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“No, it’s all right. It’s my problem, and I will handle it.”
“Are you sure? My mom would do it without any questions, although,” she says, “she actually might first ask me a million questions.”
“You see? I’ll handle it. I promise.” I reach out to hold her hand for needed assurance. “You only need to focus on what you’ve been doing.”
“All right then.”
Chapter 17
Harper
"We were starting to think you had forgotten about today,” my mom says when I go to the house the next day. “I was going to call, but your father decided against it.”
“He probably wanted something to hold over my head,” I mutter as I walk in, holding a gift bag.
If I hadn’t set a reminder, I would have forgotten that today was my dad’s birthday. So, I’m not mad that he didn’t call me. I’ll let him stew in his guilt when he realizes he thought badly of me.
“Darling,” my mom calls out, “your daughter is here.”
My father’s footsteps down the stairs are deliberate, as though he’s trying to meet his fitness goals. But it’s been like that all my life, and it was the sole reason why every time we attended an event, eyes would turn once we walked in.
That, and my mother’s flare for being fashionably late and her keen sense of style. As a divorce lawyer, my mother always told me there was no need to wear somber clothing in the courtroom as she wasn’t trying to sway anyone’s opinion in her client’s favor.
She was there to demand, and so, she had to be noticed. She carried that into every aspect of her life.
“You showed up,” my dad sounds surprised but does his best to hide it.
I smile as I go to hug him. “You know I wouldn’t miss your birthday for anything in the world.”
“Even a job that doesn’t pay well?” He asks sarcastically.
I knew that was coming. My mother made a big fuss when I moved out of the house, but my father was disappointed when I told him I wouldn’t be working for him. He tried to get me to stay by offering me a position that was well beyond my skill set and then wouldn’t speak to me for weeks when I declined.
Instead of handing him the gift bag, I head to the kitchen and remove the bottle of wine before setting it in the minibar. I spend some time in the kitchen, reminding myself that I only need to keep it together for a couple of hours, and then it would be polite to leave.
When I return to the living room, my mom has a cake on the center table.
“Come,” she beckons, “I ordered your favorite flavors, chocolate and vanilla.”
Although I don’t have any particular preference for the flavors, I grin to show that I appreciate the gesture. She cuts the cake, hands my father and me slices placed on the finest China, and then we sit down.
An hour goes by as my mom tries to make small talk. I do my best to participate in the conversation, but my father’s replies are grunts and single words. My mother, who is used to it, handles most of the talking.
“Mom,” I cut in at some point when the conversation becomes pointless, “I need to ask you for a favor.”
“You want to move back in?” She quips excitedly. “I knew it. I told your father that you wouldn’t like living on your own. Your room is the same way you left it, but we had talked about knocking down the walls between the rooms to make it into one big space.”
I groan inwardly. “Thank you for the thought, but that’s not the favor, Mom. I don’t think that can be considered a favor either.”
She looks crestfallen. “What is it, then?”
I rub my hands together, not knowing where to start. Gabriel said he would handle it, but I don’t want to leave everything up to him, and I’ve seen my mom handle the worst of situations with grace and ease, so I trust her to clean things up.
“The person I work for—”
“Is he harassing you?” My father jumps in. “He isn’t paying you a salary worth your expertise, that’s for sure. Now you can’t pay your rent. Why don’t you work for me? If you don’t want to live here, I’ll buy you a penthouse.”
My mother glares at him. “Why would you say she doesn’t want to live with us? You’re the reason she’s rejecting my offer.”
