She didn’t even wake when Mickey showed up to borrow my truck. He and I had a full conversation, and not once did she stir. After he left, I pulled her in closer and just enjoyed my time being able to hold her. If even for one night I could offer her peace, I was willing to do whatever it took. I would gladly be her escape, but I wasn’t sure I could be that guy who sat back allowing her to suffer emotionally without eventually opening my mouth.
Her sadness, her disappointment, it was hard to take.
Chapter Twenty-One
AJ
“She agreed to this?” I asked Raven, still not believing that my mother would willingly meet us at the park. Away from my father who had, for the last week, shielded her from our questions.
“Yeah,” my sister assured me from the driver’s seat as I sat next to her staring in disbelief. “Though I may have not given her much choice.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning that it was either now and there, or at home whether she and Dad liked it or not.” Raven was often outspoken; she always had been. It was one of the many things I adored about my older sister. She was always straightforward and to the point, and rarely did she care if you wanted to hear it or not. She spoke her mind, she gave the good and the bad. Though she had a way of making it a little less like a slap to the face when it was something you didn’t want to hear, it was still powerful.
“Part of me wants to believe that the reason she chose the park is because she does truly want to make things right with Dad. That the idea of upsetting him any further wasn’t what she intended.” Raven turned into the parking lot and pulled into the nearest space. “But again, I still have my reservations. I still have so much anger about what she did that I can’t honestly say that even after I hear her reasoning I’ll be able to forgive her. There’s always gonna be that part of me that feels like she’s lying. That part that no matter how hard I try, I can’t trust her.”
“I know what you mean.”
For the last week, I’d beaten myself up over and over in regard to this entire matter. Was I being too hard on her? Was I acting childish? Then I’d remember that she couldn’t even find the time to pick up the phone and wish us a happy birthday. She couldn’t even show up when Raven graduated nursing school at the top of her class. Then I’d forgive myself once again for being so stubborn and refusing to let her off as easily as my father had.
“You don’t have to talk if you don’t want to,” Raven said as she placed her hand on my shoulder. “I know living there has made it a little harder on you than me. At least I can escape.”
“I’ve stayed at Rhett’s for three nights now,” I confessed. “It was easier than facing the fact they were living in their happy little bubble.”
“Sleeping in the same bed as that man is definitely the better option.” Raven wagged her brows suggestively, which only made me laugh. “Let’s go get this weight off our shoulders once and for all.” I nodded in agreement as we both crawled from the car and began moving toward our mother who sat beneath a small gazebo about thirty feet from where we parked.
She looked up when she saw us coming and immediately began to twist her hands in her lap. She looked the same as she did when she left, except maybe a little older now.
“Hello, girls,” she said as we stepped beneath the overhang. “Before you both start firing off questions, I wanted to say that I truly am sorry for the way everything took place. I know it doesn’t change anything, but I just wanted you both to know.”
“Why?” Raven stood tall, her shoulders squared as she stared at our mother. “Why did you walk away and leave behind two daughters that needed you? Did we mean so little to you?”
“No, it was actually the opposite.” I watched as our mother took in one deep, shuddering breath after another. “Being here was too hard.” Tears ran along her cheeks. “I messed up everything. I knew that the moment I signed those divorce papers and your father turned around and left without looking back. Staying here in Brooklet and facing him every day was something I couldn’t take. Then seeing the two of you, seeing the disappointment I knew you felt every time you looked at me, only managed to break my heart over and over again.”
“So, in return, you decided it was easier to break our hearts.” Raven looked back at me, I think just as shocked by my outburst as I was. “A mother does not do that.” I stepped forward into a face-off with the woman who had the nerve to cry over something she caused. “A mother doesn’t disown her children because she made bad choices, she fixes them. She stands up, faces the wrongs, and makes them right. You walked away. We didn’t push you. And now you’re here, acting as if the past didn’t happen. Acting like we should just accept you back into our lives.”
“No.” She shook her head.
“Yes,” I challenged her, “you are, every day. You wake up in the morning, cook breakfast, kiss our father, curl up with him on the couch and watch movies. You tell me to have a good day each time I leave and ask me how things went when I get home. But not once have you ever given either of us a good enough reason as to why you left in the
