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“That particular one?”
“You don’t go from taking all your perceived woes out on your child to being a functional parent. She found a different way to take her shit out on me, and I became her recalcitrant son. I didn’t listen. I had no respect for my mother. I wasn’t polite. I didn’t love her, or I didn’t love her enough. It was relentless. And that was almost worse. Sometimes, I wished she’d go back to hitting me, because it seemed I could never do anything right. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t make her happy. I couldn’t settle her down. I couldn’t be what she needed me to be to make her normal, to make her love me.”
Wyn was now pale, her gaze wounded.
But she wanted this, said she needed it, and Remy was done with it. He wanted it over, he wanted them to move on from it, so he had to give it to her.
All of it.
Thus, Remy didn’t stop.
“After I got older, after it sunk in he wasn’t going to come to my rescue, and the end was in sight because I was in high school, I could drive and I had things out of the house I could do to escape her, friends I could be with who made me feel normal and made me realize I was, but she wasn’t, it became a self-fulfilling prophecy for her. I didn’t listen. I had no respect for her. And to her, I was not polite. I put up with her because she was my mother, but I didn’t like her all that much and I wasn’t shy about behaving like I didn’t.”
“But, do you like to play piano?”
For fuck’s sake.
“I love to play,” he replied. “I love that my kids play. I love that my sons are better than me. I love music. And I love that my wife thinks it hot that, even if I like all kinds of music, if given a choice, I don’t turn on rock, I listen to classical.”
“Okay,” she said quietly.
“I’m not an idiot, Wyn.”
Her back went up on that one.
Visibly.
“I never said you were,” she retorted, and there was a snap to it.
Finally.
“I had friends,” he carried on. “They had parents. And absolutely, I worked my ass off to try to earn her love, then try to make her version of love stop and shift to one that didn’t hurt. I did the same to try to figure out the son my father needed so I could be that so he wouldn’t go away. But I saw how my friends were. How their parents were. I realized eventually that what I had was not that. Even if I didn’t understand it wasn’t healthy, I did understand it wasn’t normal and I came to understand it wasn’t about me. Obviously, with what happened with us, it dug deeper than I thought. But theoretically, I got it.”
“Right.”
“So I’m not fucking fragile. I get it. I got it a long time ago.”
“Right.”
That was not convincing.
He understood why.
“The way I blew us up was not conscious, Wyn,” he bit out. “If I knew what I was doing, I never would have fucking done it.”
“So you’re over it…but you’re not over it?”
“You never get over it.”
“Remy, you’ve got to understand I’m not in a place where I’ll ever understand,” she said carefully.
He loved that for her.
But they had to get past this.
“Do you know the man you married?” he asked.
“No.”
Okay.
Yeah.
Nope.
Not pissed anymore.
Furious.
“Are you shitting me?” he asked.
That was when she stood because that was when she lost it.
“Remy! I just found out you were significantly abused in every manner that could be three days ago. And I’ve been with you a quarter of a century.”
“Yes, and it was my choice not to tell you,” he replied.
“It was mine to have.”
Was she serious?
He shook his head. “Oh no it was not, baby.”
She asked his question. “Are you serious?”
“It’s mine to give, and only mine to give. And I have to say, I’m not feeling it I was forced to give it. Especially right now.”
“Forced?” she whispered.
“That’s not on you,” he assured. “That’s on Mom.”
“You cannot know that you’re not making a lick of sense, but trust me, you are not making a lick of sense.”
With strained patience, he explained, “If her shit didn’t cause me to do something I shouldn’t have, and I didn’t find out the woman was dying in the middle of reuniting with you, you never would have known.”
“I never would have known,” she breathed.
Again, wounded.
“Wyn, I told you I hated that I had to tell you when I was telling you.”
“Two,” she bit off.
“What?” he asked.
“Two. I slept with two men after you.”
Remy stood completely still.
“Is that not yours to know, Remy?” she asked. “It’s mine, I didn’t really want it, but it’s mine. I also didn’t want to tell you. However, you wanted to know, so I told you. Is that the same thing?”
