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It wasn’t going to be a good one.
CHAPTER 29
Never Change
Remy
The next morning, the family sat for breakfast with his dad, but not his mom, Melly pulling out all the stops, (yes, even more fantastic than The House or her biscuits and gravy). But as they lingered over coffee and mimosas that were very easy on the OJ, Remy excused himself.
He did this to find his mother.
He didn’t have to go far.
After he set his dishes in the sink, he caught Melly coming in from outside.
She took one look at him and shared, “She’s in the garden.”
Remy nodded, gave her a grin he knew was weak, she returned the same, and he headed out.
He did this only to stop dead when he saw his mother sitting among the lush greenery, large urns tumbling with flora, elegant statuary dotted around, an understated fountain tinkling.
She had a peach pashmina wrapped around her shoulders over a honey-colored turtleneck, even though the temperature was already over seventy degrees. She was holding a delicate coffee cup by the saucer, fingers of her other hand to the curve of the handle of the cup, dipping her head to take a sip.
What froze him was not only the fact Colette had to be wrapped up like that, sitting in the sun in her garden, which was a likely indication of not only her being perpetually underweight, but of her illness.
It was also the fact that the last time he’d seen his grandmother, she was in that same position, in that same garden, but it was the afternoon, it was summer, even hotter, she was still wearing a shawl because of illness (and being underweight). And she was drinking sweet tea.
If memory served, she passed peacefully in her sleep within weeks of that visit.
But she was peaceful because she’d been drugged, seeing as she, too, had died of breast cancer.
Remy’s Grandma Lucette had adored him in a sticky sweet way that never failed to make him uncomfortable.
It also never failed to rile his mother to the point of consequences for Remy when she had the opportunity to mete them.
Considering the fact Lucette lived with them until Remy was four, this had not had a positive effect on Remy’s youngest years. Guillaume then moved her to an elegant bungalow five miles away, and it hadn’t gotten better, it was just brought on for different reasons.
Nevertheless, this conditioning left him with a confusing feeling of relief when his grandmother died when he was nineteen.
He understood now, as an adult, that Lucette’s fawning love had to be a smack in the face to Colette.
Having no love from her mother, watching him get it had to hurt.
What he didn’t understand was why she took her hurt and used it to make him feel the same.
There was all of this on his mind.
And there was more.
Including the fact that moment was the first time Remy had truly faced the fact his mother was dying.
While he and his family had been there, she’d been the worst version of herself. The one he knew but his family had just met. And even though he was aware of her condition, her behavior had masked it.
In that moment, he knew the woman in the garden was dying.
His mother was dying.
And he was not feeling relief, but what he was feeling was nevertheless confusing.
Colette didn’t turn her head to look at him when she took him out of his thoughts by calling, “Was it you or Sabre who broke my bird bath?”
Melly wouldn’t share, nor would his dad, so she probably found the glass sphere in the yard, or she’d been looking out the window when he’d done it.
Remy came unstuck and moved to her.
He didn’t answer until he’d folded himself onto the thick, pear-green pad of a heavy, black wrought iron chair at her side.
It was wide-seated and comfortable for him.
She looked almost childlike perched on hers, so thin, you could fit three of her on that seat.
“It was me,” he told her.
“I assume you’ll replace it,” she remarked.
He would have started the conversation by asking after the fact she was dressed like it was chilly, going on to inquire if she was feeling all right, ending with if she needed anything before he got to the meat of their discussion.
Regrettably, his mother had a knack for conversational introductions that were supremely aggravating.
“I’ve sent an email to Lisa, she’ll take care of it,” he assured.
After, with great care, resting her china cup and saucer on the table beside her, Colette finally turned her head to Remy.
“What would you do if Wyn cheated on you?” she demanded to know, a hint of belligerence in her tone.
So they weren’t going to ease into it.
Fine.
He’d roll with that.
“I wouldn’t attempt to break her jaw with a paperweight,” he returned.
She sniffed, looked away, and murmured, “Of course not. You’re a man. Men can’t get away with that kind of thing anymore.”
