13. Always Have Your Back – Zoe
Chapter 13
Always Have Your Back
PLAYLIST: “PIECE BY PIECE” BY KELLY CLARKSON
ZOE
My heart raced as I stared at the woman who claimed to be Roman’s mother. Roman invited her inside the big house, and I followed the two of them into the living room. After twenty-eight years of radio silence, this woman suddenly crawled out of the woodwork, and on our wedding day of all days? Something about it didn’t sit right with me, and I couldn't help but feel a surge of anger and suspicion toward her.
What could she possibly want now, after abandoning Roman here at the ranch when he was only two years old?
I paused by my father’s empty recliner, crossing my arms and taking a long moment to look the woman over from head to toe. She could be anybody. What was to say she was who she claimed to be?
She was way too thin and bony, her wrinkled skin looked like a weathered leather couch, and her teeth were yellowed and cracked, but there were telltale signs that she was, in fact, Roman’s mother. They had the same dark hazel eyes and dark curly hair, and their mouth shape was vaguely the same, though hers was far more wrinkled. It looked like she sucked on two packs of cigarettes a day, and maybe some kind of drug pipe for a whole lot of years, too, if I had to guess by the state of her front teeth.
I turned my gaze to Roman, and the puppydog-like hope in his big, hazel eyes ripped my heart out of my chest and shattered it to pieces on the hardwood floor at my feet. Operating on pure instinct, I stepped close to him, resting my left hand between his shoulder blades and rubbing it in a soothing circle, momentarily distracted by the afternoon sun filtering through the window and glinting off my engagement ring and wedding band.
“You okay, honey?” I blurted the words out before I could stop myself.
Sarah cut a slow sideways glance at me, but didn’t say anything, her gaze tracking back to Roman as she wrung her hands, her dull hazel eyes wide and glistening with unshed tears.
Roman reached over, resting his hand on the small of my back, gently stroking his trembling fingers against the base of my spine.
“I’m fine, baby.” His strained, husky voice told me otherwise. “I’d like to hear what she has to say.”
Call me cynical, but I wanted to punch the heifer in the face for having the gall to show up here after twenty-eight years of never showing up for him, and then having the audacity to show up on our wedding day, of all days.
Still, I nodded, swallowing my ire out of deference to Roman. “Do you want me to stay, or would you like some privacy while you talk to your mother?”
“You’re my wife, Zo. There’s nothing my mother could possibly have to say to me that she can’t say in front of you.” Roman’s arm slid around my waist a little tighter, pulling me flush against his side, and he motioned for her to speak with his free hand.
“Roman, my darling boy,” Sarah began, her voice steady and eyes glistening with well-practiced tears, if I was any judge. “I’ve spent every day of the last twenty-eight years regretting my decision to leave you here at Twisted Creek Ranch to be raised by your grandfather. I was really messed up on drugs at the time, and I thought I was protecting you, but I realize now how wrong I was.”
As she spoke, I couldn’t help noticing Sarah’s hands trembling slightly, her fingers twitching involuntarily. Beads of sweat formed on her forehead, and she kept licking her lips, her eyes darting nervously around the room, as if scanning for escape routes by force of habit.
Roman loosened his grip on me and took a half-step toward Sarah, leaning forward a bit, his eyes softening with a glimmer of hope.
My heart clenched. I recognized the vulnerability in his expression, the longing for a mother’s love he’d been denied for so long. He tried so hard to hide it, to suppress it, but it was there now, plain as day for me to see, rubbed raw by Sarah’s presence.
“What made you come back? Why now? Why today?” Roman’s voice was so impossibly soft, so husky with emotion.
My chest ached at the sound of it.
“All this time, I’ve been... I’ve been trying to get clean,” Sarah stammered, her obviously—at least to me—rehearsed speech faltering. She wiped her sweat-slicked brow, her movements becoming more erratic. “I wanted to be worthy of you, to make amends?—”
Suddenly, Sarah doubled over, clutching her stomach, a wave of nausea visibly hitting her.
“I can’t... I need...” she muttered, her eyes wild and unfocused.
“What—” Roman frowned and shook his head, his face almost boyishly confused. “I don’t understand. What’s wrong, Mamma? What do you need?”
