Still, he couldn’t seem to pull away. “They kept dating, then eventually got engaged. I drove back to Florida for their wedding. I walked my mom down the aisle to that man.”
“I see,” Wren said quietly.
She probably did. At the ER, she’d undoubtedly heard some version of this same story countless times, and he suspected each iteration had broken her heart anew.
“I started landing more parts, better parts, and I got really busy. A lot of times, I just didn’t answer her calls, and I never visited. We’d go a week without talking. Two weeks. Eventually, we hardly talked at all, and I barely noticed.” Because he was a terrible son, which he’d only realized once it was much too late. “Now, when I think back to the few conversations we did have, I realize she stopped mentioning friends at some point. She stopped talking about Jimmy, except in this careful fucking voice, and even then, she only said he was fine. They were fine. When she told me he’d persuaded her to quit her job, because he could support them both, I thought that was great. A goddamnblessing.”
Wren’s hand stilled. “Because she’d worked so hard while you were growing up, and you wanted her to have time to herself.”
Her defense of him was kind but ill-conceived, and he didn’t bother responding.
“They were married for nine years. Nine goddamn years. They visited me twice in all that time, and I never visited them at all, and I didn’t even think about it, Wren. I didn’t even wonder if something was wrong.” His throat was thick, and he swallowed hard. “Jimmy died of a heart attack when I was twenty-eight, and I finally came home. For his funeral.”
It was a typical Florida afternoon in August, steamy and scorching, the clouds roiling overhead as the thunderstorms began to roll in. He’d looked down at his mother and finallyseenher. Finallynoticed,there at his stepfather’s graveside.
In the tropical heat, she was wearing long sleeves. A blouse that buttoned to the neck. A thick layer of makeup on one cheek, heavy enough to call attention to itself if anyone studied her carefully. Which he hadn’t, until that moment.
Years later, he’d recognize the way she moved that day. Gingerly. Slowly. The same way Marcus had moved when he’d fallen from his Friesian on set and cracked a couple of ribs.
She looked decades older than her actual age, and maybe a casual observer would think that was grief. But those weren’t temporary creases on her face. Her gaunt, sunken cheeks weren’t the result of a single week of mourning.
“She said she was fine, just sad, but I didn’t believe her. That time, I didn’t believe her, and I begged her to roll up her sleeves and unbutton the first three buttons of her blouse, and—” His breath was hitching, and his cheeks were wet, and Wren was wiping away his tears with a clean tissue, and he hadn’t earned her kindness. Not at all, but he was so fuckinghungryfor it. “Then I drove her to the hospital, because that motherfucker died of a heart attack in the middle of beating the living shit out of my mother, and not for the first time.”
“Oh, Alex.” She stroked his neck. “I’m so sorry. For her, and for you.”
When he eased away and stood to pace, she didn’t try to hold on. “I don’t fucking deserve your sympathy, Wren. I introduced my own goddamn mother to her abuser, convinced her to stay with him when she wanted to leave, and couldn’t be bothered to notice when he isolated and beat her. For years, Lauren. I didn’t notice for fuckingyears.”
“But …” Her brow was furrowed, her expression pained and soft. For him.
What wasn’t she getting here? What hadn’t he explained clearly?
Ten steps up, ten steps back, as his heart thundered anew. When he passed the couch, he whirled to face her, hands spread in an appeal for her to understand. To finally, finallygetjust how unfit he was to be her lover, and how selfish he was to pursue her anyway.
“I couldn’t be bothered,” he repeated, his voice ragged. “I couldn’t be bothered to ask how she was really doing and press her for more details, or wonder why all her friends seemed to vanish, or check thatshewanted to quit instead of being pressured into it by her asshole husband so she’d be as isolated and dependent on him as possible.”
Lauren shook her head, her mouth firm with determination. “You weren’t trained to recognize signs of domestic violence, Alex. You were a normal twenty-something kid who lived across the country and had his own life and concerns, and your mother didn’t tell you what was happening. Your stepfather’s abuse was not your fault. Not. Your.Fault.”
What she considered exoneration, he knew was nothing of the sort. If anything, it was further damnation.
“You’re right. She didn’t tell me.” His eyes were blurry, and he squeezed them shut. “Maybe she thought I’d tell her to stay, the same way I did before. Or maybe she thought her self-absorbed asshole of a son just wouldn’t care.”
“I am entirely certain that isnottrue.” She was standing now, arms extended high so she could cradle his face in her warm, tender palms, and he didn’t have the strength to move away a second time. “People in abusive relationships are often too ashamed to tell anyone, and scared of what might happen if theydotell someone.”
She met his eyes, her gaze unwavering. “If you’d known what was happening, would you have helped her?”
“How—” His voice broke anew, and he was crying again. “How can you even ask me that, Wren?”
Her thumbs stroked his wet cheeks. “I’m asking because I know the answer.”
“Of course I’d have helped h-her.” His chest bucked in a lone sob. “Il-loveher.”
For all the good it had done her when she’d needed him most.
Lauren was insistent. Inexorable. “Have you ever hit your mother? Kicked her? Thrown something at her? Lost control and injured her in any way, or deliberately hurt her?”
He recoiled, aghast, but she didn’t let go.
“No! I wouldnever—” Desperately, he shook his head.“No.”
