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“Why?”
“A boy will make you think of Owen. I also worry I might see too much of myself in a son. You and I are fucked up in ways that won’t go away. We should own that.”
Stroking his jaw, I ask, “If we have a girl, do you want to name her after your mom?”
Eagle shakes his head. “I don’t want my daughter to be another Jillian. She should be her own thing. Wait, would you want to use the name you had planned for your daughter?”
“I already think of the baby I lost as Inessa. I wouldn’t feel right calling the new girl the same thing.”
“It’d be like you were erasing the other kid.”
“Exactly,” I say and snuggle closer. “You get it.”
“I don’t think you’re a coward, Irina. I see you as complicated.”
“That does sound better.”
“I knew you were special as soon as we met,” Eagle says, sounding sad. “My club brothers fell for their women fast, too. I’m glad we’re already at this point.”
“Why do you seem upset?”
“I don’t get why I found someone good, and my mom ended up with the asshole. Was Asshole Lloyd her true love? If so, what does that say about her?”
“Well, maybe your mom never met her true love because she got stuck with a terrible man instead,” I suggest and close my eyes as his heartbeat lulls my edginess. “I would probably still be with Steve if not for the accident. I kept hoping he would say he met someone else and was leaving. I wanted him to make the choice, so I wouldn’t need to be the bad guy.”
“My mom said she married the asshole because she needed to give me a better life. Except I ended up in the basement. She also had my sisters. Maybe she was happy, and I couldn’t see it.”
“What good is there in thinking like that?” I ask and kiss him. “Your mom was a kid when she had you. Lloyd gave you two a home. That probably felt like a solid trade. Then, she had more kids. She might have planned to leave him, but things got in the way.”
“I don’t know.”
“When I married Steve, I felt like I was standing in wet cement. As if I were only a little stuck but could still break free. Then, one day, I woke up and realized the cement had dried and I wasn’t going anywhere. That’s why I needed him to leave me. Then, people would help me start over. If I left him first, my family would have put me out on the street to force me back to my husband. Divorced women were only acceptable if they were abandoned.”
“We both came from families with stupid rules.”
Nodding, I see him picking at the past in an unhealthy way.
“And your mom was living by those stupid rules. She might have hated Lloyd but couldn’t break free. Maybe she planned to leave him when her daughters got older. That’s something I told myself. That when the kids were older, I’d get a job, and we could leave. I had plans, even if none of them panned out.”
“So, I should believe in a fairy-tale version of my mom?”
“Why not?”
“What if it’s holding me back?”
“Eagle, your mom’s gone. You can’t sit down and hash these things out. She can’t apologize and explain. You’ll never find closure,” I whisper before shuddering under the weight of my own guilt. “I used to wish I could tell Owen how much I loved him. I worried he didn’t know. Like he believed my unhappiness was because of him. But even if he was suddenly in front of me, he was just a little boy. He couldn’t absolve me of my guilt.”
“He looks happy in the pictures,” Eagle says as he swipes from one to another. “You take such good care of Fiona. I can’t imagine you didn’t do the same with your son.”
Nodding, I feel tired after worrying for so long. “I know in my head how I treated him well. The only time I was happy was when it was just Owen and me. We’d play in the mornings in our tiny yard, and I’d feel like the world wasn’t ending. Sometimes, Steve worked late, and I’d watch a kids’ movie with Owen in my lap. We’d feel so peaceful. Remembering our good times doesn’t make me feel less guilty. So, I chose to put those feelings aside. You need to do that with your questions about Jillian and Lloyd. Just believe she endured him to give you a home and security. Then, once she realized Lloyd would never accept you, she was already trapped.”
As Eagle considers my words, I watch his emotions shift from uncertainty to raw pain to a sad acceptance.
“When it was just me and her, I knew she loved me,” he says in barely more than a whisper as his mind replays old memories. “That’s why I don’t like dealing with my sisters. When they’re around, I think about how my mom spent all that time with them and I got nothing. I start doubting my memories of her. I get worried I’m believing a lie.”
“I’ll help you deal with them. Play go-between so you can focus on the niece and nephews you like. You won’t face your sisters alone.”
“Seems unfair to you.”
