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“Hale’s not going to say it because it’ll make him sound like a selfish brat. So I’ll say it. A kid doesn’tneedbirthday cake for his birthday. He also doesn’tneedhis mom to take him to his favorite restaurant or make his favorite meal for his birthday. What heneedsis his mom to know what will make the day special, and then she bends over backward to do that as best as she possibly can.”
She grimaced her understanding of what Elsa said, and then her expression turned pleading when she shifted her attention to Hale.
“I loved your dad like Genny loved Duncan. And after Corey broke them up, like Genny loved Tom. And all that time, Corey loved Genny.”
“I don’t think you get that what you have with me has nothing to do with that, Mom.Nothing, Hale retorted. “I shouldn’t be made to pay for my father’s mistakes. That’s fucked up. But that’s what I felt has been happening all my life. You hated him, and you didn’t like me all that much because I was his.”
“And that’s what made you pull away and made me think you hated me,” she deduced.
“Well, yeah, Mom,” he stated the obvious.
“It made me feel unlovable, him picking Genny over me. Divorcing me, but she was always a part of his life. It destroyed my confidence.”
“So as a power play, you made everything about you,” Hale surmised.
Again with the reaching of a hand across the table toward him. “I didn’t know I was doing it.”
“I want to believe that, but you’re a grown woman. You can’t possibly think, when your son’s father just blew his brains out, your first response should be to reach out to a gossip show to talk trash about him and expose his secrets.”
She ducked her head, giving the side eye to Elsa.
“If you give her shit about doing her job again…” Hale let his threat trail.
“How did you two get together anyway?” Sam asked.
“You see, I’d tell my mom that. What I don’t think you’re comprehending is that I don’t feel safe telling my mother that,” Hale replied.
Her shoulders shot straight.
“Okay, Hale, bottom line, I want a relationship with you. That’s what I want. I want to know about the woman in your life. I want to know if you’re in LA or New York or Barcelona or wherever you might be. I want to sit down to a lunch with you where there’s no hostility, I’m not forced on my back foot or to put up a defense or to explain my behavior. I don’t want to feel like I have to compete with Genny for mother of the year every time I’m with you. I don’t want to hear how great Tom is, or how Chloe is setting the fashion world on fire or Matt’s saving lives or Sasha is excelling at whatever Sasha flits to next. I can’t compete with The Perfect Family. I am who I am, that’s all I can be. I want my son to be a son who cares about his mother. That’s what I want.”
“And I need my mother to understand that’s my family,” he fired back. “You hate my father, but he gave them to me and they’re not in a competition with you. With them, it isn’t effort. There’s no hard work required. They love and they care, and they do it naturally. There’s no shame if you don’t find motherhood natural. But you can’t sit here and tell me to excise crucial parts of my life when I’m with you. That would be like me marrying Elsa, you not liking her, and you refusing to have anything to do with her, but expecting me to be a part of your life. You and Dad married young. Now I’m wondering if you got stuck back there. Because, serious as fuck, I know this is going to sound like an insult, but I’m just saying it as I see it, and it seems like you never grew up. Now, I’m grown, and you want me to be the adult for both of us, and I gotta say, Mom, I don’t have the energy. I’m not going to pretend people I love aren’t part of my life. And I cannot fucking believe you’d ask me to do that when we’re trying to figure out if we can have a healthy, supportive relationship.”
“Right, so you missed the accept me for who I am part,” she bit out.
“No, I didn’t,” he returned. “What I don’t accept is that we are simply who we are. I don’t care how old you get. Shit can happen, and it can wound you, it can disable you, but still, you can learn and heal and do better. I have a friend who lost both his legs, and he runs trails. You don’t have to be number one mom. You just have to do better.”
“And will you do better?” she shot back.
He rolled his hand at her in a sock-it-to-me gesture. “Tell me, as your son, what can I do better?”
His mother glared at him.
Elsa snorted.
His mother glared at Elsa.
“Well, heispretty damned perfect,” Elsa said. “It’s incredibly annoying. Especially when you’re arguing and he’s always right. I think you feel me on this.”
Sam kept up the glare, but Hale felt it in his heart when her face cracked.
“It’s exasperating,” she muttered.
“So maybe how he can do better is to fall down on something every once in a while,” Elsa suggested. “Throw us a bone. We had this big blowup recently, and he even apologized perfectly. I forgave him in about ten seconds. And he’d been a serious asshole. But look at me now.” She threw her hand in front of her to indicate her sitting right there next to Hale. “By the way, that was yesterday, and I dropped everything to be here with him now.”
“I’m not perfect,” he stated.
“Oh my God, Hale,” Elsa moaned. “You’re gorgeous and you dress great and you’re thoughtful and you cook amazing food, and you don’t forget to tell your woman she looks beautiful before you go out to an event, and you want to save the world and twist yourself into knots to do it. It gives a girl a complex.”
