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“Well hell,” he murmurs, his smile visible to me, even without me turning to look. “I wondered where you got that sharp tongue from.”
“He trapped her,” I exhale. “Which is usually how it goes. She didn’t want children yet, and she sure as hell didn’t want to trade her career for trophy wife status. But she got pregnant anyway and gave everything up. She was never bitter though,” I amend, before he can think she was. I cup her hand in mine and bring it closer so I can press a kiss to her knuckles. “She wasn’t much older than I am now. She was in her first year of medical school, having already completed pre-med.”
“Like you?” he asks. “You start med school soon, right?”
“In the fall,” I agree. “Yeah. She already knew what specialty she was going into. She was determined. And though she was willing to date and have her fun, too, she had a plan and fully intended to execute it.”
“She doesn’t regret having you, Aurora.” His voice is pain-filled and soft. Empathetic and kind enough to bring tears to my eyes. “No one could regret you.”
“No.” I bring our joined hands up and swipe beneath my eyes. “But she regrets meeting him. She regrets losing her plans to his, and later, having to give them all up because of him. But no,” I shake my head in certainty and roll my lips across her dry knuckles, “she doesn’t regret me. When it’s all said and done and she looks back on her life, I think she knows having me means more than having that career. It sucks she couldn’t have both,” I rasp. “She would have been an amazing surgeon.”
A knock at the door makes me jump in my seat and swing around to face Drake, who already has his gun in his hand and his back to me. “Who is it?” he demands, the authority rolling from his lips chilling me to my spine. “Name and badge number.”
“It’s Malone.” Archer skips reciting his badge number and opens the door anyway, poking his head through the gap and facing the barrel of Drake’s gun without a trace of fear in his expression. He looks to me for a beat, then back to Drake. “We’ve run a sweep of the building and have come up clear. No security breaches. Staff won’t change until eight, so I reckon we clear out by seven thirty.” He peers at me and softens his expression. “That’s two hours, Rory. It’s the best we can do.”
“Okay.” Swallowing, I nod and turn back to face my mother and savor every minute I get. Two hours isn’t a lot. And yet, it kind of is. It’s more than I’ve had in days and more than I took the last time I was here.
I hug her hand and bring it to my cheek, so she can hug me back, and while Drake and Detective Malone talk for a moment longer, I study the spots on Mom’s cheeks instead. They’re kisses from the sun that tell a story of life. Of a woman weeding her simple garden. Of a young lady who enjoyed picking daisies and spent most of her time in the yard on the phone with the daughter she selflessly gave everything up for.
Now I’m in medical school, too, though I’m not on the same track. In fact, I have no clue what specialty I’ll move towards once I get there. I have no desire to become a surgeon, but luckily, I feel no pressure to be anyone except who I want to be. I’m studying for me. Living for me. And every time I hand in a paper, and when I got my MCAT results back, I cherish the knowledge she’s proud of me.
She couldn’t afford school anymore after the divorce. She couldn’t afford to quit her job when she had a kid to feed and an ex who took pride in not supporting me except for the weekends I spent with him.
But I can do these things. I can achieve these goals for us both.
Drake closes the door with a snick and locks the rest of the world out of this room. Out of this memory I know, soon, I’ll think back on and wish I could revisit.
“What’s your favorite memory?” Like he can read my thoughts, not for the first time, Drake’s question draws my eyes up. But not away from my mother. “Throughout your childhood,” he adds. “What is something you think back on and smile about?”
“All of it.” I press a kiss to Mom’s palm and smile. “I don’t ever remember feeling unsafe when she was around. Or unloved. I don’t remember ever feeling judged.” But now I laugh and remember our most recent phone call. “Well, except for last night when she told me what she really thought of my ex-boyfriend.”
“Moms generally know,” he chuckles, confirming what I already knew: he was listening to my conversation. “But he was safe. And for the time being, safe was good.”
“He was such an ass,” I snicker. But then I scrunch my nose and feel a stab of disgust. “He was a lot like my father, I suppose. Proper. Perfect, on paper. He was a social climber who wanted something pretty on his arm.”
“Well…” Drake’s word comes out with a rasp that surprises me. “He got that.”
Glancing over my shoulder, I meet his gaze and frown. “You think so?”
“I know so.” His lips curl up, sending a shot of electricity to the bottom of my stomach, but his eyes soften, almost shyly. “It’s unprofessional of me to say so. But there it is anyway.”
“Why would you say something others would deem unprofessional?”
“Because I promised to be straight with you.” Pushing away from the door, he stuns me as he approaches, but instead of coming directly to me, he circles the bed and takes a seat in the other visitor’s chair. He cradles his weapon, refusing to put it away, but he sits back at ease and lifts one leg to rest it on the other. “So you don’t have to turn away from your mom,” he murmurs. “I’ll watch the door from here.”
He’s sweet. Thoughtful. He thinks of the small things most others take for granted, and while my mind is busy sprinting through everything happening this week, he’s mindful enough to ensure I maximize what little time I have left with the most important woman in my life.
“How old are you, Detective Banks?”
His chest bounces, the movement visible in my peripherals. “Old enough to know better. Young enough to make bad choices anyway.” When I glance up and study him from beneath my lashes, he smirks. “I’m thirty-seven-years-old.”
“Kinda young to beformerDEA, no? To have… allegedly,” I add with a smile, “worked a case inside Detective Malone’s family.”
“Detective Malone is thirty-two-years-old, Aurora.” He brings his free hand up and rolls his lip between his thumb and finger. “He was fifteen when I was inside his family’s mansion undercover.”
“So you were nineteen… in the DEA?”
“I was nineteen, with a father who holds a very prestigious and longstanding position inside the Drug Enforcement Agency. I was in the academy, and the DEA needed to send someone in. They probably had better agents. More experienced agents. But my father had recently done some big things in his career, busted some big players. He wanted to pull me in and continue the family business, I suppose, so they gave him what he wanted.”
