Alex
Thirty-seven
The server pours coffee into my cup, and then fills my mother’s as she maintains the same careful silence she has carried since we left the house.
Paradise Hill’s restaurant is already busy enough to give us cover, but not loud enough to make this meal any easier.
It’s not like we can’t have a conversation.
My mother sits across from me with her hands folded beside her coffee, composed and untouchable. From time to time she gives me a look as if I’m the one being unreasonable.
I lean forward before she can decide how this conversation begins. “Why did you bring Anastasia here?”
My mother lifts her coffee, takes a small sip, and sets the cup back in its saucer. Nothing about her expression changes. “Because it’s time the two of you figure this out.”
“There’s nothing to figure out.”
“There is a child involved,” she says. “Eloise deserves to be raised by two parents who love her.”
I keep my hand around my cup because it gives me a place to channel my temper. “Eloise is loved.”
“She should have her father and mother,” my mother clarifies helpfully, “not a nanny filling the place where a parent should be.”
That lands exactly as she intends, but I refuse to give her the reaction she wants.
Zara has been here for fevers, nightmares, school pickups, scraped knees, and every ordinary day that Anastasia ignored.
Reducing her to hired help is insulting, but arguing about Zara lets my mother drag me off the point.
I take a moment to center myself. “Anastasia has had years,” I begin carefully.
“I sent her updates, even though she didn’t deserve them.
I’m not even sure why I did it, but I did.
So please don’t accuse me of not trying or not doing my part.
Anastasia never called. She never sent a birthday card.
She never acknowledged a holiday. She never asked how Eloise was doing, what she liked, what she needed, or whether she was happy. ”
My mother’s mouth tightens, but she doesn’t interrupt.
“She has shown no interest in being Eloise’s mother,” I continue. “Not once. So don’t sit there and tell me this is about love. I have no idea what’s changed her mind now, but I hope you can see why I’m skeptical.”
“People make mistakes, Allistair.”
I shoot her a look. I can’t keep my face neutral for that one. “This wasn’t a mistake. This was a choice repeated for years.”
Mom’s fingers move once against the handle of her cup. It’s a small tell, but I see it. My mother has always been excellent at appearing unaffected, but she is not unaffected now.
I hold her gaze. “What’s her real motivation?”
Before she can answer, the server appears with a practiced smile. “Are you ready to order?”
My mother turns toward her as if the interruption is a gift. “I’ll have the spinach and egg white omelet, please.”
“Of course.” The server then looks at me. “And for you?”
“Two eggs over easy,” I tell her. “Bacon, sausage, potatoes, and sourdough toast.”
The server takes our menus. “I’ll get that started for you.”
When she leaves, I sit back and wait. My mother reaches for her coffee again, taking her time with the cup, the saucer, the napkin. Every small movement is controlled. Every delay is deliberate.
I say nothing because I have already asked the question.
Finally, she looks past me into the restaurant, and then back at my face with a faint, polished smile. “Toronto has been quite busy lately.”
I raise my eyebrows.
She continues as if I haven’t requested to know why my ex-wife is suddenly at my house. “A great deal has changed since you left.”
And there it is. Not an answer. A very deliberate detour.
She tells me who has retired, whose business has expanded, and who has become important in the circles that matter to my family.
None of it matters to me now. But for them, Toronto has never been just a city.
It’s their entire world. To me it represents expectation, pressure, performance, and every conversation I’ve hated having.
“The city has changed,” she says, watching me over her cup. “You might feel differently about it if you came back for longer.”
“I’m not interested in Toronto and what’s going on.”
Her mouth tightens, but she keeps her composure.
I clear my throat and keep my voice even. “How much are you paying Anastasia?”
Her eyes widen before she controls them.
It lasts less than a second, but I catch it. That’s the answer she did not want to give me. “I’m not moving home,” I tell her.
“Allistair—”
“No. I’m not moving back to Toronto.” I set my hands on the table and force myself not to raise my voice. “The winters are miserable. The people are worse. Here, nobody cares who I am.”
My mother’s polished calm finally cracks. “That’s because you use a fake name,” she scoffs.
