Chapter 39 Wyatt
WYATT
‘When we first met, I was utterly gobsmacked. You were so beautiful inside and out — intelligent, driven, funny and witty. You made me laugh, and it was incredibly refreshing. Studying the same course at university meant that we had so much in common, and I felt like I’d found my perfect partner for life.
But there was always something at the back of my mind telling me I wasn’t good enough for you.
’ He frowned at the memory. It had been so hard to shake that feeling.
‘When we were in Bath, I could pretend that everything was fine and that I was a normal man with no terrible secrets in my past. But whenever I went back to America, it was a different matter.’
Edith’s gaze drifted over Wyatt’s face as she nodded slowly, a fine line settling between her brows.
‘See… You knew there were some issues with my mother, but I couldn’t explain why.
When Dad was alive, I still had a certain amount of freedom, but after he passed away just after graduation, everything fell to me.
Not having any siblings or… or anyone around to help with Mum was tough.
I’m not asking for pity here, just trying to explain as clearly as I can why things have been so hard. ’
With a shaky breath, he cleared his throat, the tension vibrating in the air around him.
‘See… Mum is remarried now. Has been for the past five years… but after Dad died, she only had me. I felt responsible for her, and she needed me. Still does in a way, but—’
Edith shook her head. ‘Wyatt… I don’t think I need to know this, really.
Your mum needs you, so what’s changed? You have to be there for her, and therefore, I have no place in your life.
I can’t keep reopening this wound. W-we had our chance, once again after being reunited, but you have other priorities, and I’m sorry, but I can’t be second best. Not anymore.
Time is passing, and I want, I need, to be my partner’s priority.
If I settle for less than that, where will that leave me?
What if we had children and then your mum was still your priority?
It wouldn’t work.’ Her throat tightened.
‘That’s if you’re even suggesting that because, for all I know, you don’t want me, just a chance to explain why things are as they are. ’
Her eyes glistened, dark fathomless pools in the fading light. Wyatt’s chest throbbed with sadness and guilt. He had made her unhappy, and it devastated him.
‘Please… Let me keep going because I can’t bear for this to happen again.
I need to tell you everything now, or I’ll lose my nerve.
It was never about you, Edith; you were always everything.
’ His voice cracked, so he coughed and then swallowed against the pain.
‘See… My mum always had some issues. When I was very young, she was quite… volatile. Dad was good at tempering that volatility, but then, one day, something terrible happened that sent her spiralling, and she has never forgiven me for it.’
‘What could you possibly have done to cause her to struggle like that?’ Edith’s eyes were glistening, and she was shaking her head in disbelief. ‘It’s not like you murdered someone.’
Wyatt moaned, and Edith’s eyes widened.
‘No! Not… not exactly,’ he blurted. ‘When I was six, I had a younger brother, Parker. He was two years younger than me.’
‘I never knew that,’ she whispered.
‘I never told you.’ Wyatt rubbed a hand over his heart as the ache intensified.
‘P-Parker was a sweet boy. He was gentle and kind, curious and sweet. We were in Brooklyn one day on the way to the park. It was sunny. A beautiful, sunny day. Mum went into a shop to buy cigarettes because she’d run out, and she told me to watch Parker. ’
‘When you were six?’ Edith asked, frowning.
‘It was only for a few minutes.’
‘But six? You were a baby yourself.’
‘Yes, but… I don’t know, things seemed different back then. I was used to Mum and Dad not always being around and—’
‘Not always around? Were you and your little brother left alone?’ Her incredulity was written all over her face.
‘Sometimes.’ He hung his head. ‘I don’t recall much of it. I mean, I was very young. But I remember waking one night because Parker was crying and Mum and Dad weren’t there. Parker had wet the bed, so I had to find him some clean pyjamas, and then he got into bed with me.’
‘I’m so sorry, Wyatt. That’s awful.’
He shook his head. ‘It was just one of those things. I was quite sensible. I knew how to make a sandwich and how to help Parker brush his teeth.’
Remembering these simple things now made his heart swell. His little brother, with soft blond hair and big brown eyes. With his easy smile and eagerness to follow Wyatt everywhere. What would it have been like to have grown up with Parker around? To have known what it was to have a brother?
‘But you were still a young child, Wyatt.’ Edith seemed to have straightened up as if bracing herself for what was to come.
