As always, professional. Patient. No censure in her voice.
“How badly did I fuck up?” I ask bluntly.
She chuckles. “Eh, on a scale of one to ten, I’d say a five.”
Okay, that’s better than nine or ten.
“How much will I have to grovel to get my job back?”
“There’s no groveling in a family.” She pauses. “Though I can’t speak for Wynter.”
Ouch.
I wince. “Yeah, that’s probably more of a ten on the fuck-up scale.”
“Where are you?” she asks after a moment.
“Uh, Wisconsin. I went to my late fiancee’s grave and then wound up running into her mom.”
“How was that?” Again, she sounds genuinely concerned.
“Good. Honestly, really good.”
“So, now what?”
“I guess that’s up to you. And the band. Whether or not I still have a job.”
“You have a job. You do owe the band an apology.”
“Tell me about it.” I sigh and close my eyes, letting my head fall onto the back of the couch. “I just don’t know what to say. Jesus. I threw a punch.”
“Multiple punches, from what I understand.”
“Yeah. I just…why would he hide this from me?”
“He didn’t.”
“What?” I’m momentarily confused.
“He didn’t know,” she says quietly. “But I did. Casey and I knew.” She always refers to her mother as Casey in any professional setting. “And we chose to keep it from you because there was no need. They hired you before Casey and I took over managing Onyx Knight. We did background checks on everyone in the organization for obvious reasons, and when we put two and two together, we asked the band about Ross & the Rock-its. They told us you were adamant that it was in your past and you didn’t want it brought up, ever. So, we opted to keep it from you. Not Tommy. He didn’t know until after everything blew up last week.”
“Christ.” Now I feel even worse.
“If you want to be mad at anyone, it’s me.” She pauses. “I would prefer you didn’t throw a punch—my husband would get grumpy about that—but you’re welcome to vent or tell me all the reasons why my decision was wrong.”
All I can do is sigh.
“I’d never hit a woman,” I mutter. “Certainly not you. And I guess it makes sense when you explain it that way. It just hit hard, I guess. The letter about his death. Then realizing that he was Tommy’s father—it felt like a betrayal in the moment.”
“And now?”
“Now it feels sad. Like I overreacted. Like after nineteen years I shouldn’t have gone off the deep end.”
“I’m not one to butt into your lives but this tells me you still have some unresolved issues. Maybe you should talk to someone.”
I start to protest but then realize—she’s right. “I stopped because it felt like it didn’t help. Nothing was going to bring them back.”
“It’s not about bringing them back. It’s about closure.”