I froze, horrified at the slow motion train wreck of a situation unfolding in front of me, unable to do or say anything. My mouth went so painfully dry, my tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth. All I could do was stare as Sarah, still doubled over, glanced up at Roman and gave a hollow, humorless laugh.
“Damn it, Michaelson promised me enough to score if I could just convince you to get old man Brandt to sell him this godforsaken ranch,” Sarah blurted out, her desperation overriding her carefully constructed lie.
The hope in Roman’s eyes shattered into a million tiny pieces, replaced by a storm of betrayal and anger. His jaw clenched, and I watched as the hard, distant, tough-guy walls I’d worked so hard to break down when we were kids slammed back into place inside him.
White-hot rage boiled through my veins, and suddenly I could move and breathe and think again. I stepped between Sarah and Roman, bending over and getting right up in her face, so we were eye-to-eye.
“Look at me, Sarah.”
She stared down at the floor, muttering under her breath. I wasn’t even sure she heard me.
“Hey!” I gripped her by the shoulders, hard enough to hurt, and shook her until her teeth rattled and clacked together. “I told you to look me in the eyes, god damn it. Now do it.”
Trembling, Sarah finally pulled herself together enough to do as she was told and meet my gaze.
I glared at the woman, my fingers biting into her bony arms as I growled at her through gritted teeth, trying to get a grip on my temper for a moment before I said what I wanted to say to her.
“Do I have your attention now, Sarah?”
“Yes.”
“You better listen to me, now, and listen well. I don’t know what drug den circle of hell David Michaelson managed to find you in and drag you out of, but you better crawl back into it and fucking stay there until the day you intend to actually get clean and prioritize your son’s emotional needs over your next fix. It won’t hurt my fucking feelings if I never lay eyes on you again, you understand me? But if you ever show up here and hurt Roman again like you’ve done today—on our fucking wedding day—I will find new ways to make you regret the fact that you’re living and breathing. Do I make myself clear? He deserves so much better than you and everything you’ve put him through. Apologize to your son and get the fuck off my ranch before I lose my temper on you.”
Sarah said nothing, she just stood there, shaking and rocking back and forth in place, holding her stomach and whimpering.
“I think you should leave now, Sarah,” I said, my voice low and dangerous. “You’ve done enough damage here. And take a message to David Michaelson for me.”
Sarah looked up at that, hollow-eyed, tears streaming down her cheeks. “What message?”
“He’ll never get his hands on this ranch, not even over my dead body. My father will never sell, I’ll never sell, and Roman would never sell, either, should he outlive me. Michaelson should give up now, because he will never get this ranch.”
“You don’t know what Michaelson is like. He doesn’t take no for an answer?—”
“And I don’t let pretty boy actors from Hollywood bully me out of land that’s belonged to my family for centuries. Give it up, Sarah. Tell Michaelson he’s going to lose, then do yourself a favor and check into a rehab somewhere before you end up dead of an overdose.”
Sarah stifled a sob and turned to Roman, making a helpless sort of flapping motion with her hands.
“I’m sorry. I never should have come here, but you don’t know what it’s like… I need my fix so bad… I need it so the demons in my head’ll be quiet… I’m so fucking sorry, but you should convince her to sell if you can. Michaelson won’t back down. He won’t stop?—”
“Get out. I never want to see you again unless you’re fucking sober, do you understand me?” Roman pointed stiff-armed at the door. “I will never betray my wife or this ranch, and we will never sell out to the likes of David Michaelson. You go back to that slimy sack of monkey shit, and you tell him that from me.”
As Sarah stumbled out, I turned to Roman, reaching for his hand. He gripped it tightly, his knuckles white.
After Sarah’s departure, Roman stood motionless, staring at the closed door, clearly reeling from this fresh betrayal, still gripping my hand so hard it hurt. I chewed on my bottom lip and glanced at him cautiously, unsure of how to offer comfort without overwhelming him. I gently squeezed his fingers in return.
“Roman, I’m so sorry,” I whispered, my voice thick with empathy. “I know this has to be incredibly difficult for you.”
