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I can’t talk, I thought. I started blinking as fast as I could to try to shake myself from whatever happened. Patrick stood slowly from behind his desk. Rounded it. Moved behind me. He closed the door as I slumped forward.
And that’s when everything changed.
ChapterNineteen
THECARCAMEto a squealing stop in front of the garage. I stormed in through the side door and the silence of the morning hit me like an unseen force. My roiling anger simmered, tempered by a quietude that seemed to suggest I should bite my tongue. As if the ground upon which I stood was sacred.
I stomped down the hallway in complete ignorance of the insistent nagging at the back of my mind to take it easy. If my mother was still asleep, I would wake her. I couldn’t sit around and wait.
The door to the primary suite swung open by my insistent shove with the toe of my shoe. My eyes took in a brief tableau of Cordelia Clarke sitting up in bed. A laptop sat perched on her lap while her two index fingers pounded at the keyboard as if each button needed extra pressure. Soft lighting from her Tiffany lamp illuminated her frail figure. She wore a lavender head wrap and an ivory-white nightgown. She looked up from her laptop and over the rim of her readers.
“Darling. I thought you wouldn’t be home until later,” she said. Her voice croaked as if this were the first time she spoke today. Her brow dimmed. “Something is wrong. What is it?”
“Ma, I need to know the truth.”
She regarded me for a long moment as I closed the door behind me. Slowly, she shut the lid to her laptop. “I can see something is on your mind. Why don’t you sit?”
“No,” I snapped out and paced the room.
“Connor, I will not speak to you when you are so very clearly agitated—”
“You never told Walt,” I interrupted. I watched her. She showed genuine confusion. “Twelve years ago. When I was in the infirmary from the frag grenade. We talked on the emergency line when I woke up.”
Her eyes narrowed a fraction. “Yes. I remember.”
I stopped pacing. Put my arms akimbo. “I was rolling on pain meds but I still remember the conversation. I told you that you needed to tell Walt Dubois about me.”
She shook her head a fraction. “Darling, I don’t recall…”
“Because he needed to tell his son, Bennett, Ma. I wasn’t allowed to call Bennett or even use a damned computer andyouwere my only connection to the outside world. Remember? ‘Ma, please tell Mr. Dubois. Tell Walt.’ Remember?” The last word came out more like a pathetic plea for supplication.
I saw the shift in her energy, as if I had a supernatural ability to see auras, and hers went from pretty purple to deep red. She made a noise with her lips and removed the laptop setup, setting it down gently beside her.
“I do recall this, yes.”
My arms went wide. “And? Did you, Ma? Did you tell Walt?”
She winced. “Do not raise your voice with me, young man.”
I took a single step toward the bed. Her head went back. “Stop avoiding the answer. I deserve to know.”
Her lips pursed. Oh, she could summon the full effect of Cordelia Clarke all she wanted. It never meant anything to me, anyway.
“I didn’t find it pertinent to share your condition with Walt Dubois,” she said. Each word hit me like a punch.
Pertinent.
Condition!
I breathed hard, but my lungs still felt robbed of air. My vision tunneled, and I wobbled back a step.She never told him. Bennett never knew.
I had carried heartache for twelve years under the assumption that Bennett discarded me. Yes, my conversation with him that morning had alleviated the realization that tore through my soul. My mother confirming the truth widened that fault line.
A chasm of “if only” brimmed with endless ways in which I could have changed my future. I knew instantly that I would throw away all of Hollywood, all my awards, all the nods, all the money, for a second chance at answering that call from Bennett, or convincing my mother to tell Walt.
But what was done was done. I did not exist in that reality. I existed in the one where Bennett and I became estranged. Where we spent a dozen lonely years apart, only to come together with hesitant steps and open hearts but so, so scared.
But wedid fall in love again, I reminded myself.You found each other.
