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I slipped the cart seat from Catherine’s hold and wrapped my arm around her shoulders.
Touching my lips to her temple, I held her for a moment, grounding myself in her soft, easy presence.
“Come on, sweetheart. Let’s go home.”
Chapter Twenty-eight
Catherine
IfIhadn’tleftJoey’s blanket at the table, I wouldn’t have gone back to fetch it after I’d finished in the restroom. Then, I wouldn’t have seen the side exit door that was much easier to leave through rather than weaving between tables to get to the front door.
If I hadn’t left through the patio, I never would have heard Weston call me a mother in crisis. If I’d been able to move my feet and open my mouth, I could have announced my presence and wouldn’t have heard Elliot’s friends question why in the world he would be with me if not to save me from the same fate his mother suffered.
If only…
I’d heard everything, and even though I’d tried to play it cool by rushing back inside and exiting out of the front door instead, I couldn’t pretend well enough for Elliot not to figure out something was off.
As soon as Joey was in bed for the evening, he took me by the shoulders and led me into the study. Then he parked me in his lap and held me tight.
“Talk to me,” he demanded gently.
As much as I wanted to, there was no getting around this. This conversation had to happen. Taking a deep breath, I blurted it out.
“I’m a mother in crisis.”
He knew immediately what I was talking about. It was like he caved in, his breath exploding, body curling around mine.
“You heard?”
I nodded. “I used the patio exit and did the thing I always accuse you of doing.”
“You eavesdropped.”
I nodded.
He grimaced like he was in pain, then buried his nose in my hair and stroked his fingers up and down my arm. He was comforting me, but I sensed he was reassuring himself too.
“Catherine, my mother was mentally ill. Until my father died when I was a teenager, I hadn’t understood just how hard he’d worked to keep her together. One of the last things he’d said to me was it was now my job to take care of my mother. But I’d been a kid, and Elise had been even younger. We’d been grieving,we’dneeded to be taken care of, but our mother had spiraled without my dad to anchor her.”
I could barely breathe, hanging on to each of Elliot’s broken words.
“My mother—her name was Elaine—had forgotten she was our mom. She fell into this deep, dark pit and never tried to climb out. Now, I understand my father had always been the one to pull her out. He’d taken her to therapy, made her take her meds, kept our home calm and our household running. Without him? Chaos.”
I took his hand in mine, weaving our fingers together. He sounded exhausted, and I thought maybe I wasn’t the only one who’d been ruminating on all that had been said after brunch. It was weighing on him too.
“I shouldn’t have gone away to college, not when our mother was barely functioning, but Elise insisted I leave. To be honest, I was relieved to be out of that house. Away from my desperately sad, self-destructive mother and memories of my dad. It was selfish, and I’m not proud of it, especially because Elise was there on her own, but it’s the truth.”
I kissed his shoulder, waiting for the rest, my stomach in snarling knots. He was still carrying this. The guilt, the weight of losing his parents, of not being there for his sister.
“She died in a car accident at the start of my third year at Stanford. That was the official ruling anyway, but it wasn’t an accident. She’d given up on life, on her kids, and ended it, but not before she’d spent nearly every penny our father had left us and taken out a second mortgage on our home. I came back for Elise and stayed. I put her life back in order and built my own from the disaster our mother left behind.”
He took my face in his hands. “Shewas in crisis. I didn’t stay when I should have, and it took me a long time to forgive myself. There are days, hours, minutes when I absolutely don’t. I ask myself ‘what if’ all the time and think I’ll always bear some amount of guilt for not doing more. Weston and Luca know that. They saw what a wreck I was back then and helped carry me through it. Now, I need you to hear me, Catherine.”
I nodded as much as I could, with him holding me. I was listening. I couldn’t stop if I tried.
“You arenothinglike my mother.” He drew each word out with his eyes locked on mine, almost angrily. Like he was incensed I would have believed the opposite. “Since my father died and our orderly world fell apart, I made a conscious decision to keep my personal space and those I let in it as chaos-free as possible. The control I keep over myself and my life has always been nonnegotiable, which Weston and Luca are well aware of.”
“I am too,” I whispered.
