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“She would’ve been smart about it, but I know it was her. She hates me.”
“Why does she hate you?”
“I can only assume it’s related to certain… failures, you might call them… as a mother to my son.”
“Is that why you’re on the outs with him?”
“I suppose so. Look, I was sixteen when I got pregnant with him. So I wasn’t mother of the year. He had everything he needed.”
“And since he’s been an adult? Have you tried to mend fences with him?”
“I’ve tried, but he’s not receptive.”
“In what way have you tried?”
She began to squirm under his penetrating gaze. She couldn’t talk to him about these things and hope that he’d still find her appealing.
“Do you have kids?”
“Three.”
“Are you close to them?”
“They’re my best friends.”
Great. So how could he possibly understand her situation with Nick? “Where’s their mother?”
“She died of cancer fifteen years ago.”
“Oh. I’m sorry.”
“Thank you. It was a very difficult loss for all of us, but it’s made me closer to my kids than I already was.”
“You’re lucky. It doesn’t always happen that way.”
“No, it doesn’t.”
“Look, I’ve made some mistakes in my life. A lot of mistakes. I don’t deny that. I tried to be a good mother to my son, but what did I know about motherhood? My own mother was in and out of psychiatric hospitals the whole time I was growing up.”
That wasn’t entirely true, but he didn’t need to know that. Her mother had had one breakdown after her father left them, but she was never the same afterward. That was the first time Nicoletta had seen what men were capable of, and it was why she’d never allowed herself to love one of them so much that she’d be destroyed if he left.
It was easier not to care. The philosophy applied to her son, too. If she didn’t care, she couldn’t be hurt.
Collins seemed to listen carefully to everything she said. If he was judging her, she couldn’t tell. “I think you should consider pleading out the charges, paying the fines, doing your community service and starting over with a clean slate.”
“Is there any other way for the state to get the info it wants without me handing it over to them?”
He thought about that for a second. “Where’s it kept?”
“My business records are in a safe-deposit box at the bank.”
“There may be a way to steer them in that direction without your obvious involvement. Let me see what I can do. In the meantime, I want you to think about how you might repair your relationship with your son.”
She looked at him with pure shock. “Why?”
“Because you’re missing out on one of the best things in life.”
“Why do you care?”
