by Ali Vali
“I don’t have an answer for that, kiddo. She’s here, and she wants to see you. Emma’s your mother, but it’s up to you if you want to see her or not. I don’t want you in therapy in your thirties blaming me for keeping the two of you apart,” Cain joked as she sat down. She brushed his dark hair back from his forehead, then placed her palm on his cheek. The big room in the back corner of the house was full of comfortable chairs and had a great view of the yard. “This is your call, son, and I’ll abide by whatever you say.”
Though big for his age, he squeezed in next to her, needing to be close. Emma was someone he chose to think of seldom, and knowing that she was back in town was making him nauseous. It wasn’t something he wanted to admit, but the anxiety he had gone through when she had so abruptly walked out of his life had devastated him.
Till that moment he had fought through the despair of losing Emma by pushing himself mentally and physically. He had rationalized that if he could come close to perfection, Cain would never abandon him. He had come to trust Cain wasn’t going anywhere, and with that assurance the need to excel beyond everyone’s expectations had started to ease. Having Emma come back as suddenly as she’d left threatened to disrupt his world all over again.
“Hayden? Did you hear what I said?”
“I heard you, sorry. She gave birth to me, but you’re my mother and father all rolled into one. Mook explained it to me once when I asked, and I think he’s right. With you, I don’t really need anyone else.”
“Thanks, and no matter what, you know I won’t ever leave you, right?”
“I know that, Mom, and I love you for it.” Cain had taught him that when he felt uncertain, he should always fall back on something he would never question. Since he never questioned Cain’s love and faith for him, she was his best ally in case he needed to lean on her strength. “Will you come with me if I go?”
Cain kissed the top of his head and smiled. “I love you too, son, and if you want me to go, I’ll be there.”
“You always tell me to confront my fears and leave them behind. I’m not afraid of her, but let’s see what she wants and move on, okay?”
Hayden stood next to her when Cain phoned her uncle to set up a dinner meet that night on neutral ground. Hayden hadn’t wanted Emma in their house, not ready to see her in such a familiar environment. The memories he had of Emma centered on their house, but this was also the place she had left. He even picked a restaurant he and Cain hadn’t eaten at before so neither of them would have bad memories when Emma went home.
In a way he was curious why she had come back to see him. Maybe now he could ask why she had left, why she never cared enough to call him, and what he’d done wrong to make her stop loving him. Four years was a long time, though, and his curiosity only went so far.
*
Emma wasn’t prepared for the physical change in her son when he and Cain walked into the Creole restaurant together. If he’d ever had any of her traits, they were long gone. Like Cain he was tall and powerfully built, even though she suspected he hadn’t begun to fill out, with the Casey dark-tanned skin and black hair. And when he got close enough for her to see them, his eyes would complete the picture that was all Cain.
“Hello.” Hayden politely held out his hand, closing the door on any embrace Emma might have had in mind as a form of greeting. She was sure the aloofness was the beginning of her punishment for her sins.
“Hello, Hayden. It’s so good to see you, son.” When he let go of her hand Emma brought it up to cover her mouth in an attempt to stop the tears. This stranger before her represented everything she’d missed in his life. As his mother, she had failed him. “If you like, you can call me Mama.”
“I don’t mean to be rude, ma’am, but I don’t feel comfortable calling you that. Mom said I could call you Emma instead of Ms. Verde.”
“Of course that’s all right. Cain, are you joining us?” Emma turned her attention to the silent woman behind the stranger who was her son and tried to blink away the tears. Now that she knew how he felt, she resolved to start the journey of reconciliation.
“Hayden invited me, so unless he asks me to leave, I’m staying.” Cain pointed to the empty chairs and everyone took a seat.
Emma noticed the silverware on the next table had been cleared away and the waiters seemed to know instinctively to leave the three of them alone. She felt exasperated as she stared at the protection Cain was never without. “Did they have to come along too?” The fact that they were now a part of her son’s life made her both sad and angry because maybe she was too late. She had helped cast the fate of the next Casey leader, and this would be the only life her son would know.