‘That day in the street outside the shop, we were talking about the park and then a friend from school came along and I got distracted. Parker…’ He closed his eyes and clenched his fists, the one hand slipping from Edith’s as he did so.
The events played out like a movie in his mind, and he felt the tears seep from the corners of his eyes.
‘It’s OK, Wyatt. I’m here.’ Edith took his hand again and squeezed it.
‘Parker ran out into the road. He’d spotted a cat and he–he loved cats.’ Wyatt opened his eyes and looked at Edith, grounding himself in her presence. ‘He didn’t see the car.’
‘Oh my god!’
‘He was so small. It flipped him over the bonnet, and he-he was gone. My beautiful little brother was gone, and it happened in seconds. And it was all my fault.’
‘No!’ Edith shook her head, her eyes wide.
‘I should have been watching him, but I was distracted and I let him go.’
‘You didn’t, Wyatt. You were a child yourself. It was your parents’ responsibility to look after him, not yours.’
Wyatt sighed as if all the energy had abandoned his body and he slumped over his knees. ‘The paramedics said he was gone immediately and didn’t suffer. But Mum… she came out of the shop and her scream… I can still hear it. She… she told me straight away it was my fault, and she has never stopped.’
‘Oh Wyatt…’ Edith moved closer and slid her arm around his shoulders. ‘No child is ever to blame for an adult’s negligence. I am so sorry that you’ve carried this all these years.’
‘I let him down, Edith. If I’d been watching him properly, he could still be here. Or I could have run after him and pushed him to safety. I could have—’
‘Wyatt! This is survivor guilt. You have carried this all your life, and if you’d had some therapy, you’d have learnt that it wasn’t your fault. A child is never to blame for the behaviour of an adult. Never. Can you hear me?’
Wyatt met her gaze and nodded, but he still couldn’t quite take it in.
‘Mum… She still blames me. After Parker died, she drank heavily, and Dad and her argued a lot. But they muddled through, and somehow, we lived together until I had the chance to come to university overseas. I jumped at it. I saw university as a fresh start, a chance to be who I wanted and not the man whose brother died when he was a kid. Who was responsible for not looking after his baby brother when he should have been.’
Edith placed a hand on his cheek and stroked his skin with her thumb. ‘I wish you’d felt you could tell me this sooner. I would have been able to understand you better.’
‘I’m so ashamed. I let my family down, and there was no coming back from it.’
‘You have nothing to be ashamed of but your mother and your father…’ Edith’s brows met. ‘They have a lot to answer for.’
‘They were who they were. Dad’s been gone for years now, and Mum… she got cleaned up and met her second husband, but she’s always reminded me of how I ruined her life. It was up to me to hold everything together and to be there for her.’
‘This has overshadowed your life, Wyatt, and it’s time to change that.
’ Edith pressed a gentle kiss to his cheek.
‘You are a good man. You are kind and gentle and hardworking, and you have to let this guilt go. Your mother has taken enough from you over the years, like some kind of emotional vampire, and it ends now.’ She sighed and shook her head as if it was all too much to take in.
‘But I do think some counselling might help you work through all this, Wyatt. Would you consider that? I can’t stand to think of you struggling with such a heavy burden on your own.
I’m here for you, of course I am, but I’m not a professional, and I think someone with qualifications in this area would be better able to help you realise that this was not your fault. ’
Wyatt gazed into her eyes, and relief flooded through him, warm and soothing. Edith wasn’t judging him or hating him like he’d feared she might. She was being kind and calm and offering to help him. ‘You don’t think I’m awful?’
‘Wyatt, you’re amazing.’
‘But I left you… with no explanation. I hurt you.’
‘You did. And that won’t go away overnight, but at least now I understand why you couldn’t tell me. Why you were struggling. Now that I have that information, it helps me to see why you acted the way you did.’
He inclined his head. ‘I thought I was protecting you from it all. Keeping you and my New York life separate helped me to compartmentalise.’
‘That’s exactly what you were doing, and when those two worlds threatened to collide you had to walk away from one of them. I suspect your mother had her claws so deeply into you that you couldn’t see a way to escape her.’
‘I feel responsible for her. I always have.’
‘But you’re not.’ Edith squeezed his hand.
