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She winced as she bumped into the sharp bench corner, but she didn’t stop shooting. “I’ve made them up to cover the truth I don’t want to face.”
“Georgie, really…”
“I can count.” She sidestepped the bench and pinned him with her lens. “I know that you only married her because she was pregnant with me. You did the honorable thing. And you hated every minute of it.”
“You’re overdramatizing.”
“Tell me the truth.” She’d started to perspire. “Just once, and then I won’t ever bring it up again. I’m not going to blame you. You could have run out on her, but you didn’t. You could have run out on me, and you didn’t do that, either.”
He sighed and stepped back up on the porch, as if this were a tedious meeting he needed to suffer through. “It wasn’t like that.”
She circled him, moving backward, putting herself between him and the steps, so he couldn’t get away. “I’ve seen the pictures of her. She was so pretty. I know she loved having a good time.”
“Georgie, put that camera down. I’ve told you that your mother loved you. I don’t know what more you—”
“You also told me she was a scatterbrain. But you were only trying to be diplomatic.” Her voice grew unsteady. “I don’t care if she was nothing more than a party girl. A one-night stand that backfired. I just—”
“That’s enough!” He thrust his finger toward the camera. A vein throbbed at his temple. “Turn that camera off right now.”
“She was my mother. I need to know. If she was just another bimbo, at least tell me that.”
“She wasn’t! Don’t you ever say that again.” He snatched the camera from her hands and flung it to the tiles, where it shattered. “You don’t understand anything!”
“Then tell me!”
“She was the love of my life!”
His words hung in the air.
A tremor passed through her. She locked her eyes with his. Anguish twisted his features. She felt dizzy, wobbly. “I don’t believe you.”
He pulled off his glasses and sagged onto the carved bench. “Your mother was…enchanted,” he said in a husky rasp. “Enchanting…Laughter came as naturally to her as breathing. She was smart—smarter than I could ever be—and she was funny. She refused to see the bad in anyone.” His hand shook as he set his glasses next to him. “She didn’t die in a car accident, Georgie. She saw a pregnant girl being slapped around by her boyfriend and tried to help her. He shot your mother in the head.”
“No,” she said in a soft whimper.
He rested his elbows on his knees and hung his head. “The pain I felt when I lost her was more than I could handle. You didn’t understand where she’d gone, and you cried all the time. I couldn’t comfort you. I could barely find the energy to feed you. She loved you so much, and she would have hated that.” He rubbed his face in his palms. “I stopped going to auditions. It wasn’t possible. Acting takes an openness I didn’t have anymore.” His fingers tunneled into his hair. “I couldn’t live through that kind of pain again. I promised myself I’d never love another person the way I loved her.”
Her chest constricted, ached. “And you kept that promise,” she whispered.
He looked up at her, and she saw tears brimming in his eyes. “No, I didn’t. I didn’t keep it, and look where it’s taken us.”
It took her a moment to understand. “Me? You love me like that?”
He gave a rueful laugh. “Shocking, isn’t it?”
“I…It’s hard to believe.”
He dipped his head and nudged the broken camera aside with his shoe. “I guess I’m a better actor than I thought.”
“But…why? You’ve been so cold. So…”
“Because I had to plow on,” he said fiercely. “For us. I couldn’t fall apart again.”
“All these years? She died so long ago.”
“Detachment got to be a habit. A safe place to exist.” He rose from the bench. For the first time in her memory, he looked older than his years. “Sometimes you’re so much like her. Your laughter. Your kindness. But you’re more practical than she was, and not as naïve.”
“Like you.”
