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“That’s why I’m here, Hayes,” she stated. “Imagine my surprise when he informed me he’d gone home. I’m here to tell you that you were wrong to let him walk away.”
I crossed my arms and got off the barstool, walking toward the sink where I bent over it and stared out the window. “You had no right, Momma. You don’t know what happened between us.”
“Well, I know this,” she began. “He told me he wasn’t in Charleston any longer and that he had to decline my invitation. He thanked me and apologized. Boregard is very respectful and kind in my opinion.”
I wanted to turn around and confront her but I also didn’t want to lose the last shred of dignity I was struggling to hold onto. “So? What am I supposed to do with that information, Momma? Bo left without telling me over two weeks ago. Where the hell were you when I needed you then?” I asked, pounding my fist on the edge of the sink.
“You will not speak to me like that, Hayes. I am your mother and I am here now, so let’s figure out what you’re going to do about him, son.”
I turned around and burst into tears. “There is nothing to do, Momma,” I sobbed. “I drove him away. He was the only man who actually saw me as a real person and I pushed him away. He wanted nothing from me and I ruined my chances by being the scared person I am.”
Momma came to me and lifted my face in her hands, moving strands of hair from my forehead. “What are you so afraid of, honey?”
I hoped she had a pen and a stack of paper. There were a million things I was afraid of. “Where do I start?” I laughed through tears.
“Start with one,” she encouraged. “How about you start there and see what we come up with?”
“I can’t even run my businesses, Momma. I’m so out of my depth. There’s too much responsibility,” I confessed.
“What if you hired a team? What if I talk to my daddy and get some referrals. He doesn’t have your type of money, but wealth is wealth. How about we start there?” she asked gently.
I smiled through my tears. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, Momma, but there is too much money to truly understand what I’m doing with it all,” I acknowledged. “I’m in over my head with my limited education in business management, and truthfully, I was too dependent on Daddy and his team of advisors.”
She rubbed my shoulders while still listening intently. “How about you go back to school, honey, and learn how to efficiently handle this kind of wealth? Or you could learn from the people you hire to lead your different teams. You’re just twenty-six, son. Give yourself a break,” she encouraged. “You’re smart, Hayes. You can become a titan of industry if you set your mind to learning.”
The idea of being a titan of anything sounded offensive. “I don’t want to be like Daddy,” I stated. “He wants a son like Phillip, not me.”
“Your father loves you, Hayes, but I hear you. You are not like your father, so don’t fear that, honey. He’s just angry because his daddy saw fit to pass his inheritance over to you. It wasn’t anything you did.”
“He wants more money from me too,” I said. “I feel guilty, Momma, and the decision not to loan him more money is killing me inside. I feel like a bad son.”
“I wish I had good advice about you helping your daddy, but if you don’t feel good about it, don’t give him the money,” she advised. “He’ll still be your father at the end of the day and I will always be your mother,” she said, touching my face and smiling. “See? Look at us, honey. You and I are making progress. What else have you got?”
What else I had was the one fear I’d had my entire adult life. I wasn’t sure what it was rooted in, but it haunted me for as long as I could remember. I often thought the fear was what kept me with Phillip. I bit my lower lip. “Honestly, Momma, I’m afraid I’ll end up alone,” I admitted. “Phillip is gone after ten years, and Bo doesn’t want me anymore. Maybe I should just forgive Phillip and go back to what I know.”
“Forgive him for what?” she asked.
“He cheated, Momma. That’s why I was so upset and anxious enough to try to get to shore in that dinghy. I was running away from Phillip. I thought I told you that.”
“I thought you met Boregard and left Phillip for him,” she said. “Now I’m confused.”
“I didn’t even know who I was when I met Bo, Momma,” I declared. “I fell in love with him without knowing a damn thing about who I was. Bo spent five weeks falling in love with a man who had a clean slate and one he knew nothing about. I could have been anyone and he still took the risk.”
“And then you brought him here,” she stated, realizing how he must have been over his head. “With all your money? With what our family represents?” she whispered, pausing and then putting two and two together. “And then my garden party with my awful friends insulting him, and your obsession with running businesses you inherited and feel guilty about owning,” she added. She held my gaze. “Did you forget the person he fell in love with, honey?”
“Worse, Momma. I forgot about him.”
“You have to fix this, Hayes.”
“I don’t think I can, Momma. I’m not good for Bo. Even he figured that out.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE: Bo
The walk from the docks into Beaufort was quiet at half past seven in the morning. Main Street was deserted this early. The café was beginning to fill with local old geezers who solved the world’s issues over their unlimited coffee refills. I had an issue I wished they could solve but doubted southern gentlemen in their sixties and seventies had much to offer to a young gay man and his love problems.
I needed my truck that was stored behind Lucas’s gas station but the storage lot was locked so I waited patiently at the park across the street for him or one of his employees to show up. My plan was to expand my lobster business by adding several new pots to my setup that I planned to purchase from a neighboring town’s marine supplier and needed my truck to haul them. If I could double my weekly income I’d be able to purchase a larger boat sooner without using the money memaw had left me. I hadn’t felt good about spending her hard earned money when I discovered she’d left it to me, and I still didn’t. A bigger and safer vessel would allow me to travel further out onto the Atlantic and then I could add deep sea fishing to my business plan.
Three weeks had passed since I’d seen or spoken to Hayes so I figured he’d moved on and I needed to follow his lead by getting on with my life too. The best way to do that was to focus on my job and expand my income. Additional revenue would also help me continue doing improvements on my shack. I imagined that after enough improvements, I’d have to eventually stop calling it a shack.
