Tangled Up In You (Rogue #1)

Chapter 99

99

GAVIN

G avin was frozen still at the idea that his mother had come back at some point. And he had never known. He wondered if Brendan, his father, had turned her away before he and his brother had a chance to see her. His father had never said a negative word against her, but he had acted as if she was a chapter in their lives that had closed.

“When was this?” he asked.

“It was about four months later. I went to yours and Ian’s school, thinking I’d walk you home and then have a talk with your Da. But seems Brendan had been called in to get you. I heard Ian teasing you about the school warning you’d have to repeat the year if you didn’t pull yourself around. Then your Da, he did this lovely thing. Do you remember?”

Of course he remembered. It had been one of the few times his father had mentioned her after she had disappeared. The memory was clear for that reason, and also because of the rare instance of his father showing him some tenderness.

“He got down on one knee before us, to look us in the eye,” Gavin said. “Then he said I had nothing to be ashamed of, because didn’t I remember Mammy always said I’d do great things. And then he told Ian to give us a break, that it’d been rough on us all but we had to look at us three as being a team now.”

“Exactly. I saw that and I knew you boys would be okay. It made me think God had it planned?—”

“Fuck the god that would orchestrate the death of a child and the abandonment of two others,” he said quickly, her invocation raising the incoherent rage he’d felt as an adolescent. “This kind of self-serving justification in God’s name is why I lost faith long ago.”

“It made me think God had it planned this way,” she repeated, undeterred, “so your Da could be the kind of father he never would have been if I’d been around.”

He wanted to shake her, to force her to see that her logic wasn’t just flawed but hurtful. “What bullshit. Take responsibility for the fact that you fucking walked away. Twice .”

“It was for the best,” she said, ignoring him again. “I was in no position to be a mother, a wife. It’s taken me so long to come to terms with myself. By the time I felt capable of returning, I knew it would have only made things worse for you all.”

Her inability to acknowledge the damage of her actions was hard to bear. He took a deep breath and decided his only choice was to pursue a different direction. “What about later, then? We did grow up, you know?”

She met his stare with silence.

He stood up and paced the small room.

“Your absence, your abandoning me, has defined my life. Everything I am is a result of your decision to run away and not face your problems like a fucking adult.”

“Ah, but look what you’ve made of yourself, Mr. Rock Star.” She tried for a coquettish smile and he felt revulsion.

“Who are you, even?” he asked.

“I’m me. I did what I did and there’s nothing I can do about it now.” She retreated into herself then, staring at some middle distance. “I did what I did for Maria,” she sang softly.

He shook his head in frustration and confusion. He vaguely recognized the song she had sung apropos of nothing as the cheesy 1970s hit “I Did What I Did For Maria” by Tony Christie, but for the life of him, he couldn’t understand what she was getting at. Her explanations and moods were all over the map. Perhaps she really had gone mad with the accident and was left in this perpetual state of teetering on the edge ever since.

“Do you know that I was desperate to be a famous singer so you’d have an easy time of it when you decided to find me?” he asked, and then laughed softly at himself.

“I’ve always followed your news stories. I saw the way you played it off as if I were dead.”

“And?”

“I decided to stay that way,” she replied meekly.

He watched her for a long moment, slowly understanding that she enjoyed the solitary life she had established for herself. She hadn’t wanted to be found.

He shook his head. “So once you had run away from your family, you found you quite liked the single life, aye? Is that it? Better off with no children, no husband?”

“No, not exactly. Gavin, I love you and your brother. I do. But I couldn’t imagine that I’d ever be capable of giving the way you needed it. Something in me died when Nora died. I’m not who I used to be.”

“You should have fucking tried,” he said with disgust. Why did he have to repeat such a basic point to her? “You don’t walk away. You don’t do that to those you’re supposed to love.”

Bernadette nodded contritely but said nothing more. The look of sympathy on her face was so at odds with the rationalizations she had given him thus far that he found the attempt pointless. And then he realized she hadn’t apologized for leaving.

He turned away from her and looked out the front window. The sky had gone pale as the sun began its descent. The disappointment of this encounter threatened to overwhelm him. But he soon found he shared something with his mother. He had done exactly what she had done. He had walked away from Sophie when things got tough.

“You know,” he said softly, “it was a bleedin’ miracle I was still able to learn what it feels like to be loved. I’ve been loved beyond all limits since I was sixteen.” He turned to her. “I don’t want to be like you. I don’t want to reject those that love me.”

Bernadette’s eyes filled with tears. “I’m sorry, Gavin. I am so very sorry for the damage I’ve done.”

There it finally was. The apology.

He waited for it to have the impact he’d thought it should. But it didn’t heal him the way he had fantasized. It didn’t make up for anything. Nor should it have, he realized. What had happened couldn’t be undone.

He understood now that subconsciously, he had known this would be the case. He had nurtured his hurt and loss all these years with the buried understanding that the artistic benefit he reaped was more rewarding than any kind of resolution he might get by tracking down his mother. It wasn’t his pride that kept him from seeking her out. It was the fear that he’d find it was all as simple as what Ian said: their mother couldn’t be bothered.

And at this point, the life he had lived as a result of her leaving couldn’t be altered. The truth was, he wouldn’t want it to be. For all his faults, he was the passionate and brilliant singer-songwriter of one of the best bands in the world, and she had set that into motion by leaving.

He saw her then for what she was—an emotionally fragile, aging woman who had done the only thing she knew to ensure her own survival. But it was her selfishness that stuck with him. Wasn’t the point of parenthood that you gave up being selfish in order to care for your children? He shook his head in frustration and was dizzy from the conflicting emotions she brought forth.

“I think I’ll be going now,” he said.

“Won’t you stay the night? You can’t drive back to Dublin now.”

Prolonging this reunion like that was the last thing he wanted. Had she presented herself the way he had always hoped, as someone desperate to make amends and to care for him after all these years, he might have felt differently. But the will to dissect their history had left him. All he wanted now was out. He needed time and distance to process all of this.

His instinct was to let her down easy, though, to employ the charm he had become so well known for.

“I’ll be fine to drive,” he said, and she did not hide her disappointment. “Dublin’s not far, after all. Perhaps we might be friends and have another visit sometime?” he asked gently.

She searched his eyes as if to see whether he was mocking her. When she saw he was serious, she smiled, sniffled, and nodded.

“Oh, Gavin, I’d love it. I’d simply love it,” she told him.