“Don’t make me regret telling you, Luca, and don’t fuck up again.” Ace turned around to walk out but stopped and looked over his shoulder at me. My best friend since birth looked at me like I was a stranger and that fucking hurt.
“Meadow was right when she said your dad would be ashamed of the way your mum has behaved, same with you. I know I fucking am.”
Ace stormed out of the office, leaving me alone with my shame. I had some major bridges to mend with my best mate and my other mates, and I will, come hell or high water, I will make everything right.
First, though, I needed to make a phone call.
I sat on hold for nineteen minutes to find out from the medical centre receptionist that Mum had me listed as her next of kin, and had her written permission to access her medical records. Immediately, I asked to speak with her doctor and was put back on hold. The annoying music was getting to me, and I was seriously contemplating getting in my car and going to see him in person when the line clicked from the music to Dr Garvie’s deep baritone.
“Luca! How are you, boy?”
“Not a boy anymore,” I chuckled, answering him in the same way I did every time he called me that.
“To an eighty-two year old you are a boy,” he laughed. “Now, what can I do for you? I saw your mum yesterday and she has healed very nicely.”
“Yeah, about that Doc, Mum mentioned that you suspected a stroke caused by severe stress. Is it possible that the confrontation with Meadow brought it on or was it—”
“Um, Luca, your mother did not suffer a stroke.”
“Pardon? She told me that you said it was a real possibility brought on by her argument with Meadow.”
“Meadow?”
“Ah, my girlfriend. Mum doesn’t like her.” I sidestepped my relationship woes' actual status because, in my mind, Meadow was mine and this breakup was just a break. Until …
“Well, that makes sense,” Doc Garvie sighed. “Irena was adamant that I not tell you about my findings, she wanted to wait until you were in a better place.”
“Findings? What findings exactly?”
“Luca, I performed a battery of tests on Irena. I found nothing that could have caused her to faint. Her heart is perfect, bloody pressure on arrival was at normal levels, she is as healthy as a horse, boy. Irena was the one that suggested that maybe a stroke caused her accident, and as I said to her at the time, absolutely no chance.”
I mumbled a thank you and hung up the phone. Numbly I stared at the paper laying on the desk, the contracts that still required my signature, a half-finished quote for a demolition job, then at the framed photo of my parents. It had been taken on my eighteenth birthday, a year before his death. It was my favourite photo of them, that day we celebrated my coming of age. My father looked so young for his age, and at the time, so did Mum.
She lied to me. She actually lied to me. Why?
There was only one way to find out. Snatching up my keys, I gathered my phone and briefcase, leaving the contracts and other paperwork on the desk. My concentration was shit for anything else other than finding out why Mum faked a stroke and figuring out how to get Meadow to come home. To me.
***
Entering my mother’s house, the first thing I heard was the opera music coming from the kitchen. Mum liked to cook to Pavarotti; she said it reminded her of Dad and their time in Italy before they moved to Australia.
Passing through the dining room, I walked to the kitchen to find Mum swaying to the music, her hands immersed in a massive ball of dough, kneading it with the vigour of a woman half her age.
The hope that Doc G had it all wrong slipped away as I stood and truly looked at my mother unnoticed by her yet. No way was she ill, no way the weak and frail woman she had portrayed herself as the last three weeks was she the same person in front of me.
Reaching over to the wall control board, I turned down the volume button to the stereo system.
“Who turned that down—Oh, Luca,” Mum startled, seeing me unexpectedly home early. Her face paled as she looked at me, and finally, I saw the guilt as it set in.
Fuck!
“How could you, Mum?”
“How could I what, my son?” Going back to kneading, I recognised the stiffness of her back. Stalking over to her, I slammed a fist down on the flour-covered bench.
“Enough games! I spoke to Doc Garvie today, and I know what you did. What I want to know is why?”
“I did what I did for the good of the family. Your father would not want you to be with such a woman. She is beneath you Luca, Naomi is not.”
“Meadow is perfect for me. Who are you to decide who I fall in love with?”
“I am your mother, Luca, and no one knows you better than I. In time you will fall in love with Naomi, marry and give me grandchildren. Dark-haired, perfectly behaved children a grandmother can be proud of all of the time. That … uncouth person is not the appropriate choice for you.”
Rage boiled inside me, anger directed at my mother. I never thought it possible to love someone and hate them all at the same time.
“That person has a name—”
“Meadow!” Mum shouted at me. “I would be a laughing stock to have a daughter-in-law with such a ridiculous name. She has no formal education, no sense of decorum, and her parents are deplorable. I demand you forget about her, Luca, and come to your senses; Naomi is grooming herself to be the perfect wife to