“Mom, are you ready?” asked Hayden, standing up.
“Where are you going?” Emma jumped up in a panic.
“Lady, you don’t have to like us. We didn’t ask you to. Nobody even asked you to come here after all this time, so you can take your opinions and go back north with them. We’ve actually been fine without you all this time. What makes you think you can come back and insult my mother like it’s acceptable behavior? You coming, Mom?” By the time Hayden had finished, his grip on the back of the chair was so tight his knuckles were white.
“It’s your show, kid. Whatever you want.” Cain stood up and buttoned her black jacket, obviously waiting for Hayden to walk out, if that was what he really wanted to do.
“I’m sorry. Please don’t go yet. I just wanted to see you and get to know you again. Cain, please.” Emma turned to her ex-lover, hating the despair that she knew painted her face and hoping Cain could put away some of her anger and help her.
“How about this, Hayden?” Cain suggested. “I go over and keep the help company for a while, and you and Emma have some iced tea or something. After that, if you’re ready to go, we’ll go.”
“I thought you said it’s my decision.”
“You want to leave now, kid, no one’s going to stop you, least of all me. But remember what we talked about. Listen to what the pitch is before you walk away.”
“Yeah, I know. If not you spend your life asking ‘what if.’ Can I talk to you a minute before I order a Coke?”
Emma stood motionless as Cain bent down and listened to whatever grievances Hayden was putting in her ear, wanting to kiss her ex for talking him out of leaving. Along with missing how Cain made her feel physically, she missed the feeling of safety she brought into her life. Cain had fixed almost all of their problems, no matter what she’d had to do.
Hayden squared his shoulders at her answer before turning back to her. Cain headed to the bar instead of the table of bodyguards, took a seat on one of the wrought-iron stools, and kissed the brunette who had called her over.
“You don’t have the right to look so jealous,” said Hayden.
“I’m not jealous, Hayden. I came to see you, not Cain.”
“Then stop staring at her.”
Emma sighed at his hostility, but she had prepared herself for it. She had no doubt Cain had used the four years she’d been absent to twist Hayden’s mind against her.
“How’s school this year? You just started back. Is it fun?” Emma unfurled her napkin and placed it on her lap.
“Fine and yes.”
“Do you have a lot of friends?”
“Yes.”
She could tell the one-word answers were not going to change, no matter how many questions she asked. In a moment of weakness, she slipped into silence, not wanting to fuel his frustration with her.
By the end of the evening, it turned out that their first exchange when Hayden threatened to leave was the easiest part of the night. Hayden had inherited the Casey temper as well as looks, and if Emma was hoping for an open-arm welcome, it wasn’t going to happen over her plate of perfectly cooked fish. A few tables over, the talk wasn’t as stilted, and Cain was having a pleasant time while she kept an eye on her son.
“Thank you for coming tonight, Hayden, and I hope we’ll get to a place where you can let
me in a little bit. Could you get Cain to join us again so we can talk before you go?”
Hayden walked to the table Cain shared with the woman she’d met at the bar. Not too worried about keeping Emma waiting, he joined them for bread pudding with whiskey cream sauce before finally dragging Cain back to Emma’s table. He reasoned his birth mother had kept him waiting for four years so it was only fair.
“Thanks for bringing him tonight. I don’t need an answer now, but I’d like to know if you’d let him come meet my parents in Wisconsin. That’s all I ask. After that I’ll go away forever if you want me to.” Cain couldn’t see it, but Emma had twisted the linen napkin on her lap into a knot while she was asking.
“Hayden, would you join Constance for a moment, please?”
The boy got up without question, knowing Cain didn’t want him to hear whatever she was about to tell Emma.
“You want coffee?” he asked Cain before he walked away.
