by S. M. West
Slanting my head to one side, I study my friend, trying to figure out where she’s going with this. “No. I’m not like my mom. Am I?”
Harley smiles. “No, for the most part, you aren’t like your mom. But you’re acting like her right now.”
“What?” I want to reject her words, but I’m also curious as to why she would say such a thing.
“You’re guarding your heart. I think Madrid is about what happened both with CE and with Eli. You’re leaving because you were hurt by Ross, and you fear being hurt by Eli. You can’t live your life like that.”
“I don’t agree. And how’s that like my mother?” I cross my arms over my chest.
“She’s always on the go, never letting people get too close. Not even her own daughter.”
We stare at each other, and finally Harley backs down, sliding back into the seat and flicking on the TV. Her words play in my mind throughout the day.
I stay with her all day Saturday, and she doesn’t push me any further on Eli or on my decision. She’s said what she believes, and it’s ultimately my decision.
Most of the day is spent watching movies that make us cry. It didn’t start off that way. I helped Harley pack, then we put on Brokeback Mountain since we’re both Heath Ledger fans. Once in a fit of tears, we moved on to Titanic because, come on, a young Leo, and ended the night with A Star is Born, the remake with Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper.
By this point, it’s late, and since the movie is a remake, not the original, Eli comes to mind and our game of cover songs. I wonder what he’s doing right now?
Gray and Daisy are there, and I’m glad he isn’t alone. What they must think of me for breaking his heart.
I fall asleep easily, too wrung out and mindless from crying, but I stay with Harley, still not ready to face my life alone even if it’s my choice. I’m up and out early Sunday morning after a flurry of promises and more tears.
We’re not sure when we’ll see each other next. Harley leaves for London tomorrow, and I’m off to Spain in two weeks. I’ll know more about what’s in store for me once I make the call to accept the offer, which I’m doing later this morning.
But I don’t make the phone call to Madrid. Instead, I send an email requesting the week before I have to give them a decision. Fortunately, they agree to the extension but stress their eagerness to have me on their team. This job is a good move, but I can’t bring myself to make the commitment. Not yet.
The following week is the worst of my life. I withdraw my name from the UN position, and I ignore calls and texts from Tristan asking to see each other before he goes back to LA. I’ll miss him—he’s a sweet, funny guy—but I’m in no mood for people.
I also go through the motions in taking calls from the business contacts who had originally refused to do business with me because of Whitney’s lies. As promised, she made things right, and two of them had offers for me, business opportunities that would give me a new venture in Manhattan. I turned them down—neither of them felt right.
My time is mostly spent holed up in the penthouse, consumed with Eli, missing him and his daughter. Harley’s words plague me.
Finally on Saturday, a full week later, I set my alarm early and go to the gym. I can’t wallow forever, as tempting as it is. I’m no clearer on what to do, and Eli hasn’t called, not that I expect him to. I left him.
After the workout, I enter the penthouse and pause. Someone is here. Not just anyone—my mother.
“How could you?” Priscilla Edwards, fire-engine-red lips and her hands on her hips, wears an elegant black pantsuit with her hair swept back into a chignon.
It’s barely nine in the morning, and she looks like she’s ready to slay the world.
“Pardon?” My fingers haphazardly comb through my tousled hair as if that will make my appearance any better.
I showered at the gym, but I’m sporting an oversized shirt and shorts. I look like a slob compared to my mother.
“I strictly forbade you to look into your father, and you went behind my back and hired an investigations firm.”
Her rigid, impenetrable exterior is firmly in place. Face cold as stone and demeanor stoic. No, more like livid.
After LA, I’d put a hold on the search. The wasted stakeout of the two men only made me less inclined to continue the journey for answers when what I sought was a real, truthful conversation with my mother.
I also discovered the driving need to know my father was lessened, in fact almost gone, and while it seemed strange, I wondered if it had something to do with having Eli and Crystal in my life.
“Mom, I’m twenty-six years old. An adult. I’ve always had questions, but you won’t answer them, so I took matters into my own hands. What did you expect me to do?”
“To leave it alone. Prudence, this is none of your business.” She drops her hands to her sides, bright red fingernails curling into fists.
“None of my business? How can you say that? If the identity of my father isn’t my business then I don’t know what is.” I march past her into the penthouse, and the sharp clip of her heels following me is like an icepick to my eardrums.
“What were you thinking? And were you even going to tell me?”
At the entrance to the kitchen, I whirl around and stare at the woman who gave me life. The woman I’ve desperately wanted to love me—but somehow I was never deserving of her love.
“Yes. What you don’t know is, I put a pause on the investigation. They’ve narrowed it down to three men.”
She scowls, crossing her arms over her chest and pursing her lips in pure distaste.
Holding her gaze, I continue, “And that’s when I realized we needed to talk. I intended on calling you. I don’t want to cause you pain. I’d rather talk to you and hear what happened from you. But you won’t tell me.”
“It’s my life.”
“No. It’s my life too. I have a right to know my father. I don’t want nor do I need all the details. I just want to know who he is.”
