Chapter Nine Final Wish
Haven
“S weetheart? Are you all right? You’re awfully quiet.”
I glance at mom, lying in her hospital bed, and realize that I’ve been spacing out. Guilt shoots through me. This is my time to be with my sick mom, and I’m letting myself get distracted by thoughts about Chris… or, Christian rather.
Christian Tallow.
The billionaire oil tycoon who owns the oil fields that basically keep this town’s economy afloat. I should have fucking known when I showed up at that house. There’s no way that someone who just works a regular job for the company could afford the upkeep on that place, but here I am completely stupid thinking that maybe he was good with money or something like that.
“Sorry, Mom,” I say, forcing a smile. “Just a lot on my mind.”
Geez, what a lame excuse. As if she doesn’t have a lot on her mind too. Still, I don’t know what else to say. I don’t want to burden her with the weird drama I’ve suddenly found myself embroiled in.
She has enough going on as it is.
“Is it work?” Mom asks, her brow furrowed in concern. She’s wearing a scarf around her head with yellow daisies printed on it. Her face is gaunt and her skin thin that she almost looks like a ghost already. However, her eyes are still bright and shining with life, and when I gaze into them, I’m reminded of what she was like before she got sick. Vibrant, energetic, and beautiful.
She’s still my mom, no matter what’s happening to her physically.
Work. I try to focus on the question, on the way her eyes crinkle at the corners as she waits for my answer, but my mind is elsewhere. On him. On Christian Tallow—Chris—the sexy new dad in town—the man who’s been occupying way too much space in my head ever since the paparazzi showed up at the daycare.
“No, work is… fine,” I say, which isn’t a lie. Work itself is fine. It’s just everything else that happens around work that’s causing such a mess.
Images flash in my mind—Chris’s broad shoulders, his easy smile, the way he always seems so down-to-earth, like any other single dad just trying to make ends meet. But he’s not like any other single dad. He’s a billionaire, for crying out loud. A freaking oil tycoon who owns half the land outside of town, and I’m the naive girl who had no freaking idea.
Not that it’s any of my business or anything.
“Fine, huh?” Mom’s voice cuts through my thoughts, pulling me back to the present. She’s watching me, her smile fading a little. “What’s on your mind, honey? I can tell something’s bothering you.”
I shake my head, trying to clear him from my jumbled thoughts. “It’s nothing, really. Just… working through some stuff. Nothing serious.”
She gives me a look—the kind that says she knows there’s more to it than that, but she thankfully doesn’t push. “Don’t let it bother you too much. Life’s too short to worry about things that don’t matter.”
I nod, but the truth is, it’s all I can think about.
The way Chris—Christian—looked at me when he confessed to who he really is… it’s like he knew everything had changed. I don’t know what to think. Part of me feels betrayed, like he kept this huge part of his life hidden from me, even though I know it’s ridiculous. It’s not like he owed me anything. We aren’t dating. Yes, we kissed, but it was just once, and I told him we couldn’t cross that line again anyway…
Ugh, my thoughts are flying off the rails again. I need to get a hold of myself.
There’s a part of me—God, a part of me is intrigued by all this because the Chris I knew, the one who always picked up his son with a charming smile wearing Levi’s and plain t-shirts, that’s still him, isn’t it? Just with a whole other life I didn’t know about.
“Haven?”
My mom’s voice pulls me back again, and I realize I’ve gone back to staring off into space. I force another smile, trying to shake off the thoughts of Chris—Christian—whatever his freaking name is.
“Sorry, Mom. I’m here. I’m with you.”
She reaches out and takes my hand, her grip weaker than I’d like.
“That’s all that matters,” she says softly. “Just be here, with me.”
I squeeze her hand, feeling the tears prick at the corners of my eyes. “I am, Mom. I am.”
But even as I sit there, trying to put on a brave face so she doesn’t know how devastated I really am about her condition, my mind keeps drifting back to him. At that moment, I kind of resent him because he’s distracting me so much from my mother. It’s bad enough that he lied to me, but to occupy my thoughts when I should focus on my family. This is exactly why I decided relationships aren’t worth my time. They’re a distraction from what I really need to be focusing on, and right now, that’s my mom.
The soft hum of the machines monitoring my mom’s heart and other bodily functions is the only sound in the room for several moments as I sit beside her, holding her hand. Her hand feels fragile, but her grip is strong enough to remind me of the woman she used to be—the woman who could do anything, who was always there for me, who seemed invincible.
She’s not anymore, and every time I visit, it gets harder to ignore the truth. She’s slipping away, and there’s nothing I can do to stop it.
“Haven,” she says quietly, her voice breaking through my thoughts. I look up to meet her eyes.
“Yeah, Mom?”
She gives me a small smile, but there’s something behind it—something that makes my heart tighten in my chest.
