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“Anyone can see Chloe and Royce seem made for each other. They are very happy. Chloe is so far removed from your mother it’s not even funny by the sounds of it. Though she is pretty sarcastic and funny.”
“She’s perfect for Royce. They are great together.”
“So if she’s only met Chloe once, has she met her granddaughter?”
“No,” she said. “My mother lives ninety minutes away now. Royce and Chloe both send pictures of Willow because they are trying to at least not get shit on. My mother barely replies to those texts and hasn’t made the drive once even though she doesn’t work. No reason she couldn’t have come in the three months that Chloe was home.”
“She’s going back to work on Monday, right?”
He thought he heard that somewhere. He knew Drake had been doing a lot of the work with another engineer, but most of the plans had been done for the first building anyway and just waiting on the construction from Kennedy at this point.
Even though he wasn’t doing the work on that building now, as a part owner, he was informed in weekly reports by Fierce Engineering. He read everything.
“She is. My mother decides to call me, not Royce, but me. Because you know, she has the best timing ever. She wants me to go to dinner next Sunday at her house. By now she knows I won’t go alone. I get along with Steve but even he can’t be enough of a go-between for my mother and me.”
“Steve?” he asked.
“My mother’s husband. They’ve been married for a while. Steve was a widow. Some corporate job and money. What my mother wanted. He’s got two kids and they were in high school or college at the time my mother married. Not sure I remember. I’ve met them, but my mother never wanted to blend the families.”
“Why?” he asked.
“Who knows? I’m sure she is a different person with them and didn’t want us filling their heads with what she is really like.”
“You’d think the fact she has no relationship with her own kids would say it all,” he said. He knew he’d question that.
“Royce and I joked that two Christmases ago she had us there for brunch before dinner with Steve’s family so she could get all her snarkiness out with us and be on her best behavior with Steve’s kids. My mother started in the minute we got there and commented that Royce and I were in jeans and should have dressed up. Steve was quick to point out things have changed. That most don’t even dress up for work anymore.”
“Good for him.”
“I think Steve is a wuss, but it works for them. I’m pretty sure Steve’s kids can’t stand my mother, but they love their father. I can respect that.”
“You’d suck up things for your father,” he pointed out.
“I would. I’d be honest, but if he was in love and happy and had to live with someone, then I’d keep my mouth shut as long as he wasn’t shit on again.”
“Something tells me your father wouldn’t let it happen again and he wouldn’t be happy if his kids weren’t happy.”
“Thank you for that,” she said. “I think that, but it’s a guilt I’ve got on why he hasn’t tried again.”
“Maybe he is happy the way he is?”
“He says he is and I haven’t seen anything to say otherwise. But back to my mother, Royce always stood up for me too. My mother kind of wiped her hands of him and my father.”
“She turned it all on you?” he asked, frowning.
“Yes. Royce can tolerate it because she just doesn’t bother him as much. Lucky him. But for some reason, she can’t wipe me away. So she called me to get Royce to go. She started in again like always. The remarks about me being single and I’m always going to be that way and why and everything wrong with me.”
“What’s wrong with you?” he asked.
“The same things that have always been.” She waved her hand and went back to her pizza. When she was done chewing she said, “We got into a fight again. I told her that she brings the worst out of people. She said it must be like looking in the mirror.”
“Ouch,” he said. He couldn’t dispute that. She’d done it to him.
“Not what I wanted to hear. I hung up after that and screamed. I didn’t know Royce was still in the building and he came in to see what was going on. He figured it was our mother. I told him what happened. He just shook his head over the whole dinner thing. There is no way they could do it with Chloe back to work the week before and trying to get into a routine. Again, it’s like my mother did that on purpose and then she’ll say she offered and they didn’t come. That she tried and was rejected.”
“I don’t think Royce cares,” he said.
“He doesn’t. But back to last night and us. I was in a mood. She sets me off. I reacted. I needed to just have a release. I’m sick of not being enough for anyone.”
