Chapter 22
The toe of my sock pushed against the floor as I rocked back and forth in the wooden nursery chair and stared at the striped wallpaper. Titus rested on the rug near my feet—he had stuck to me like glue since Olivia left.
The Bored Bros podcast played on my phone as it rested on my lap.
We still had three months until football season, but the Bored Bros were running a whole segment on the new recruiting classes for Lindsay University and Plains State.
I couldn’t even pretend to give a fuck, but the noise filled the haunting silence.
“Lindsay’s starting quarterback took some time off at the end of last season after that big injury,” Bret Bogeman said. “I have some serious doubts about his recovery going into what the coaches say is going to be a new era of Crimson Knight football.”
I took a sip from my whiskey. The ice ball had halfway melted and washed out most of the flavor, but a little hydration wouldn’t hurt me at this point.
I had all a man needed—a good dog, a good drink, and some good football.
Footsteps echoed in the hallway and Mom opened the nursery door.
She wrinkled her nose at the sight of me. “Beau, it’s been a week. You need to stop moping.”
I took another drink. “I’m not moping, I’m relaxing. Leisure time is about to become pretty fucking rare once the twins are born, so forgive me for wanting to soak up as much ‘me’ time as I can.”
Mom put her hands on her hips. “Quit lying to yourself. You look worse now than when I picked you up from jail!”
I wiped a drop of whiskey off the scruff on my chin. Fine, maybe I hadn’t shaved in a while, or showered, and I couldn’t remember the last time I changed out of pajamas, but who was around for me to impress?
I paused the podcast and set the whiskey glass on the side table. “Fine, Mom, I’ll go put on my best tuxedo to stand by the door and wait for my children to be born.”
She sighed and leaned against the doorframe, her purse swinging from the crook of her arm. “You really haven’t heard from her?”
I shook my head. Aside from the blue sticky note that was currently in the pocket of my pajama pants, I hadn’t seen a trace of Olivia since our argument.
Olivia’s c-section wasn’t scheduled for another three weeks—well, two weeks and six days, to be exact. I wasn’t sure if she would let me drive her to the hospital for her next doctor’s appointment or if I wouldn’t hear from her until the birth.
Hell, she might even drop the babies off on the front steps whenever she determined my first “weekend” would be. I shouldn’t expect anything more from a cold-hearted sadist.
“Have you thought of reaching out to her?” Mom asked. “Maybe checking in and seeing how she’s doing?”
I furrowed my brows. “You know, for someone who demanded that I stay mum with Olivia, you sure want me to get chatty with her. What made you change your mind?”
She pursed her lips. “Call it a mother’s intuition.” She paused, considering. “Or…”
My eyes widened as Mom pulled out a black and white striped journal from her purse.
She flashed a feline smile. “You can call it a plan paying off.”
I jumped out of the rocking chair and my phone clattered to the floor. “What the fuck, Mom? You stole her pregnancy journal!”
Mom shrugged. “Stealing would imply that I gave it to her, which I technically never did. Her job was to write her truth in the journal and my job was to read it to ensure she wasn’t swindling you like the last gold digger.
” She tapped a fingernail on the back cover of the journal.
“Adding a tiny tracker under the endpaper made sure I could always find it. There were no secrets between us girls.”
My mouth hung open. Mom had no limits, but I never thought she would go so far as to spy on Olivia!
“I can’t believe you!” I said. “That is a disgusting invasion of her privacy! Let me read it.”
Mom shoved the journal into her purse just as I reached for it. “No! This scheme was for my snooping purposes, not yours!”
I threw down my hands. “Damnit, Mom! No wonder Olivia didn’t want to be part of this family, not when we constantly hide the truth from each other.”
I turned and held onto the rail of one of the cribs, part of the little furniture Olivia had let me keep. I stared down at the delicate green leaf pattern of the crib sheet, silently wishing that I could just blink and my baby would be there.
More than that, I wished with every pounding heartbeat that Olivia would just come home. I wished for her glasses on my nightstand, a house full of Christmas lights, and long car rides with snacks on the center console.
But just as I had to learn when I was eighteen, wishing for someone wouldn’t make them appear.
“I gave her everything,” I muttered, “I told her everything, and I still couldn’t make her stay.”
“You…what?” Mom hissed.
