33 - Lane
Lane
Sy and Dax watched me carefully, helping me to my feet.
“Are you sure you don’t want one of us to answer?” asked Sy. “You don’t have to face her right now.”
I thought about it. Truth be told, I didn’t want to. I hated the little girl I became whenever it came to confronting my mother. But that was the very reason I knew that I needed to do this.
“The whole will thing was the final straw. If I don’t stand up to her now, I’m going to spend the rest of my life running away, and that’s not the way I want to live,” I replied.
Sy nodded in understanding. Dax held his arm out for me to link mine with.
“Your designated walker, remember?” he asked.
I smiled and let him help me to the door.
Sy walked on the other side of me and between the two of them, I felt supported enough to actually do this.
Dax’s hand squeezed mine and I squeezed back.
I remembered that this issue was personal to him, too.
He knew exactly what I was feeling right now, and that provided a level of comfort that I didn’t know what I would do without.
I asked them to hang back while I limped the rest of the way.
I wanted to be on my own when I met Rose at the door.
The second it opened, she froze, her eyes instantly snapping to the massive plaid flannel shirt that just about reached past the halfway mark of my thighs.
The undone top button would reveal that there was nothing else underneath.
Rose looked scandalized, even more so when I let her in and she saw Dax and Sy standing a few feet away, both still half naked.
“Lane,” she gasped, putting a hand to her chest. She spun around to face me. “What on earth is going on here? Do you have no decency?”
Well, she did ask me to open the door immediately. I ignored her moral pining though, and instead made a beeline for my tote on the end table. “I’m actually glad you stopped by, Rose. It saves me a trip.”
“I thought I told you to stop addressing me by name,” she said, promptly ignoring the guys and focusing on me. I retrieved the document I was looking for and walked back to her. “What is this?”
“Settlement papers,” I said calmly, handing them over to her. She glared at me in disbelief, but immediately began looking through them. “You’ll also find Uncle Ricky’s notarized letter of intent.”
Her fingers scrunched up the papers in fury. “What are you trying to tell me, Lane?”
“That you’ve not just lost your daughter but the money too. And that’s the part you cared about the most, isn’t it?” I said. I felt hollow inside, light and empty. Dax and Sy’s quiet presence in the room helped me stand just that much taller. “I want you out of my life for good.”
Rose took a step back as though I’d just slapped her. She put a manicured hand to her chest again, her chin trembling with well-practiced maternal heartbreak. Damn, I was surprised I even recognized what that was supposed to look like. She somehow even managed to force out a tear or two.
“After everything I’ve sacrificed to give you a respectable life, Lane?
You turn around and do this to me? You drag our family name through the gutter with this house and these…
tradesmen?” she threw a hand out in Dax and Sy’s direction.
Hearing her degrade me was one thing, but hearing her insult them was another.
“Watch your mouth,” I warned.
“I am your mother!” she exclaimed.
“That’s news to me, considering I lived most of my life without one and I turned out just fine,” I replied.
Seeing that her usual tricks weren’t working sent Rose off her rocker. She actually stomped her foot like a child, all pretense of grief gone in a second. Her face turned a blotchy, ugly red and her voice cracked into a high-pitched screech.
“This is a joke! A fraudulent, pathetic joke! Ricky was losing his mind when he signed this and you.” she spat. “You are a parasite, just like your father. You think you can just throw me away? For what? A pathetic career and a bunch of low-class street thugs?”
The atmosphere in the room suddenly grew tense and I didn’t have to look at the guys to feel their growing hostility towards Rose.
“Is there a problem here?” Bear’s heavy, flat but powerful voice cut through all the screaming.
Rose stopped instantly, startled as she turned around to see the foreman walk across the threshold with the familiarity of someone who lived here.
Sy and Dax huddled closer together as well, each taking up a protective stance beside me and closing rank.
Rose’s face blanched as she realized that there was nothing she could do to change the situation. She sputtered, tucking the paperwork into her bag. I took a single, staggered step towards her.
“I want to be clear,” I said, keeping my voice low. “We are done. You will never, ever have a say in my life again. You will never belittle me and my job and you will never say anything bad about my family again. Not Uncle Ricky, and not them.”
Her eyes darted around like a scared bird as she took in the three large, muscular men.
“This is the end of it. Now turn around and get the hell out of my house.”