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“Neither do I, and I was there to see it.” Jason knocked back his whisky, coughing as it burned his throat. “I feel like someone’s rammed into me with a semi-truck.”
“What are you going to do?”
“What can I do, Mom? This is a scandal that I can’t afford right now. If this becomes public…”
Jason didn’t get any further before Sarah slapped him. His cheek stung and pain flashed in the side of his face. Ears ringing, he stared at his mother in confusion.
“What was that for?”
“Don’t you dare say that again about someone!” Sarah jabbed a finger at him. “Never ever call Elena a scandal again. She doesn’t deserve to be treated like that.”
“I…” Jason touched his cheek. He had been slapped before, but never by his own mother. “I don’t know how else to describe it.”
“A mess, I can agree with. But a scandal? What century are we in, Jason? And having an affair with someone with a questionable link to you?” Sarah shook her head. “That’s stupid, but it’s not scandalous. So, I ask again: what are you going to do about this? Are you actually going to run away from it all?”
“What am I supposed to do? I’ve never been in this position before.”
“Well, you’d better find out. Remember I said that I saw Elena getting into a car? I think she’s leaving Wenstown.”
Jason thought he heard that incorrectly. Elena was leaving?
“Are you sure?”
“Carl wouldn’t say anything, just that Elena was going to clear her head. And I saw the suitcase on the back seat. They left while I was there.” Sarah folded her arms. “If you’ve done something to make her leave, you’d better make this right and get her back. Because I don’t think she’ll return unless you get down on your hands and knees.”
Jason swallowed. The thought of Elena leaving left him with a hollow feeling in his chest. “She…she won’t come back no matter how much I beg, Mom. She’s a stubborn woman once she’s made up her mind.”
“And if you did something to make her leave, you’d better turn that around,” Sarah insisted. “She’s carrying your children, after all. Don’t you care about her?”
“Of course I care about her!”
“Do you really? Because you should be running after her now, groveling at her feet. And I don’t see any running.”
Jason’s mind was racing. Elena was leaving? Surely, that couldn’t be happening. Heading over to the couch, he found his cellphone stuck between the cushions, and switched it on. Almost immediately it lit up with missed calls and text messages. From a cursory glance, quite a few of them were from Elena, and several from Carl.
Jason didn’t want to look at those. They were going to make him feel worse. He dialed Elena’s number, walking out onto the back porch and closing the door as it rang. Whatever they had to talk about, Jason didn’t want Sarah listening in.
Elena answered just as he thought he was going to go to voicemail.
“Yeah?”
“Elena? Where are you?”
“Why?”
“Because Mom said she saw you leaving by car. What’s going on?”
For a moment, Jason thought she had hung up. Then Elena let out a heavy sigh. She sounded resigned.
“I’m going to stay with Fleur in California. She lives near a good hospital.”
“But we have a good clinic here. And it’s not far from Lincoln.”
“That’s not the point, Jason. I need to get away from you.”
That felt like a punch to his gut. Jason’s chest tightened.
“Away from me?”