“No, son, we’ll be leaving in a minute, but thank you.” Cain watched as he sat with the pretty brunette she had dined with, not glancing in her direction again. “You came to see me alone this afternoon, and you just bring this topic up now? Did all that fresh air and open spaces you left us for make you forget who you’re dealing with?”
“Are you kidding? It took me a year to build up enough courage to come here, Cain. Forget who and what you are? Not even if I tried hypnosis. I just want my mother and father to meet their grandson.”
“I’ve met your parents, Emma. Hell, I listened to you complain about them for years. What would make them want to meet the child you had with me?”
“Because he’s half mine, which means he’s a part of them as well. A week, Cain. Surely you could see to giving me that. I can look at him and see he’s more than a certified card-carrying Casey, but don’t forget he has other family as well, and it’s time he met them.”
Cain leaned into the table a little and lowered her voice. “What makes you think that you deserve anything from me?”
“Because I gave him to you. He’s your mirror image. He acts like you, thinks like you, and probably feels like you, but I’m foolish enough to think there might be something of me still trapped in there somewhere. I might not have called in all this time, but don’t fool yourself that I haven’t thought about him. I’ve thought about him every day, until some days it’s hard to get out of bed, I get so sick over it.”
“Like I said today, it’s his decision. But whatever he decides, don’t be stupid enough to think Mook’s not going with him.” Cain pointed to the man in question and watched Emma’s head fall forward in defeat. She nodded to signal she understood.
Almost as if he knew their talk had come to an end, Hayden turned around and excused himself when Cain waved him over. “I won’t go alone, and I’m not going if you don’t come with me,” Hayden informed Cain when Emma asked him to visit.
“A couple of days with just us, Hayden. Then you can bring the whole Casey clan if you want.” Emma tried to salvage something of what she wanted, mainly a relationship with Hayden, before it all slipped away and Cain’s watchful eyes exposed all her secrets. But in the end, if everything turned out like she hoped, even Cain’s presence had its purpose.
“I’ll come for two days. Then Mom comes for the rest of the time, and Mook stays with me. Neither one of us is going to talk her out of that,” said Hayden. He liked the big blond bodyguard, and it would be a blessing to have him along. “He’s a reality, so that’s the deal.”
“Is there something you’re afraid of, son?” asked Emma.
“My name is Hayden, and I’d prefer you call me that. And no, I like being with my family and that’s Mom, only Mom. We always spend Thanksgiving together, no matter what her schedule’s like, so it’s not fair for her to sit at home alone because you decided to get in touch again. Maybe you feel great about yourself for suddenly remembering you have a family, but she never forgot. Remember, I’m a Casey. Very little scares us.”
The declaration made Cain lean forward and ruffle his hair, getting the boy to laugh.
“I can respect that,” Emma said.
“Where are you staying?” asked Cain.
“Why?”
“His break begins next week, so if he’s going, I need to know where I’m sending him.”
Emma knew Cain wouldn’t just let her leave town with Hayden without every ounce of information on where he was going and how he was going to get there. She was so close now to having everything she wanted. If things worked out, Hayden would eventually forgive her, and they could make up for the years they had been separated.
Chapter Five
The flight up north and the drive into Hayward passed in silence. Emma realized Hayden probably didn’t resent being there; he was just comfortable with silence. When they had first met, Cain wouldn’t talk for long stretches, which had taken some getting used to.
The more hours that ticked off in Hayden’s company, the more he reminded Emma of Cain. Because of that similarity, her plan, which had seemed so foolproof months ago, now seemed like a pipe dream.
“Your grandfather owns a dairy farm here. His major buyer is Kraft, but he actually still makes all the cheese we eat at the house, like his father taught him.” She was fishing for things to say and laughing at herself that an eleven-year-old could be so intimidating.
