Chapter 47
Between Vic’s hours at The Second Chance Shop, prepping, painting, and decorating Michael’s room, and squeezing time in for her own work (calling her painting “work”—look at her!), the two weeks till Michael’s visit sped by.
And although she missed Cal more than she thought possible, she was also .
. . fine. Good, even. It made her feel both strangely proud and oddly melancholy.
“So whaddya think?” she asked nervously as she showed Michael where he’d be staying.
He surveyed it slowly, then checked out the small ensuite bathroom, which featured a shower only, no tub.
Audra had added the washroom, who knew why, about ten years back and had it done in all-white tile, fixtures, and cabinets.
The result was a look that stayed surprisingly current and could be easily revamped by changing the shower curtain and linens.
All Vic had done here was add heavy, high-quality towels, plus the infamous bar of pumpkin soap that had started everything good for her in Greenridge.
The room was lovely, and as she watched Michael take it in, Vic’s heart skipped happily. She could tell he liked it. Cal had questioned the deep orange she’d chosen for the walls, but she was glad she’d gone with her gut.
He lingered by the four small paintings she’d hung and even reached out and touched one. “I loved that scruffy old thing.”
Vic smiled at the image of a once-green-and-fluffy, then gray-and-nearly-fuzzless dinosaur stuffy. “I know.”
Finally, her boy turned to her with a questioning, surprised smile. “You did all of this for my visit? It’s too much.”
She shrugged, feeling ridiculously pleased.
“And you remembered my favorite color as a kid?”
“Well,” she said, “let’s not give me too much credit. You literally cried when I explained that Ernie was a puppet and that in real life we couldn’t have fuzzy orange skin.”
“It’s still a disappointment,” Michael said. “Orange would cover a great deal of blemishes.”
Vic took in her handsome son—no bias in that description. He’d gotten the best of her features and his father’s. “Like you’ve ever had a blemish!”
“Says you, the queen of effortlessly flawless,” he teased back, but then his voice took on an uncharacteristically serious tone. “We like to make sure all our flaws are more than skin deep in our family, hey?”
Vic inhaled sharply. It was true. Painful though.
She wanted to brush it off or pshaw it away—but then she looked at Michael.
Really looked. He was as put together as ever, freshly shaved, his hair impeccable—and clearly just cut, with razor-sharp lines and that slightly longer, tousled top that he liked, and she knew women did too.
There was something different about him though, at least from the last time she’d seen him in person.
He still looked gym-fit—but maybe a little too chiseled.
Had he lost weight? And were there slight shadows under his eyes, or just a shadow in his eyes?
You want a close relationship with your son, and this is how it starts. By not ignoring barbs and pretending everything’s blemish-free. By feeling pain and not running from it—or him.
She winced.
“Yeah, you got that right,” she said. “And I guess it’s time we change it, hey?”
Michael’s mouth gaped slightly. She’d surprised him. Shocked him. Her being honest about emotions, about there being problems, shocked him. She was so ashamed.
She reached out and patted his arm, gingerly. Craving closeness but sure he’d bat her touch away like he’d been doing since he was sixteen or so. And bat her away he did—but gently.
“It is time, for sure, but let’s save all that for now. I want to take you out for dinner.”
She smiled. “I’d like that very much.”
“Should we take Gran?’
Vic hesitated, then said, “Yes . . . but not tonight.”
He nodded and laughed.
The week zipped by and they had fun together—and Audra was on best behavior. Maybe their talk had some effect!
Vic brought him to visit The Second Chance Shop, and she was delighted that he loved it and thought Madeline and Gwen were great.
They went for long, bundled-up walks, sat in coffee shops, and lounged in the house, visiting and catching up—and playing with Christmas, whom Michael loved as Vic and Audra did.
“Thank goodness for antihistamines,” he said one afternoon, rubbing his face against hers and making her purr. “I hope no one responds to your posts. I think you should pull them down.”
“If I haven’t heard by the end of the month, I’ll do just that,” Vic said. That would be nearly six weeks of posts, surely that was ample time for someone to come forward—and a fair amount of time, if no response came, for her to officially consider herself Christmas’s kahu.
Mostly though, Michael’s focus for their visit seemed to be trips down memory lane for reasons she couldn’t get him to nail down. Eventually she stopped trying to figure out why and just enjoyed sharing stories and elaborating on details he asked about.