‘You never have been, and you’re not now.
As you said, she has a partner to be there for her, and she’s an adult, anyway.
People don’t have children to have someone to take care of them.
That’s crazy. Hopefully, some therapy will help you address that too. ’
‘Do you think I can work this all out?’ Wyatt gently slid his hand from Edith’s and brushed his palms over his damp cheeks. ‘I’ve lived with it for so long that I can’t imagine not feeling the heaviness in here.’ He patted his chest.
‘I think you can work through it and understand yourself and your parents better, yes. And I’ll be here for you if you need me.’
He scanned her face, a tiny spark of hope igniting within the depths of his being.
‘As a friend, Wyatt,’ she said softly. ‘For now, you need space to process and to heal. I don’t want to confuse that.’
His heart sank, but he knew she was right.
A relationship would only blur the lines right now, and he needed to get some help to work through everything.
Of course, he’d thought about it before, but it had always come back to the same thing: his mother telling him it was his fault.
Having that drummed into him daily had been brainwashing.
And perhaps, he thought now, it had been easier to believe her version of events and to carry the guilt because anything else seemed far too difficult.
Not allowing himself to be happy had been his way of saying sorry to Parker for letting him down.
‘Look…’ Edith smiled and took his face in her hands, holding his gaze. ‘I’m not saying never, OK? Just that you have some work to do, and I need to let all this settle in my mind too. But, Wyatt, it doesn’t mean that I don’t love you because I do. I always have.’
And then she kissed him. Gently. Cautiously.
But it was the reassurance he needed. When she pulled him into a hug, he finally let go and cried in her arms, feeling safe and understood for the first time.
Edith was special. He’d always known that, but he’d never been able to get past the fact that she might judge him for what had happened.
He should have known she wouldn’t judge him at all. He should have trusted her, and from now on he would do because she was the kindest person he had ever met.
‘Thank you, Edith,’ he said when he sat back and wiped his eyes with the tissue Edith had given him. ‘I’m sorry for not being honest with you from the start.’
‘We can take it from here,’ she said. ‘No more feeling guilty.’
Wyatt managed a small smile, the weight on his shoulders a little lighter. For the first time since he was six years old, he allowed himself to hope that he could be free from the burdens he had carried for so long.
‘And now… if you feel up to it,’ Edith said. ‘I think we should join the wedding celebrations because I’ve heard that dancing is good for the soul.’ She winked, and Wyatt laughed.
‘I’ve heard that too.’ He raised his eyebrows. ‘As long as you have a capable dancing partner.’
‘Well, come on then.’ She stood up and held out a hand. ‘As long as you let me lead.’
‘Oh, I have no problem with that.’ He stood up. ‘I’m happy to follow you.’
For the rest of my days, he added silently.
They linked arms and walked back down to the café, and Wyatt sent out a silent thank you to the universe for bringing Edith back into his life. He wished he’d been honest sooner, but things had a way of working out, and perhaps this was how things were meant to be.
When his mother had phoned him the morning after he’d spent the night with Edith, he’d had his first real moment of doubt about her behaviour.
A moment of clarity when he’d thought she might be in the wrong for how she was still using his brother’s death to control him.
He’d not only supported her emotionally but also financially over the years and he knew that his money had funded her cosmetic surgery and lavish lifestyle — both things she had prioritised after her stints in rehab where she vowed to get clean only to relapse time after time.
Wyatt had pitied her losing a child, but she had never once admitted that it could have been her fault.
Surely that wasn’t normal either, but she’d told him he owed her.
It had been easier to roll with it than to try to stand up for himself.
Did that make him a wimp? Maybe some would believe so, but for him, he had felt so terribly guilty that he’d believed he had to do everything in his power to try to assuage the guilt.
Kind of like punishing himself in as many ways as he could for what had happened.
Pushing Edith away had been part of that too.
Nonetheless, from this day forward, he would strive to relinquish the guilt and accept that his mother was entitled to live her life — just as he was entitled to live his.
After all, as Edith had so clearly stated, if he had a family of his own, then putting his mother before them would be ludicrous. To finally have a personal life, he needed to release the past and welcome a future he had never dared envision.
Could that future be with Edith? He sincerely hoped so. Because maybe, at last, forgiveness could begin with himself.