CHAPTER 14 BEN
“Mom?” I yell when I walk back into the house. She peeks her head around the corner. “Can we talk in private?” I ask.
“Of course, sweetie,” she says, and she leads me toward the guest bedroom. A small desk is set up in one corner, and she sits in the chair there. I sit on the edge of the bed. “What’s going on?”
“How well do you know this Jerry guy?”
“Oh, Benny…it's sweet you want to look out for me, but there's no need. I know him well enough to know this is what I want.”
I study her a while as I fight with myself over believing the words she’s saying. “How long have you been together?”
“A couple months,” she says. Her hands wring together on her lap. “I was at Murphy's with some girlfriends and he approached me. He was new to town and asked me out and the rest was history.”
There's something off about that story but I’m not sure how deeply I should delve into it. “So just like that, he walked up to you out of everyone else in the bar that night?”
She nods. “Told me it was love at first sight.” She sighs a little dreamily, and that’s it. She’s infatuated. He’s younger, he’s good looking, and she likes the attention and the things he says to her.
What’s his game here?
“And for you?”
“Yep. Same.” She twists the engagement ring he gave her around her finger.
“How old is he?” I ask.
“Does it matter? How old is the little girl you're marrying?”
Touché. I guess she has a point…but I don't like it. “This isn't about me.”
“Maybe it should be.” She glances carefully up at me and it's interesting how she is gauging my reaction to her words. A mother should have some sort of inclination of how her son would respond to a shot like that, but she doesn't.
“Okay,” I say. “I'll play. If we're going to make this about me, care to share why you’re so hell-bent on remaining best friends with my ex-girlfriend?”
She sighs and keeps her eyes down on her hands as she launches into something she’s clearly kept to herself a long time.
“You know, sweetie, all I've ever wanted for you was to see you happy. And I never saw you as happy as you were when you told me you wanted to ask her to marry you. I don't know what happened after you asked that question, but I know love when I see it and the girl loves you with her whole heart and I know you love her too or you wouldn’t have asked her to marry you.”
I blow out a breath as I do my best to maintain a calm tone. “That was a decade ago, Mom. I'm a different person now. Hell, so is she.”
“I just want better for you than I had for myself. I've spent my whole life—and a few marriages—trying to re-create what I had with your dad, and I don't want to see you make the same mistakes I made.”
“You think I'm gonna cheat on Kaylee?” I ask, totally offended she thinks so little of me while the realization of her words hits me at the same time.
“No,” she says, shaking her head. “I mean I don't want you to make the same sort of mistake I did where you give up the right thing for something newer and shinier. New becomes old pretty quickly and shiny dulls. Trust me…I would know.”
I heave out a mirthless chuckle. Really?
Marriage advice from her? “I know you mean well, but this is not a talk I want to be having with you.
Kaylee is not some object that's new and shiny to me.
She is the woman I love, and I've never felt this way about anyone before. Anyone,” I repeat at the end to emphasize that includes Tatum.
Despite the pervading feeling of anger, her words make me realize how my dad was it for her.
She made a mistake when she cheated on him—a big, irreparable mistake.
She ruined the best thing she ever had with the first love of her life, and she’s spent every day since then trying to find the same happiness she had with him to no avail.
That’s why she’s been married so many times.
That’s why she pushes me toward Tatum…since she was my first love.
“I understand,” she says. “She’s just…she was your first, you know? There’s something special about that. She’s a good, sweet girl who loves you so damn much.”
I snort at her description of Tatum. She’s a lot of things, but good and sweet ain’t on that list.
“Weddings are a time when you look inside at the core of things,” she continues despite my scoffing.
“When I was looking at the core of the things that matter to me, I realize I haven’t always been a great mother to you.
I want to be. But I still think of you as the little boy who is lashing out at people because his parents were going through a divorce.
I don't know you the way I want to because you won't allow me to.
When Tatum walked into your life, she brought a new light that hadn't been there before for you. I keep hoping you’ll find your way back to her.
I think, selfishly, it means you'll spend more time here and I'll get the chance to get to know you more.”
My chest feels heavy at her words. I knew she had to have selfish reasons for why she wanted me to be with Tatum, but I didn't realize those reasons had everything to do with her wanting a closer relationship with me, for her wanting the things she lost when she made her own mistakes.