“So, what about this Cal guy? Am I going to meet him?” he asked at one point.
Ha! I told you there was no point telling Michael about him.
Vic’s mouth twisted into something she hoped was a smile, and she quirked an eyebrow. “You should know your old mom by now. He didn’t last.”
“You’re not old—and that’s too bad. Or is it?”
Vic shrugged. “It is too bad—and it’s also okay.”
“Well . . . his loss.”
“Thanks, baby.”
Michael was studying her, but she couldn’t figure out what he was thinking.
As the week passed too quickly, Vic tried to broach the other deeper, more serious topics lying between them, the ones he’d referred to the evening he first saw his bedroom.
Each time she did, however, Michael made a joke or changed the direction of the conversation in some other easy, light way.
Until the last night before he was due to fly out.
They ordered burgers and fries and ate with Audra, then watched NCSI.
“You’re still into this show, Gran?” Michael asked incredulously, and Vic remembered she’d been a diehard fan even when Vic and Michael visited when he was a kid.
“Watched the first episode of the first series when it first aired in ’03 and never looked back,” Audra said. “I haven’t missed a spin-off.” She looked at Vic. “Not like this one. A lot of them are new to her.”
Vic shrugged and waggled her eyebrows. “Just one more way I’m a disappointment to my mother.”
Audra scowled. Michael laughed. “That’s actually pretty cool, Gran.”
“It is a really good show,” Vic agreed, and Audra seemed mollified.
It was then, after Audra had gone to bed and Vic was thinking that she would turn in too, that Michael said, “That comment you made about just one more way you’re a disappointment to your mom. That’s how I’ve always felt.”
For a moment Vic was struck dumb. No. No. That couldn’t be . . .
“What?” The word, shrill and incredulous, was out before Vic could clamp it back. Even she could hear the pain and disbelief in her voice.
“No,” she said, this time out loud. “No.” The pain—the shame—she felt was almost unbearable. All the distance she’d felt between them was because he felt he had somehow let her down?
“You were never a disappointment. Never.”
Michael’s shoulders bounced in a shy shrugging motion she recognized, and decades seemed to fall off him. Her glib, answer-for-everything, charming man son was suddenly her awkward adolescent boy child. He even seemed more gangly or something.
“Okay, so maybe not a disappointment so much as . . . as an obstacle.” He nodded, affirming he’d found the word he’d been searching for.
“Having me so young, then always having a kid in tow . . . It held you back. I always felt like I stood between you and what you really wanted. Like I ruined your life or something.”
“Oh, no, Michael. No. Nothing could be further from the truth.”
“Come on . . . you probably, no, you would’ve, married if not for me.”
“What? No. I—as you know firsthand—have abominable taste in men.”
“From some of the things you said, Cal seemed all right.”
“Okay, yes… Cal was, is, all right. And the exception—which brings us to the things I was alluding to when I wrote that I needed to apologize to you.”
Regret—and horror at how Michael had misread all her stupidity—overcame her for a moment.
She sniffled a few times before she could continue.
“I have always, always, loved you so much and felt so grateful—almost in awe, actually—to be the mother of such a smart, talented, amazing son, but I was . . . weak and dumb and didn’t understand that our little family of two was enough.
I was always chasing someone to make me feel like I was lovable, or valuable, or something.
” She shook her head. How misguided that way of thinking was—that someone else finding you valuable would make you feel valuable—was so clear now. How could she have been so dumb?
You weren’t dumb. You were craving connection.
“I also always thought I had more time with you, but then, blink, your childhood was done and you, still always so kind and polite, were done with me too.”
Michael shook his head. “Nah . . . I was just a brat doing his brat things without wanting his mom to know what he was up to.”
Vic wanted to say more, but she was still feeling too wrecked over Michael’s revelations.
How could this be? She had somehow made Michael feel way too close to how Audra made her feel.
She closed her eyes, focused on controlling her breathing, slowing her heartbeat.
She didn’t want to melt down and start sobbing, or he’d feel like he needed to shield her, not keep talking.
His next comment made her open her eyes again.
“I always knew you loved me, don’t worry. I just . . . felt the weight, I guess, of all your disappointment in life, not having the man, the 2.2 kids, the white picket fence, the dog . . .”
“I’m more of a cat person,” she said when his silence stretched. The little joke fell short though, and she reached out for his hand.