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“Water is good,” she said.
He got up and she followed him to the kitchen. “I don’t have a problem with Steve’s kids, but they don’t care for my mother by the sounds of it. I don’t blame them. I don’t get along with her either.”
“Can I ask why?”
He grabbed her water while she got comfortable at the island, so he got one for himself. “Well, yesterday she took her mood out on Elise and me and I told Steve I was sure it was so she could get it out of her system for having to be nice to his kids when they showed up.”
“That’s horrible,” she said.
“The truth often is,” he said.
“What did Steve say?”
“Nothing, like always. He just nodded and continued to show me the blueprints of the addition they were putting on his house. I say his house because it’s the one he had with his wife and kids before my mother. He won’t leave it and it seems to me the only way to get her to stay is if he does these changes for her.”
“His life,” she said.
“Exactly. My mother left my father. She liked the money from the business but not the work or time it took to get that money. She wanted to be waited on and adored and didn’t get that.”
Chloe cringed. “I can’t profess to know what it’d be like to want someone to do that to me. I just want to be left alone half the time.”
He’d store that away in the back of his mind for now. It wasn’t a bad thing when he didn’t have much time to give her anyway.
“When my mother decided that she wasn’t going to get what she wanted and deserved to be happy in life, she left. She wanted Elise to go with her and my sister fought back. She was closer to my father and refused to leave him.”
“Wanted Elise and not you?” she asked.
“I’m too much like my father and I wouldn’t go. I didn’t like the way she talked to him and treated him. It wasn’t much different than she did to me.” He didn’t think going into this that he’d say as much as he was but might as well tell her so she got the bigger picture. “My mother didn’t like the work that my father did. That he came home dirty and sweaty and in her eyes smelled on hot days.”
“Of course he did,” she said. “It’s hard work. She knew what he did for a living when she met him, right?”
“She did,” he said. “I’m not sure if she thought she could change him. Or as the business grew that he’d step back. I don’t profess to know what went through her head and wouldn’t want to get lost in the maze either.”
She laughed. “I can understand that statement too.”
“Elise was a tomboy. She enjoyed being with my father and having the freedom to be herself. My father didn’t stick her in a mold like my mother was trying to do to everyone. My mother only wanted Elise with her because she knew it’d look bad if a daughter chose to stay with their father. Not many would think anything of me staying. I was with my father all the time and knew after college I’d come back to the business. That it’d be mine someday. Elise wanted her part too and my father was thrilled. My mother not so much.”
“Crazy how she only wanted Elise with her for how it looked and not for love.”
“That’s right,” he said. “And we knew it. My mother has never let Elise forget it. Things have just gotten worse over the years. Which brings me back to yesterday. There was more than one sarcastic shot at Elise and she was drinking mimosas the minute we walked in the door.”
Chloe started to laugh. “I can’t see you drinking that.”
“No. I wouldn’t and didn’t. I had a beer the minute we were back with my father. So did Elise. When my mother wasn’t on Elise’s case she was on my back about being single and just like my father would always be that way. Putting the business first wasn’t smart and I should see how it turned out.”
“Ahh, so that is why you decided to give me a call. You know you don’t have the time and I’m fine with it. Might as well not be so lonely then?”
She was grinning when she said it, but he didn’t like to hear those words. “That makes it sound horrible,” he said.
“It’s fine. I know going in. That’s why we are talking. I’m not going to change you or ask you for things you don’t want to give.”
“Thanks,” he said. “When push comes to shove, the business will come to me. My father’s heart attack a few years ago set him back and made him step back.”
“Which meant you had to step up?” she asked.
“Yes. Elise too. She does all the business office-type things. I’m out on the sites. We just keep growing and though I’ve got a lot of good guys it seems I’m always down men or looking for them too. My father does that or a good part of it. He fills in on the sites when I need it or talks to clients. He does more of the admin work on the construction side and that is fine.”
“It frees it up from you,” she said.
