7
LUCIEN
The drive to my mother's house takes forty-seven minutes. I know because I've counted every one of them since I was old enough to reach the pedals. Same roads. Same trees. Same house at the end, waiting for me.
She's on the porch before I cut the engine. Arms crossed. Chin high. Back straight as the day she taught me to stand tall when the world wanted me small. She's smaller now than I remember, age does that, steals inches while you're not looking, but she's never been less than regal.
You hold your head up, Lucien. You don't shrink for anyone.
I step out of the car. She doesn't move. Just watches me with those eyes, the ones that have seen too much. The ones that watched her husband lowered into the ground. That watched her son build something from nothing. That now watch me dying by inches.
"Hey, Mum."
She opens her arms. I walk into them.
She's bird-boned now, fragile in a way that terrifies me. But when she holds me, I'm seven years old again, and the world can't touch me. She smells the same, coconut oil and cocoa butter and the lavender sachets she tucks in every drawer. The smell of safe. The smell of home.
"My boy." Her voice is thick. "My beautiful boy."
We stand like that for a long time. Long enough for the afternoon light to shift. Long enough for me to feel her heart beating against my chest, fierce and stubborn and fighting.
"Come inside," she finally whispers. "I made tea."
The house hasn't changed in thirty years. Same floral couch that swallowed me whole after school. Same cabinet of china she never uses but dusts every Sunday. Same photographs on every surface, me at five, gap-toothed and grinning. Me at twelve, already too tall for my frame. Me at twenty-two, graduation gown swallowing my shoulders. Me at my wedding, looking at Selena like she hung the moon.
The kettle whistles. She moves through the kitchen like she always has, quick, efficient, refusing to let age slow her down. I watch her from the doorway, and I remember.
I remember the night shifts. The way she'd come home exhausted and still make me breakfast before school. The parent-teacher conferences she never missed, even when she'd worked a double. The way she held me when some kid called me a name I didn't understand yet, her whispering, ”You're not what they say. You're my son. You're more.
I remember the second job. The third. The way her hands would crack from cleaning other people's houses while she saved for my future.
I remember her crying in the bathroom when she thought I couldn't hear, after the bills piled too high, after another door slammed in her face. And then walking out with a smile, asking about my homework like nothing happened.
She gave me everything. Her time, her strength, her dreams. She poured herself into me until there was nothing left but a woman who loved her son more than she loved breathing.
And now I'm dying.
The kettle clicks off. She pours the tea with steady hands, she's always steady, always there, and sets a cup in front of me. Earl Grey. Two sugars. She never forgets.
"So." She sits across from me, wrapping her hands around her own cup. "Tell me how you're really doing."
The lie is on my tongue. Ready. Practiced.
I look at her face, the lines she earned, the gray she refuses to dye, the eyes that have never once looked at me without love, and the lie dies.
"I'm tired, Mum." My voice cracks. "I'm so tired."
She doesn't cry. Not yet. She just reaches across the table and takes my hand. Her skin is paper-thin, mapped with veins, warm.
"Tell me."
So I do.
I tell her about the chest pain that wakes me at night. The stairs that leave me breathless. The cough that won't quit. The way I have to pause mid-sentence sometimes, waiting for my heart to remember how to beat. The fear I hide from Selena, from everyone.
I tell her about the plan. About Kai. About giving my wife back to the man who broke her.
She listens. Doesn't interrupt. Doesn't judge. Just holds my hand and listens.
When I finish, she's quiet for a long moment. Then she squeezes my fingers.
"You're an idiot."
I laugh. It comes out wet.
"A beautiful, kind, stupid idiot." She shakes her head. "You built an empire, Lucien. You took nothing and made something. You found a woman who loves you, really loves you, not your money, not your name, and you want to give her away?"
"She deserves—"
"I know what she deserves." Her voice sharpens, just slightly. "She deserves you. Alive. Here. Growing old with her. That's what she deserves."
I can't look at her.
"But that's not what she's going to get." Her voice softens. "Is it?"
I shake my head.
She stands. Walks around the table. Pulls me into her arms, my face against her stomach, and holds me while I fall apart.
"My brave boy," she whispers. "My good, good boy."
We stay like that until the tea goes cold.
Later, she asks about Selena. About the wedding. About the plan. I tell her everything, the doubts, the fears, the way Kai's name makes something ugly curl in my chest.
She listens. Nods. Thinks.
"You're going to meet him," she says. Not a question.
"At the wedding."
"And then you'll decide."
"Yes."
She looks at me for a long moment. Then she reaches up and cups my face, the same gesture she's used since I was small.
"You have a good heart, Lucien. The best heart I've ever known." Her thumb traces my cheek. "I hate that it's failing you. I hate that I can't fix it. I hate that I have to watch..."
She stops. Breathes.
"But I trust you. If you think this man can become what she needs, I'll help you. Any way I can."
"Mum—"
"I mean it." Her eyes are fierce. "I spent my whole life building you up. Fighting for you. Pouring everything I had into making you the man you are. If you say this is right, I'll fight for her too. She's my daughter. She's mine."
I pull her into my arms. Hold her tight.
"I love you," I whisper. "I love you so much."
"I know, baby." She kisses my cheek. "I know."
I leave an hour later. She stands on the porch, arms crossed, chin high, watching me go. The same way she's watched me leave a thousand times, for school, for college, for London, for my own life.
This time, we both know it might be the last.
I raise my hand in the rearview. She raises hers.
And I drive away from the only woman who ever loved me first, carrying her strength in my chest alongside my failing heart.