I whipped around. “I came clean about Dad, and Grandpa, and Katie, and everyone else. Call it one of my self-destructive urges or my trust issues if you want, but I had to see if she would hurt me. I gave her all the knives she could use to stab me in the back and…”
I closed my eyes and rested my fist against my forehead as my temples throbbed. When Olivia left, she didn’t rub the truth of Dad in my face like I had feared she would. She didn’t tell me I was weak, or too broken, or unworthy to be a father to her babies.
No, Olivia only did exactly what she always said she was going to do—leave.
“…she passed the test I gave her,” I said, opening my eyes to the empty nursery. “She didn’t hurt me, I just hurt myself. I should have never tried to propose.”
Before I could stop her, Mom grabbed my chin and forced me to look at her like when I was a little kid. Her eyes strained and the faded smell of menthol washed over my face as she nearly growled, “You tried to what?”
I held her stare. “I wanted to marry her, Mom. I was going to propose after the baby shower.”
She pursed her lips and held her breath, her hand trembling beneath my jaw.
“I know I’m stupid,” I admitted. “I know I put our reputation, and our estate, and the entire family business at risk, but…” My voice cracked and I swallowed to keep tears away. “…she was just worth more.”
Mom released my chin and tossed her purse into the crib before plopping onto the rocking chair. Her eyes were fixed on the subtle star pattern on the ceiling as she sucked in a deep breath. Her fingers twitched atop the armrests, like she was fighting a tremendous urge to light up a cigarette.
She let out a tense breath. “I don’t know who to be more pissed off at—her or you.”
I folded my arms across my chest and cut her a look. “Why would you be pissed off at Olivia? Did you learn nothing about her while snooping through her intimate thoughts? She didn’t want to be a Fontaine wife, she wanted to work.”
“Who said she wouldn’t work?” Mom retorted. “She’s a lawyer who took on one of our company’s biggest competitors and won. She would be a great asset for the family business!”
I scoffed. “Who are you to say what’s an asset for the family business?”
Mom froze and her voice dropped. “Excuse me?”
The intimidation act might have worked when I was a kid, but I was tired of dancing around her bullshit.
“You heard me. Grandpa was the CEO of Fontaine Energy and now it’s Dad.
All you ever did was go shopping and tear up a house that you refuse to even live in!
You go on trips and attend parties while I’m answering emails and flying across the country any time Dad remembers I exist, so don’t you tell me what’s good for the family business when you have never had to shoulder its burden. ”
Mom’s eyes went glassy. “You have no idea what I did for this family.”
“You’re right, I don’t, because you refuse to tell me!” I stepped away from the crib and stood in front of her. “It’s been a decade, Mom, and you still won’t tell me what really happened with Dad.”
She shook her head. “And I won’t. I told you back then, and I’ll tell you again now, you aren’t ready to hear what happened.”
“And maybe I’m not,” I conceded, “but how can you ignore that not knowing hurts me.” Hot tears beaded in the corners of my eyes. “I still look for him everywhere. I’m still waiting for him to come back and give me the answers because you won’t.”
Her face stayed still, but silvery tears lined the bottom of her eyes. “Baby, I just need you to trust me a little while longer.”
I took a deep breath in, but still forced myself to let the truth out.
“And I know that whatever happened, he hurt you too. That’s why I never pressure you to be with me for holidays anymore.
And I enable your drinking, and say nothing about your smoking, and still try to recognize my mother under that frozen mask you had a doctor sculpt onto your face. ”
Mom’s phone buzzed in her purse—more message notifications. Probably Aunt Liz beckoning her out for drinks.
I gestured to the still-vibrating purse. “But I can’t hide like you—not anymore. I might not get to be a husband, but I’m going to be a father and I’m going to be a CEO whenever Dad decides he’s done with the company like he decided he was done with us.”
Mom’s phone buzzed again and I gritted my teeth, biting back the urge to pick up the phone and launch it through the window. “So answer whoever is fucking texting you and go lose yourself in vodka or coke or whatever your chosen coping mechanism is for tonight.”
She swallowed. “They aren’t texts, they’re emails.”
I threw up my hands. “Whatever, Mom. Just go and let me mope in peace.”
Mom slowly rose from the rocking chair and retrieved her purse. She pulled out her phone and read whatever was on her screen. She looked at me, then back at the screen, her frozen face unreadable.
When she turned to me, the air in the room thinned and weighed on my shoulders all at once.
“Baby,” Mom said quietly, “I will be on my deathbed before you find out the truth about your dad, maybe even after that, but…”