She shakes her head, and my frustration and helplessness build. “This is what I mean. Why are we always like this? I try to reach you. I try to reason with you, time and time again, but you are unreachable.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Mom, you were never around. You’d float in and out of my life for an hour or two, sometimes a day at most, and then be gone. Our Christmases weren’t even spent together.”
“Oh God, not this again.” Her exasperated tone and droll expression only serve to fuel my words.
“See. You’re always dismissive like it isn’t important, but it is, and nothing changes. Even last Christmas, you promised to meet me in the Maldives for the holidays and you never came.”
“For God’s sake, it was the Four Seasons, Prudence.” The echo of the words she said to me at the time when I called upset from my hotel room only deepens the wound in my heart.
Her voice rises, and a flush of color seeps into her cheeks. “You act as if I left you in a slum to fend for yourself. Every one of your Christmases were paid for by me, and you always stayed in the best money could buy. What more do you want from me?”
“Yes, it’s all true. I was always in the lap of luxury, but I was alone. You’d be working or wherever, and it was never about the money. I’d rather have been in some slum with you than alone.”
Her shoulders slump, almost in defeat, and it’s a first. I’ve never seen her like that, and I hold my breath. Maybe I’ve gotten through to her.
“I’ve told you before, your father is of no consequence.”
Nope. She isn’t budging but simply deflecting from the conversation about her endless holiday fails. Although turning to the topic of my father is surprising.
“That’s easy for you to say. You know who your parents are.”
“And what do you think will happen if you know who your father is? What exactly?”
I bite my bottom lip to stop me from spilling my deepest hopes or dreams. She’ll only laugh in my face. She’s
never understood this driving need to know where I came from.
“I don’t know. It might…it might—” I grapple for the words, but it doesn’t matter.
Like a sharp blade slicing through butter, she ends my mindless stumbling. “He’s dead.”
32
Pru
Full circle
Cold. Her expression is so cold and shuttered.
My mother might as well not even be here for how unreachable she is. I’ve been here too many times before. This conversation is pointless and yet I can’t help myself.
“What?”
“He’s dead.” Frown firmly in place, she loosens her arms, now dangling at her sides. “There, I told you and no, I’m not saying any more.”
Dead? The word runs through me, and I’m numb. I’m unsure how to feel, or if I should feel something, even if only disappointment.
She turns away from me, retreating to the living room, and I’m frozen in place, wanting to follow but not up for beating my head against a brick wall. If my mother doesn’t want to talk, I can’t make her.
Does this mean the deceased man Black Fox presented to me is my father?
His name is on the tip of my tongue, and as if reading my mind and not wanting me to utter the words, she pauses to look at me over her shoulder. “You don’t need to know who he is.”
Despite how distant we are, mother and daughter, both physically and emotionally, I am my mother’s child.
I’m a fighter, and I don’t give up easily. “But—”
“We were a mistake.” Her voice wavers. Is she fighting tears? My mother never cries. Only the weak cry, according to her.
She straightens to her full height as if putting on her resolve. I don’t need to see her face to know she’s slipped back into the hardass she saves for her international banking deals.
“He never wanted us in his life.”
“Can you tell me about him?”
Her steps falter, and her glossy chignon barely bobs at the abrupt halt. “There’s nothing to tell. He’s dead. He had a family, and we never existed to him.”
She continues to the sofa, and I rush after her. This is the most she’s ever said, and maybe, just maybe this time she’ll tell me more.
“A family? Do I have half brothers or sisters?”
“No.” Her eyes cut through me as do her words. “You are not part of that family. Trust me, none of them want to know you. None of them.”
Surprisingly, she reaches for my hand and pulls me to sit beside her, keeping my hand firmly in her grip. She must see how much her words diminish my hope. Hope for what, I don’t know.
“I tried with you. I tried to be a good mother, but obviously, I did a horrible job.”
“No, you didn’t. You…you…” I stumble on the words, not wanting to hurt her despite how much she has done the same to me. I want to believe it wasn’t deliberate.
“Go on.”
“Mom, you didn’t do it at all. You pawned off parenting on other people. Marie Claire. Sylvia. John-Paul. Thierry.”
I list the people who came and went in my life as we moved from country to country.
“They were my family. They celebrated my birthdays and were there for the holidays and summer vacations. You weren’t around. I sometimes wondered why you even had me.”
“How can you say that?” She truly looks amazed as if only realizing this for the first time. “I love you.”
My heart squeezes, and the words clog my throat. She hasn’t said those words to me in I don’t know how long. It isn’t like she’s never told me that she loves me, but it’s been a long time.
“I love you too.” I clear my throat, loosening the emotions choking me. “Please tell me. Help me understand.”
She squashes my fingers in her grip but says nothing. I’m the one to keep rambling, trying to reach her.
“When I first came to live in New York for college and stayed those summer months with Gran, she was so sad you’d kept me away from the family.”
The mention of her mother causes mine to release an unattractive snort, something so unlike her.
I stare in wonder. Another emotion on display. Who is this person?