Hayden was thinking of the dozens of trips he’d taken with Cain and how different they were from this forced visit. He remembered when Emma was in his life, the stories she’d read him at night and the way she would run her fingers through his hair when he was sick, but the good of that relationship was gone. The sound of her voice held no comfort for him now, and a small part of him mourned that fact.
The scenery out the window of the rented Tahoe held his eye, so he answered without looking at her. “I don’t know what you’re expecting from me, but these people are as much strangers to me as I am to them. I came because I thought Mom would be disappointed in me if I didn’t at least try. Aside from that, nothing else could’ve dragged me out here with you.”
“What she thinks is so important to you?”
“What is it about her that you find so offensive? You just didn’t leave her, you left me too. So whatever it is, it must’ve been pretty bad. I read a lot, and the moms in books usually don’t just drop their kids. Unless it’s something terrible or they’re just not cut out to be parents. If you’re telling me how much you care about me now, I have to assume you’re laying the blame at Mom’s feet.”
Emma snorted in amusement and peered out her own window in an effort to find something to focus on to calm her emotions. She’d been right in thinking Hayden was intimidating. He had her in the corner without lifting a fist, which was something else he had in common with Cain when it came to her enemies. “Do you honestly think she’d have let me take you with me when I left?” She turned back when she felt him move in his seat.
Hayden did look at her then, and like Cain, his cold eyes told her she had no chance. “Do you honestly think I’d have left with you even if she had allowed it?”
“Touché, Hayden. Can we try and spend this time getting to know each other better? You might find I’m not the monster Cain made me out to be.” Emma put her hand on his leg and prayed he wouldn’t knock it off.
“You want me to tell you a story?” He glanced at her hand and turned his attention back to the scenery they were driving by.
“If you want to, sure.” She gave his knee a little squeeze, glad he had left it alone. Emma was willing to take her small victories where she could find them.
“Every night before I go to bed, Mom points to a picture of the three of us and tells me somewhere you’re taking the time to think just about me and saying a prayer that I’ll be safe and happy. When I was seven and I cried for you, it’s the one thing that got me to stop crying and made the pain go away. Her telling me that you were thinking about me made me believe it. Does that sound like she’s been bad-mouthing
you all this time?” His voice sounded as cold as the weather they had flown into.
“You love Cain a lot, don’t you?”
“Do you make a habit of asking unnecessary questions? You have to know the answer without me saying anything, right? Maybe it’s all this open space out here. It makes you fish for something to talk about so you can forget you’re in the middle of nowhere.”
“You don’t act like a child, and you sure don’t sound like one.” You let too much time pass, Emma. He’s lost to you forever. And to think Cain did it by talking you up. Emma was sure when Hayden had figured out she was the only topic his beloved Cain ever lied to him about, she looked that much worse. She could just imagine how much discomfort and anger Cain had buried to say anything nice about her.
“Mom says the uneducated grow up to be prey. If you want to learn to be a hunter, then you have to be smarter, quicker, and stronger than everybody else.”
“Is that what Cain is to you, a hunter?”
“Cain is a god to me.”
“And what are Hayden’s thoughts? All I’ve heard from you is what Cain thinks.”
“Why reinvent the wheel if you don’t have to. There’s plenty we don’t agree on, and we know what those things are. What I talk to my mother about is no one else’s business. I’m not a puppet, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
Emma squeezed his knee again and smiled. “I do worry about you, Hayden. I don’t want Cain to drag you into something you might think you have no choice in.”
“Ah, it was the family business that drove you out here to this boring town. Save your worry and your pity for the times you need to pacify yourself for abandoning us. You were so worried it took you four years to check on me? I’m overwhelmed, and I shudder to think if you hadn’t cared for me. I’d have never seen you again.”
Emma was shocked, not only by his command of the English language, which was astounding, but by his cool, detached delivery. Any trace of the sweet boy who had picked flowers for her was gone, and she was left only with the memory of him. She would be fortunate if he didn’t hate her forever, because he would never forgive her.