“Alex isn’t a fake name,” I counter. “Allistair is the Scottish version of Alexander.”
She lifts a hand before I can say more. The gesture is small, but familiar enough to irritate me. She used it when I was a child. She still thinks it works now.
“I didn’t come here to argue about your name,” she says.
“Then why did you come?”
This time, she does not reach for her coffee. She does not glance around the restaurant. She only looks at me, and for the first time all morning, the practiced detour disappears.
“Your father is not well,” she says.
A rock lands in my gut. A moment ago I was frustrated. Now I’m alert. I study her face, looking for the angle behind the statement. This time, though, I find something else. Concern. “What happened?”
She looks down at her coffee. “He’s been forgetting things.”
My stomach tightens. My father is many things, but forgetful has never been one of them. “What kind of things?”
“At first it was small.” Her fingers tighten around the handle of her cup. “Names. Conversations. Appointments. We all told ourselves he was busy. Then it became harder to ignore.”
I listen without interrupting. The physician in me is already moving ahead, sorting possibilities and patterns, but the son in me doesn’t like where those thoughts are leading. My mother rarely admits weakness in anyone, least of all my father.
“What do the doctors think?”
“They originally believed it was mild cognitive impairment.” She pauses briefly. “Now they’re concerned it’s Alzheimer’s.”
Everything in me goes still. Around us, servers move between tables carrying breakfasts, and the smell of bacon drifts from the kitchen.
The normalcy of the room feels disconnected from the conversation we’re having.
My father has always been the immovable center of our family.
The possibility that he is losing pieces of himself is difficult to reconcile with the man I grew up knowing.
“How is Rupert managing?” I finally manage to ask.
Rupert is my older brother, and he works at my father’s side. I’ve always known he’d take over the business one day.
Relief flickers across her face. Business is familiar territory. Business has solutions. “Rupert has been handling more responsibility for years,” she says. “He’s deeply involved in the company now. The board trusts him. The executives trust him. He’s doing very well.”
I nod. None of that surprises me. Rupert has spent his entire adult life preparing for that position. “Then the business is fine.”
“It is,” she says. “But he’d do better with help,” she adds quickly.
With that, she arrives at the destination she’s been steering toward all morning.
I let out a slow breath. “Rupert went to business school. Rupert wanted that life.”
“He also has a great deal on his shoulders.”
“So do I.”
My mother shakes her head. “Allistair, this is your family.”
“And I’m a physician.” I keep my voice calm, though frustration is beginning to creep in around the edges. “I spent years training to practice medicine. I don’t know the first thing about running a grocery empire.”
“You could learn.”
The answer comes so smoothly it almost makes me laugh. My mother has always believed capability is simply a matter of effort. If something needs to be done, someone in the family should do it. Doesn’t matter if they want to or have any ability in that area.
“You make it sound simple.”
“It isn’t simple,” she says. “But it’s necessary.”
I shake my head and look toward the window.
“It’s time to come home,” my mother says quietly.
The words hang between us. For years they would have triggered anger in me. But now, they just make me feel tired. I think about Eloise, about the life we’ve built here, about the people who matter to us now. Most of all, I think about Josie.
The words leave my mouth before I can reconsider them. “I’ve met someone.”
My mother’s surprise is palpable, her attention fully engaged for the first time since breakfast began. The conversation about Toronto, my father, and the company seems to disappear as she focuses on the one thing she clearly never anticipated hearing.
“Who is she?”
The server arrives with our breakfasts before I can answer. Plates are set in front of us, coffee is topped off, and the interruption gives me a moment to gather my thoughts. Once we’re alone again, my mother waits with surprising patience while I cut into my eggs.
“She works at one of the largest wineries in the area—her family owns it,” I tell her. “She’s an award-winning vintner.”
My mother absorbs that quietly. I can almost see her trying to place Josie into a category she understands. In Toronto, everyone comes with a résumé, a family history, and a social position. Here, those things matter far less than the person standing in front of you.
“Not this winery?” she asks.
I shake my head.
“She must be successful.”
“She is.”
“And Eloise?”