“I can’t believe I’m doing this.” She pinches the bridge of her nose and looks at her lap. “I haven’t told anyone this. I can’t even believe I’m about to tell you, but I suppose you should know.”
The vulnerability to her voice chips at my heart and at the same time gives me hope. She’s opening up to me.
“I love my parents. My father was my idol. I wanted to be just like him.”
“From the little I remember and more so what Gran and Uncle Emmett have told me, you are like him.”
A smile ghosts her lips. “He wanted only sons. As you know, Uncle Emmett came first, and then there was me and Gideon.”
“Gideon?” I crinkle my brow and tilt my head to one side, not recalling that name from the brief conversations I’ve had with my mother about her family over the years.
She nods and raises a shaky hand to her neck. “Yes. Gideon was my twin.”
“What? You have a twin brother?” So many questions swim in my mind.
“Had. He died of a rare form of brain cancer when he was seven.”
“Oh no.” My hand covers my mouth.
“It was the worst time of my life, that’s why I don’t speak of it. Gideon was my best friend, and since his death, I’ve always felt like a part of me died that day.” Her smile is sad and twisted. “I also lost my mother that day. I can’t fully comprehend what it would be like to lose a child. I can’t and never want to know.” She brushes her hand across my cheek and I shiver, tears pricking at the corner of my eyes.
“His death broke something in her, and she could never look at me the same again. We were fraternal, of course, but we looked so much alike, and at times, it felt like she wished I’d been the one to die. My father also turned away from me. I was a girl, after all. My life changed in so many ways. They shipped me off to boarding school, not able to have me around. It was too painful.”
“Oh, Mom.” My fingers curl around hers, and I squeeze, at a loss for words.
“I never went back home for any length of time. Emmett and I remained friends, but from a distance, and I earned my father’s respect, his pride, through my work and success. But my mother…” She stands and walks to the terrace doors.
“She and I never got back what we lost. That’s why I stayed away, and I suppose I ended up giving you the life I was given. Alone and no family.”
It’s as if she’s only now realizing that fact. She peers over her shoulder at me and her gaze is far off as if scanning through my childhood and drawing parallels with her own.
“How did you meet my father?” Perhaps I should stay quiet and let her tell the story the way she wants, but she’s talking, so she might tell me about him.
“He was a client. Not mine. I was still making a name for myself at the firm.” She strolls back to me and sits. “We had an affair. It was brief. He was married.”
It’s unusual and unsettling, but she doesn’t look me in the eye. She wears her shame like armor. Heavy and uncomfortable but unmistakable.
“I’d been impulsive. For once in my life, I wanted to indulge in something without thinking about the risks and consequences. I didn’t know about his wife and kids until after the affair had begun. Then I called it off, heartbroken. I’d foolishly thought we were in a relationship and that we’d be together.”
One lone tear slips from the corner of her eye. “He didn’t try to stop me, and we weren’t even together when I found out I was pregnant. At the time I told him I was carrying you, I’d already put in for a transfer.”
My breath stills even knowing the outcome, and sadness etches her classic features. She looks me in the eye and her steely fortitude is there.
“He didn’t want anything to do with me or the baby. He told me to take care of it.”
And there it is.
The truth.
Ugly and matter-of-fact.
My father knew of my existence and wanted nothing to do with me.
It should hurt and maybe it will, eventually, but I’m numb much like I was in LA. I can’t mourn the loss of something I never had. I’d hoped there might be more, but there isn’t. Besides, he’s dead so it isn’t as if I could seek him out and demand we get to know each other.
“And his name?”
“Asa Sheridan.”
Things have come full circle. I have a full report on Asa Sheridan courtesy of Black Fox investigations. He is one of the three men they had told me about. The deceased lawyer.
I want to ask more questions, dig for anything that might suggest he had a change of heart, looked for me, cared, but I don’t. I already know the answer.
We sit like that for quite some time, each of us caught up in our thoughts until my mother turns to me. “Tell me about Eli.”
Normally irritation would spark within me. After all, Eli is a celebrity like the wealthy—he’s famous, important, worthy of her time. Instead the mention of him is a jolt to my heart.
“I…we’re over.”
“Oh, Pru. What happened?”
We don’t talk about relationships. She’s had men in her life, but who and for how long has always been a mystery. I’ve never met any of them, and in turn or likely out of spite, I haven’t introduced her to my boyfriends.
“He wants me to move in.” I omit Madrid and my aversion to long-term commitment, all things she would support. Funnily enough, I don’t want to hear her tell me how right I was to end things.
“Okay, and what’s the problem?”
I stare at her, eyes wide. “Well, I don’t know if I want to live with someone. Ever.”
“Why is that?” The way she asks like she already knows my response irks me, and I press my lips together.
“I’ve never lived with someone before. He has a daughter.”
My mother nods, having seen me with Crystal, and I shake my head. I’m throwing spaghetti on the wall, my excuses—yes, excuses—failing to stick. And even to my ears, these explanations are wrong and pathetic.