Page 52 of Merging Wright

“While I was pregnant with you and Myles, Landon asked me to marry him.”

“What?” I meet my mother’s gaze across the table.

“He was twenty at the time and set to finish college soon. He said we could marry, and he’d raise my children. He’d save face for me, as we called it then. He’d give me a home, a name, and be a father to my boys. But I didn’t love him then. I was foolishly still hung up on the man who stole my heart and a few other things from me.”

“Ma.” I don’t need to hear how my father took her virginity.

Her eyes sparkle with mischief, and I assume that’s how she got in trouble in the first place. “I denied what was right in front of me. He was more than a name or stability. He was offering to love me, as I deserved to be loved, but I didn’t see it that way then.” Her voice turns more serious. “I declined his offer, giving him a list of reasons, including how I didn’t want to ruin his life. Certainly, the town would outcast him as they’d done to me. They’d know he wasn’t the father, even though he suggested we lie.” She shrugs. “I couldn’t do that to him.”

“Even after my rejection, though, he checked in on me. He sent gifts. He came to see me. He tried to soothe Da. His friendship might have been the thing to open people’s eyes and hearts to me. The giant scarlet A on my chest became smaller and smaller.” Ma draws an X over her heart. She had committed adultery. She’d been with a married man, unbeknownst to her, until after their affair. “Then Landon met someone else, and I saw the light.”

Ma sighs. “I was too late. For the second time, I couldn’t steal his life from him. His heartbeats belonged to someone new.”

“Ma.” My chest aches. My mother has been alone most of her life and I selfishly don’t want to hear this tale of unrequited love. My heart can’t take it. The best woman I know, the one most deserving of love, never had it as she should have.

“Cecilia was a beautiful woman. Kind, generous, intelligent. She loved Landon with everything she had, as he deserved. And he loved her.” Ma’s voice saddens. “I accepted he and I were not meant to be.”

Ma studies my face. “But you. Your acushla rests upstairs. Do not deny her. Do not deny yourself what’s right in front of you, my beautiful boy.”

“Ma.” I shake my head, choking on humorless laughter. “Tracy was my heart. Stop calling Jane my acushla.” As soon as I say the words, I regret them. Not only is it not true—my heart doesn’t only beat but hammers, gallops, races at full speed when Jane is near me because she frustrates the hell out of me—it also isn’t fair because I do feel something for Jane. I feel . . . alive with her.

“You’re wrong, Mach. Tracy was the heartbeat of your youth. That quick racing, never stopping, always moving kind of beat that is young love.” Ma shimmies her shoulders, her voice rising with the explanation. Then she sighs and settles back in her seat. “But Jane? She will be your everlasting heartbeat. The steady ticker with a wiser tempo that slows down time, takes in a moment, and breathes in the concept of forever. That’s the heartbeat you need now, son.”

Ma stares at me.

Her message takes its time to burn through me, much like the scotch I reach for and drink until the glass is empty. The scald of alcohol fills my belly while the heat of Ma’s words enflames my heart. She isn’t completely wrong.

Jane makes my heart beat.

I don’t respond to Ma, though. She isn’t expecting me to say anything.

“I also think it’s time to forgive Myles.”

“Ma,” I groan, hanging my head while I clutch the glass jar.

“You can live with regrets. People do it all the time. Lord knows I have. And you can let those regrets eat at you for the rest of your life, festering and feeding. But what a sad, lonely life you’ll lead, without love, without your brother.” Her emphasis falls on the last words. Your brother. I could argue she’s always defending Myles but that wouldn’t be true. She defended me most of our younger lives. She stood by me when Tracy became mine, and I still wanted to leave Wrightwood.

The heart knows what it wants, Ma had said. Its rhythm is foolishness. Its melody love.

“I have Tucker.” I’m not tossing more of her mistakes in her face, but Tucker is the brother I gained when I lost Myles. My connection with Tucker is twisted in the bizarreness of fate and the brazen actions of a man too full of himself.

“And aren’t you fortunate that relationship turned out to be what it is? But you have another brother who needs you too. And you might need him.”

I huff. “What I need is a construction foreman.” My thoughts leap to Jane and her constant flow of ideas and stream of suggestions. She’s tackling this town like a giant marketing campaign, and in many ways, her thought process works. We’re here to rebuild, which means rebranding. But we need an actual builder.

Ma pulls a business card from her pocket and slides it across the table to me.

Reading the name, I bitterly chuckle, disbelieving the words written there.

Wright Construction Company, Myles Wright, Owner & Contractor.

Myles has just as much at stake as I do in rebuilding this town. He has double to gain if we pull the renovation off in a timely manner. So why hasn’t he offered his services? Why isn’t he stepping up? I answer my own questions. Myles and I don’t get along. I don’t want his help anyway.

“He’s waiting for you to ask,” Ma speaks as if reading my thoughts.

Jane has taken on the role of project manager, which means if we use Myles’s construction company they’d be working closely together. That also means I wouldn’t be able to return to Chicago anytime soon because I don’t want Myles anywhere near Jane. And I already know Jane isn’t interested in leaving. She’s embracing our time here like a passion project.

“Fuck,” I mutter.