that Mom came to visit. Maybe if you just gave it a little while to settle in your head, to talk it over with Chris first?”
“That’s just it, Matthew.” I spun around so he could see the fire in my eyes. “Lauren wasn’t there. She can fall for the whole song and dance that your precious mother is showing her, and never be the wiser. Wasn’t that the whole plan? Head straight for the sympathetic ear, the one of us whose mother is dead and buried and capitalize on those mommy issues?”
My brother wasn’t immune to the signals I was throwing his way. During my tirade regarding his wife, he’d watched me closely, backing slightly away. But determination flashed in his eyes, his desire to make me see his point of view evident.
“Don’t blame this on Lauren,” he warned.
“And don’t act like I give a two bit fuck what your wife thinks I should do. I’m not married to her. You might be pussy-whipped, but I’m not. Are you so afraid of getting cut off that you would do this to me? Seriously. I thought you hated our parents as much as I did. I thought that was the one thing that we would always agree on. For all those years, I had your back. Now, when I need you to have mine, I find out that I come in second place to your piece of ass.”
“Fuck you, Blake.”
The words were barely audible, a dull roar in my eardrums. But the growl that erupted from the man before me changed the entire atmosphere in the room. Even though he would never hit me, his whole posture had altered. He stood on high alert, his hands balled into fists at his side. His shoulders heaved with each heavy breath that he took. His eyes blazed with a dare, one that I was all too eager to accept: keep going.
“No, fuck you. You know what your problem is? You care way the hell too much about what people think of you. You fall for every scrap of flattery that gets thrown your way. Sure, you might be monogamous now, but that doesn’t mean you’re not still a manwhore in every other sense of the word. You’ll let anyone screw you over, even your own mother. And trust me. That is exactly what is going to happen here and I don’t want to be a part of it.”
“Jesus Christ, Blake. You are so pigheaded and righteous, it’s embarrassing. So quick to judge anyone else who’s ever made a mistake, all the while discounting the laundry list of ones you’ve made yourself. So quick to forget that your itchy trigger finger caused this whole rift to begin with.”
“What the fuck ever. If you wouldn’t have been thinking with your cock that night, none of this would have happened. Not the jail time, not me coming to your rescue, and certainly not my miscarriage.”
“No.” He shook his head. “I may have done a lot of stupid things in the past, but you are not going to pin you getting pregnant and losing the baby on me. Need I remind you that I wasn’t the only one thinking with my dick that night? The two of you couldn’t keep your pants on until you found a fucking condom. That’s not my fault. That’s all on the two of you.”
My hand moved independently of my body, raising up and crossing the distance between us reflexively. My open palm connected with his cheek in a slap that not only left my fingers stinging, but reddened his skin and caused him to stumble backwards. Though he wasn’t prepared for the impact, he recovered quickly, venom in the next words he spoke.
“Maybe you should ask your husband what his opinion on the matter is.” He rubbed his aching face with his hand as he carefully assessed my reaction. “Lest you forget that he’s still my best friend and we�
��ve already discussed this.”
I wasn’t sure if Matthew was bluffing. It was entirely possible that he and Chris had sat around at some point playing a giant game of what if. And given Chris’s solid relationship with his own parents, I could see him siding with the reconciliation angle.
“Don’t you dare make this about Chris and me,” I hissed.
That was the response he was looking for. His eyes lit up with the glow of knowing he’d scored a point. While he was assured that Lauren would be on his side, he knew I had doubts as to where Chris’s loyalties would lie.
“What if he agrees with me?” Matthew baited.
“Get out.”
“Yeah, it’s not so funny when the shoe is on the other foot, is it? Afraid that your own spouse won’t back you up? Maybe that tells you everything you need to know, sunshine.”
“Look. You are your own person. You’ve got your own family now, which I’m obviously not a part of any more. You’ve made your own choices; leave me out of them.”
“Blake,” his voice softened, the pain that my words inflicted upon him evident. “Don’t do this.”
He bridged the gap between us, or started to at least. If he thought we were going to hug this one out and be done with it, he had another thing coming.
“Don’t touch me.”
He froze in place, wounded. His eyes held mine for a split second. I didn’t flinch. Once he realized I wasn’t going to break, he turned towards the door. I assumed it was to leave, and his initial movements indicated I was right. Somewhere along the way, he reconsidered, shifted left and punched a fist sized hole in my drywall.
The door to Lauren’s old room swung open fully on its hinges, and I heard Chris descend from the loft posthaste. His steps weren’t as fast as my words.
“Get the hell out of my house!” I screamed, the hysteria creeping into my voice seconds before the tears did. “And don’t ever come back!”
Chris approached me from behind. And even though Matthew was in my line of sight and I could plainly see that his hands weren’t the ones that grasped my shoulders and gently coaxed me out of the way, I still shrugged off my husband’s touch.
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