Roman turned to face me, his eyes filled with a mix of pain and disbelief. “How could she do this to me, Zoe? Today? After everything she put me through when I was a kid, dumping me for twenty-eight solid years, how could she come back and try to manipulate me like that?”
I took a deep breath, knowing that my words needed to be chosen carefully. “People are complex, Roman. They make mistakes, and sometimes they’re driven by forces we can’t understand. It doesn’t excuse her actions—and it doesn’t mean she’s welcome back here, which she isn’t if she doesn’t find a way to get sober and not without your say-so—but it might help explain them.”
Roman nodded slowly, absorbing my words. “I just... I hoped for a second that she had changed, you know? I thought she was trying to make amends. But instead, she was just using me to get what she wanted.”
I squeezed his hand, offering a silent show of support. “You’re allowed to feel hurt and angry, Roman. It’s okay to acknowledge those emotions. But please remember that I’m here for you, and I’m not going anywhere.”
Roman looked deep into my eyes, searching for reassurance. He took a deep, shuddering breath and wrapped his arms around me, hauling me against his chest. “Thank you, Zoe. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
As we stood there, embracing each other, I made a silent vow to continue supporting Roman through his pain, to give him the space he needed to process his emotions while also offering a steady presence of love and understanding.
After all, we were married, now, and that’s what a good wife would do for her husband, right?
Roman tugged me over to the couch and sat down, tugging me down onto his lap, wrapping his arms around me and cradling me against his chest. I stared out the front window at the fading light of sunset, and the dust billowing behind Sarah’s sedan as it retreated up the gravel driveway. Roman stared, too, and his hands trembled slightly as he hugged me a little tighter against him.
“Zoe, there’s something I need to tell you about Sarah... about my childhood.”
I rested my hand over his heart, my touch warm and reassuring. “I’m here, Roman. Take your time.”
“I was six years old. the first time she called the bunkhouse and promised to come back,” Roman began, his voice barely above a whisper. “She missed my birthday that year, but swore she’d make it up to me, that she’d be home for Christmas...”
I stroked Roman’s chest as he paused, waiting for him to continue. I wasn’t going to press him for information, just be here for him for as long as he needed me. “That Christmas, I waited up for her at the bunkhouse all night with a homemade welcome home sign pressed up against the bunkhouse window, but she never showed.”
Hot tears pricked at my eyes and I tried to blink them back. My grip on Roman’s hand tightened, my eyes glistening. “I’m so sorry, baby.”
“Every Christmas, every school play, every time I thought maybe this time would be different...” Roman’s voice cracked. “But she never came. Not once.”
I threw my arms around his neck, holding him tight, communicating without words just how much I cared.
“I learned to stop hoping, to stop believing her promises. But part of me never stopped wanting her to prove me wrong.”
“I know, baby. I’m so sorry.” I pressed a kiss against his cheek.
“And now, after all these years, she comes back... not because she cares, but because someone paid her to do it.” Roman’s shoulders slumped. “I feel like that abandoned little boy again, Zoe. Waiting for a shitty mother who never shows up.”
I showered little kisses all over Roman’s face, then hugged him tighter. “You’re not alone anymore, Roman. I’m here, and I’m not going anywhere. Not ever.”
Roman leaned into my embrace, allowing himself to be vulnerable with me.
“Thank you,” he whispered, his voice thick with emotion. “For being the one person who’s never let me down.”
I shook my head. “I’ve let you down more times than I can count, Rome.”
“You’ve never let me down, Zo, not when it really mattered.” Roman pulled me tighter against him, silent tears sliding down his face.
I shifted so I was straddling him on the couch and took his face in my hands, pulling his lips down to meet mine in a slow, tender kiss. Tears trickled over my fingers, and I wasn’t sure if they were mine or Roman’s.
I wrapped my arms around him and held him tighter, trying to fuse our souls together with the force of my embrace, trying to prove to him that he wasn’t alone and never would be again.
“I will always have your back, every day of my life, from now on.” I murmured the words against his lips with a sigh. “That’s my vow to you, Roman York, and you’d best believe I mean it from the bottom of my heart.”
Roman looked into my eyes, his own filled with a storm of emotion, and kissed me, his touch a mixture of desperation and gratitude. He held me close, as if clinging to the only certainty he had left.