“I’ve been thinking,” she begins. “I know I don’t have much time left.”
“Mom, don’t?—”
She squeezes my hand, cutting me off. “Let me finish, sweetheart.” Her voice is gentle, but there’s a firmness to it that makes me bite back whatever protest I had ready. “I know you’re strong, and I know you’ll be okay, but… there’s something I want more than anything before I go.”
I swallow hard, trying to keep my composure because I really don’t like the direction this conversation is going. When she gets serious like this, it makes the reality of her condition impossible to ignore.
“I want to see you happy, Haven. I want to see you married, settled, with someone who loves you as much as I do. Someone who can take care of you when I’m not here.”
Tears well up in my eyes, and I try to blink them away, but it’s useless.
“Mom, you don’t have to worry about me. I’m fine and happy, I promise. I don’t need someone to take care of me. I have Garrett, Peter, and Marie. We’ll look after each other.”
But even as I say it, I know it’s not entirely true. Sure, I’m content with my life—I have a job I love, friends who care about me, and like I said, my brother and stepfather—but the truth is, there’s something missing. Something I’ve been too afraid to admit to myself, let alone to her.
“You’re happy, but you’re not settled,” she says, her voice soft but unwavering. “And I know you, Haven. You’re so focused on everyone else, on your work, on making sure everything is perfect, that you forget to think about yourself. About what you need.”
I don’t know what to say. How can I tell her that the thought of finding someone, of putting myself out there, terrifies me? That I’ve built my life around being independent, around not needing anyone because the idea of needing someone and then losing them—like I’m losing her—feels unbearable?
“I just want to know that when I’m gone, you’ll have someone to lean on,” she continues, her voice cracking just a little. “Someone who’ll love you the way you deserve to be loved.”
Her words hang in the air, and I feel like I’m suffocating under the weight of them. I want to promise her that I’ll find someone and settle down and be happy, but the truth is, I don’t know if I can. I don’t know if I’m ready for that, or if I ever will be.
I can’t tell her that. Not now. Not when it’s the one thing she wants more than anything.
“I’ll try, Mom,” I whisper, my voice shaky. “I promise I’ll try.”
She smiles at me, and even though it’s small and tired, it’s full of so much love that it makes my heart ache. “That’s all I ask, sweetheart. Just try. Don’t close yourself off from the world. You deserve to be loved, to be happy. I wish I could see that happen for you before I go. It would bring me a lot of peace, but so long as you promise to let yourself be open to that, that’ll be more than enough for me. ”
I know she doesn’t mean to cause me any pain by saying this, but her words slice through me like a knife. All I want is to give her peace and make whatever time she has left as happy and fulfilling as possible, but I don’t know how to respond to this last wish.
Forcing a smile, I gently squeeze her hand. “Okay, Mom. I love you.”
“I love you too, sweetheart.”
I stay for a little while longer, but she soon starts to nod off, the exertion from my visit overcoming her. When she finally falls asleep, I stand and give her a kiss on her forehead before slipping out of the room.
It isn’t until I’m sitting in my car, staring blankly out the windshield that I let the tears fall. My mom’s words echo in my mind, her last wish repeating over and over until I can’t ignore it anymore.
She wants me married. Settled. Happy. That’s what will bring her peace before she dies.
Gripping the steering wheel, my knuckles turning white. It’s not like I haven’t thought about it before. There were times—brief, fleeting moments—when I imagined what it might be like to have someone by my side. To build a life with someone, to share all the little moments, to not feel so… alone. But every time, I push those thoughts away, tell myself I’m fine on my own, that I don’t need anyone, that it’s easier this way. That I have more important things to worry about.
Now, I can’t just brush it off. My mom wants this for me, and how can I ignore that? How can I not at least try to give her what she wants, especially when she’s been so strong and so selfless through everything?
But how? How do I even begin?
My mind drifts to Christian Tallow, the man who’s been occupying far too much space in my thoughts lately. Chris—the hot single dad who was just another parent at the daycare until he kissed me. Until I found out who he really was.
I can’t even begin to think of him like that. If I even tried to show interest now, he’s probably going to think it’s only because I found out he was rich.
And I’m far from being a gold digging bitch.
This is ridiculous. Christian Tallow is a distraction I can’t afford right now. Between my mom’s condition and the revelation about him, I feel overwhelmed and lost. Mom’s wish for me is something I can latch onto. A goal of sorts to work toward with an achievable end.
Strangely enough, it could be an anchor for me right now. Even though I don’t know how I can possibly make it come true, trying to achieve my mom’s deathbed wish could be the thing that keeps my head above water when everything else in my life is trying so hard to pull me under the waves.
The problem is finding someone I can tolerate long enough to actually want to be around. Which is easier said than done.