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“I’ve come to support you,” my mother announced, settling herself on the only chair that didn’t have a pillow wedged into it or a throw draped over its back. “Is there anything I can do, Landon?” Though her voice was stiff, I could hear the sincerity in the question. She wanted to help. Everyone wanted to help. Con, Garrett, Julian, and Dominic kept calling, updating me on their progress, which was always along the lines ofnothing yet. Con sent me food from various restaurants around the city. Julian sent me an advanced screening copy of his latest big budget sci fi film. Garrett invited me to tag along on his latest crisis intervention mission, which were usually always good for a laugh, but I wasn’t in the mood to laugh. Dominic sent me stock tips, which were his way of showing he cared.
But nothing helped.
Nothing, and no one, could.
Except maybe the recipient of the quarter million dollars.
“No,” I said aloud, realizing she’d been waiting for me to reply. “Thank you, but I have it covered.”
I updated her on the search so far. She flinched at the sum I’d sent into the shadows. “A quarter million, Landon? Was that wise?”
I realized that, despite sitting in my ten-million-dollar penthouse, my mother had no idea of my net worth. I spent a quarter million on Con’s bachelor party a few months ago. I’d spend ten times that to get Cami and Emma back. “I think it will pay off,” I said rather than try to make her see what she didn’t want to.
A faint smile tugged at her mouth. “You sound like your father.”
Her words landed like a blow. “I’m theoppositeof my father,” I spat before I could moderate my tone. “I’d empty out my bank account, sell off everything, to get my child back. He just walked away from his.”
She lifted her shoulders. “Maybe he just walked away. Maybe he didn’t.”
I stared at her. She stared back.
“He walked away,” I repeated slowly. “That’s what you always told me.”
Her brow wrinkled. “No, I didn’t. I said he left.”
“It’s the same thing. Walking away and leaving are the same thing.”
The English teacher in her came right out. “The denotations might be the same, but theconnotationis different. Walking away from something implies giving it up completely, for good. Leaving, on the other hand, is an action that has an opposite. I said he left, not that he wouldn’t return. I really thought he would.”
Amazement and incredulity spread through me as I stared at my mother. It had been thirty-five years, and she hadn’t once let on that she expected him to come back. That she was worried when she didn’t. She just put it all in a box and shoved it away. Just like Cami said I did.
“He loved you,” my mother added, her voice stiffening the way it always did when she was called on to show emotion. “You knew that.”
I shook my head slowly. “No, I didn’t.”
“Yes, you did,” she insisted. “Don’t you remember when he coached your little league team? You two were so close.”
“Until he walked away.”
“Left.”
I rose and walked to the kitchen. I needed a drink. “Explain it to me,” I said when I returned with two glasses – whiskey for me, red wine for her. “If he loved me so much, why didn’t he come back?”
“I assumed he met a bad end. You know your father. He was always chasing pots of gold. He never wanted to earn anything.” My mother sipped the expensive wine and wrinkled her nose. Replaced the glass on the table. “He’d always say, ‘I think it’ll pay off, Nancy. I really do.’ I don’t need to tell you that it never did.”
I was amazed by the breadth of things my mother hadn’t felt she needed to tell me. I knew if I said anything, her brow would crease, and she would say in a faintly annoyed tone, “I taught you critical thinking and how to infer so that I wouldn’t have to spoon feed you every little thing.”
“He loved me,” I repeated.
She nodded.
“He meant to come back.”
She nodded again, that faint line of annoyance forming between her eyebrows like I was a particularly slow student.
I stood up again. I wasn’t sure how I felt. Frustrated, irritated, and strangely, relieved. I hadn’t come from the kind of man who would abandon his family for no reason. My father had loved me. He’d meant to come back.
“But if he loved me so much, why did he leave in the first place?” I asked abruptly, thinking of Cami.
