37. Graham
GRAHAM
“W e’ve got a problem,” says Ben on Tuesday, and I want to put my fist through a wall.
I’ve got enough problems as it is, thanks.
My second-in-command just quit, which means I’ve got to leave for New York in the morning rather than Friday afternoon…
at the exact moment when it feels vital that I stay here and get shit straightened out with Keeley.
I could see it on her face last night—she is ready to pull the plug on our arrangement.
The crib’s coming and she needs me out to get the room ready, and what the hell happens then?
It feels like my life is about to implode, and I don’t need more Tate family bullshit on top of it all.
“What’s up?” I ask.
“Colin and Mandy broke up, and the idiot told Mom already.”
Fuck . Tate family bullshit it is.
Colin was a newborn the first time things in our life went sideways, and he wasn’t around the second time because his departure was what made them turn that way.
It was the incident that would eventually help him straighten his shit out, but running off with a girl when he was eighteen and getting thrown in a Colorado jail seemed like the end of the world at the time, especially to our mother.
She never wanted him to know how badly she fell apart. Maybe we should have told him anyway.
“Is she okay?” I ask, pinching my nose. Keeley and I need one normal evening, just to get us back where we were. I have to at least tell her I’m leaving in the morning.
“Of course she’s not okay,” Ben says. “She’s blaming herself. Walter wants her to check in somewhere and she’s refusing because she wants ‘to be there for Colin this time’ . Can you go see her? I can’t get back to California until Thursday.”
I agree, of course, because the idea of my mom suffering is unbearable to me. She’s already suffered so much, and most of it was my fault.