Chapter 31 #2
“I did,” Franklin admitted, owning up to it.
Their mother’s jaw tightened with disapproval, but she nodded for him to continue.
She remained silent until the very end. Then she sighed and crossed her hands in front of her on the table. They waited for her to break the silence, but she just sat there.
“Won’t you please just say something?” Franklin asked after a minute, squirming in place.
“And what would you like me to say?” she asked, the edge of pain hard to miss.
Beckett heard it and flinched.
“I—” Franklin hesitated. “What you’re thinking? How you feel, I guess,” he sounded so uncertain, and it was so unlike him that she seemed to thaw a little.
“I can’t—” she stopped and shook her head, clearly struggling with her emotions. “I wish you’d gone about it differently,” she said, choosing her words with great care.
“But I couldn’t—” Franklin replied, too quickly, too strongly.
“No,” she said, shaking her head. “I refuse to accept that answer,” she added, her air of calmness giving way to a flash of anger. “I refuse to believe that the only possible way was to make me believe my child was dead.”
“Mom,” Franklin protested hastily. “It wasn’t about that—”
But she wasn’t done. She’d listened, but now she would be heard.
“No,” she said, punctuating her words with a firm thump of her fist against the tabletop.
“No, you listen, now. You might be clever, but here, right now, I want you to listen, and hear me when I say that you were stupid. Stupid to think that the best possible solution was isolating yourself from everyone else. Stupid to think that you could just—die,” she said brokenly, a sob slipping past her defenses for a moment before she collected herself.
“Just die, and come back, and everything would be alright.”
She shook her head, and Beckett watched her face tighten.
“I’m glad—” she took a deep breath, and looked at Matthew again. “I’m happy for you, if this is what makes you happy? but—” she shook her head. “I think you made very stupid choices, and as your mother, I need you to know that.”
“Mom! You can’t—” Franklin began, in patent disbelief. She held up a hand to stop him. He fell silent instantly.
“I love you. And God, am I ever thankful to have you back,” she said, voice shaking with emotion. “But it was stupid.”
And it was so simply put that Beckett had to fight the urge to burst into laughter. Because yes, he supposed it was the best way to summarize what had gone down. Stupid decisions, stupid outcomes. They were beyond lucky that it had gone their way in the end.
The humour he felt faded quickly as she whirled on him next.
“You knew,” she said, not exactly angry but definitely not pleased either.
“Only at the end. Right before we left—” she held up her hand again. He snapped his mouth shut.
“You knew from the beginning. How?”
And Beckett understood then. He’d never believed the suicide theory. Never was convinced it was true—even after watching the tape.
“Years of wading through chaos and bullshit?”
She broke into a small smile, and it was the most beautiful thing. A ray of light in an otherwise very grey, cold kitchen.
“I’d really like it if you stopped risking life and limb—the both of you,” she told Hayes and Beckett, looking between them. “But—thank you for helping him. And for bringing him back home,” she told Beckett, her gaze much kinder than expected. She reached for his hand and gave it a quick squeeze.
He nodded; afraid his voice would crack if he tried to speak.
She took one more deep breath, as if bracing herself for going another round, then turned to Matthew. He sat up in his seat and fidgeted nervously, obviously not yet ready to deal with such a look.
“You are not who I would have picked for my son—” she said, showing no hesitation—refusing to mince her words.
“But love has a funny way of sneaking up on us,” she acknowledged.
“So welcome to the family, Matthew,” she told him.
Even though it was a far cry from the way she’d welcomed Hayes only a few months ago, it was a helluva lot better than Beckett had expected.
And Matthew agreed, judging by his shy smile.
With that, Cynthia stood and rubbed her hands together briskly.
“I think—I think I need to lie down for a few minutes,” she said, looking between all of them. “But when I wake up, you all better still be here. Understood?”
They all nodded in perfect unison.
“Good,” she said approvingly. “Your father’s going to be furious,” she told Franklin like he ought to be scared.
“Yes, ma’am,” he acknowledged with a shaky smile.
Walking right out of the kitchen without looking back, she clearly needed some time to pull herself together. Maybe even go scream into a pillow.
“Fuckkkk,” Franklin breathed out slowly and grimaced once he heard the door of her bedroom close.
“All things considered, it went rather well, no?” Matthew said, his hand gently squeezing the back of Franklin’s neck.
“My dad is going to be furious—and the next year is going to be hell—” he said, not quite as positive or optimistic as Matthew.
“Look at it this way—if Dad kills you for making Mom cry—you’ve already got the headstone!” Leave it to Beckett to look at the bright side in tough situations.
Franklin was the only one who refused to laugh.
In the end, their father was thrilled and relieved to have his son back, which overshadowed any anger he’d felt at Franklin’s deception.
There were lots of back slaps, a few tight hugs, and a couple of tears, but overall Franklin’s reception went smoothly.
John was a bit warmer towards Matthew than Cynthia had been, but he didn’t invite him to go fishing either.
Later in the day, the rest of the Théraults showed up.
Now that was entertaining. For the first time in his life, Beckett actually took a backseat to the action.
Jackson and Maggie tore into Franklin for his little stunt, then turned their ire on Matthew.
Both men got their asses chewed thoroughly, and all the while, Beckett simply sat and enjoyed the show.
Adding fuel to the fire every now and again with comments such as, “And the fucker even has a dog now!” or “Tell them about the live stream of the funeral!” Hayes stayed by his side, seemingly content to just—exist in this chaos he called his family.
Several hours passed before the interrogation ended.
And that was only because of the lateness of the hour and their early morning flights back to the US.
When they drove Matthew and Franklin back to Matthew’s place, Franklin was still in the doghouse with most of the family for his disappearing/dying act.
Beckett and Hayes figured the clever little shit would come up with something to get the family to forgive him.
He’d been a master manipulator his entire life, so why stop now?
Not that Matthew didn’t have his own bag of tricks; he was a slick bastard.
Those two asshats deserved one another to Beckett’s way of thinking, and Hayes was totally behind him on that, too.
Beckett was grateful—but he kept that to himself. God forbid that Franklin should ever catch wind of it. He’d never let him live it down. Fucker.