“Maybe we went too long not bothering to have this conversation,” I say.
“I tend to stay away from you, from this town, because I always leave feeling angry and hurt.
If you don't know the extent of what Tatum did to me and why we broke up, I don't know what to tell you at this point. But it was so damn bad that a decade later, I’m still hurt and damaged and scarred over what she did.
It affects my relationships. It affects who I am as a man.
It affects everything, and I can't listen to you sit there and say that she's a good person and she's good for me when I know the truth that she isn't.”
Her eyes grow round and a little misty. “What did she do?”
“I'll let her tell you.” I stand to drive this conversation to a close.
“I feel like maybe we had a breakthrough today.
The things you've done have hurt me, but I have a better understanding of where you’re coming from now.
I guess we can work toward a better relationship if we're both willing to put in the effort it will take to rebuild.”
Part of me is saying that out of obligation and part of me doesn’t believe either of us ever will put in the work. It’s nice to say those things, though. It’s nice to pretend like either of us will change the way we’ve always operated for the other one. But I know my mother, and I know she won’t.
It reminds me a little of the stubbornness I have when it comes to having kids in my future.
I guess I know where my stubborn streak originated, and I’m looking at her.
She stands to and moves toward me to hug me. “I'd like that,” she says. I squeeze her for an extra beat and then she backs away, wiping her eyes.
“But for that to work,” I say, “I need you to talk to Tatum. I need you to know the truth about what happened between us. We can’t both be a part of your life. She’s toxic as hell, and you need to choose.”
A few tears drop from her eyes onto her cheeks, but it’s so hard to tell whether they’re for me, for losing a friendship, or for having to make that choice. “They always say wedding weekends are emotional,” she says with a wry smile.
“Are you happy with him?” I ask, carefully avoiding the Tatum issue for now.
She nods resolutely. “Yes.”
“That's all that matters.”
We head out to the family room where we find Tatum chatting with Jerry. “He'll be at the dinner,” Jerry says, and I can't help but wonder who he’s talking about.
Tatum zones out on whatever Jerry’s saying to her when she spots me walk in the room behind my mother without Kaylee trailing behind me.
“My turn? Is now a good time to talk?” she asks.
I feel like I was just put through the emotional ringer by my mother, so why not pile on top of that? “Sure,” I say, and I turn back toward the same guestroom I just came out of.
I take the desk chair this time, opting not to even get close to the bed. I want to send less than zero signals to her that might give her the impression that I have any interest at all when I don’t.
She’s quiet, and she stares at me coolly for a few beats. At least I think it’s coolly. Maybe she’s trying to seduce me. Maybe this is how she does it now. I’m not really sure, but I’m not into it.
I sigh with a whole lot of frustration as I try to get this damn shitshow on the fucking road. “What did you want to talk about?”
“I want to get back together with you.” She blurts the words, and I can’t help but bark out a laugh.
“You can’t be serious.” My tone is flat, but in truth, my blood is boiling.
You don’t double cross a man the way she did and think you’ll ever be forgiven. Certainly not in this lifetime.
“I am. I have always loved you, and your mom made me see that sometimes our first love makes us do crazy things that we wouldn’t—”
I hold up a hand to cut her off. “I’m going to stop you right there, Tatum. What you did wasn’t crazy. What you did was manipulative and evil. Okay? So, no, we won’t be getting back together. As Taylor Swift would say, like ever.”
“I have something of yours,” she says, this time not blurting the words but instead saying them slowly. Purposefully.
Threateningly.
“I assume you mean something besides the things you took from me a decade ago,” I fire at her.
The doorbell rings. Kaylee’s back.
Thank God. I can’t handle another moment in this house without her.
And I didn’t realize that until she wasn’t there.
“I need to go let my fiancée in,” I say, emphasizing her title.
“I’m not done talking to you,” she says.
I lift a shoulder and twist my lips. “Oh, would you look at that! I’m all out of fucks today, so I can’t give any at all to this situation. If you’ll excuse me…” I trail off as I open the door and ditch her there.
Yeah, I’m definitely being a dick, but it’s to protect both myself and Kaylee. I won’t let Tatum come between us…even though I’m positive she’s going to do whatever she can to keep trying.