49. Cassian
Cassian
The autumn air blowing in through my open car windows is chilly, but it helps clear my head. I’ve got an hour-long drive back to the city, and I need every minute to figure out what I’m going to do next.
Regret over leaving Vivienne the way I did overtakes me within the first two miles, but I can’t go back. If I do, I’ll never be able to leave, and the wedding’s just over a week away. I was always going to have to say goodbye. Prolonging it would only make it that much harder the next time.
She’ll probably never forgive me, but I can live with that. What I can’t live with is her not getting everything she deserves. She’s so convinced Landon’s a good guy, but if I catch even a whiff of him treating her as anything less than the goddess she is, he’ll be lucky to wake up the next day.
I grip the steering wheel harder, imagining it is that wanker’s neck.
It sucks living in a universe where the Landon Davenports of the world get everything I’ve ever wanted.
The worst part is, they don’t even realize what they have.
If Viv were ever to leave him, he’d probably find her replacement inside a month. As if she could be replaced.
If she were mine and she left me, I’d struggle to even get out of bed. There’s no way in hell I’d ever look at another woman. What would be the point? She owns me—body, heart, and soul.
My mind drifts to my dad. He may not have spiraled after my mum left, but he certainly didn’t have it easy.
Raising a toddler on your own while working full-time isn’t simple for anyone.
Doing it in the wake of your spouse leaving you has to be ten times worse.
No wonder he never wanted to talk about her.
It probably dredges up hundreds of memories better left unearthed.
I wonder briefly if he’s right about me projecting what she did onto Viv, but the idea is ridiculous. Obviously, Viv is a thousand times the woman my mum is, although there is a part of me that fears she could never be happy with what I have to offer. And if she’s not happy, she won’t stay.
If she’s not happy, I don’t want her to stay, regardless of who she’s with.
Maybe my head is fucked up because of my mother. I certainly have a few things I’d love to ask her if I ever get the chance, starting with “How could you do it?”
By the time I reach the city limits, I’ve made the decision to find her. I don’t know if I’ll say anything to her yet, but I know that if I’m ever going to lay this thing to rest, I need to see the woman who gave birth to me, then deserted me for a better life.
The house is silent when I get home, which means Bash isn’t here, because the guy couldn’t be quiet if his life depended on it. I toss my bags on the floor of my bedroom and fire up my computer. It only takes ten minutes to find out exactly where Mariana Whitaker is going to be tomorrow afternoon.
Looks like I’m about to see my mother again after twenty-one years.
The next day, I can’t decide which tie to wear—the simple black one or the blue striped one. Finally, I toss them both on the bed and change into jeans and a hoodie. It must be one that Viv borrowed, because the faint trace of her perfume slices through me like a knife when I slip it over my head.
The acute ache grows stronger as I pull on my boots.
I miss her more than I thought possible.
I miss the way she fumbles her AirPods when she goes for a run, inevitably dropping one every time.
I miss the look of surprise on her face whenever I make her a latte, even though I’ve been doing it for so long she should’ve come to expect it.
I miss the scent of her lingering in the air long after she’s left the room.
I pick up my phone, and my thumb hesitates over her name.
Will she answer if I call or is she too angry at me for leaving the way I did?
It doesn’t matter, because she made her decision, and I made mine.
There’s no reason to drag the separation out longer than necessary.
I shove the phone into my pocket and head for the door.
I’ve never been to the Wesbourne Botanical Gardens before, but I know as soon as I park my car that Viv would love it here. It’s not as wild as Belgrave Park, but it feels like an oasis in the middle of the concrete playground of skyscrapers.
My plan to use the drive to prepare my speech didn’t work. I’m too paralyzed by the knowledge that I’m about to be in the same place as my mother for the first time in two decades.
By the time I get out of my car, a crowd has already gathered near a gazebo with a red-tiled roof.
A podium stands inside the small structure.
The article I read online said the mayor’s wife is unveiling a plaque today in honor of somebody who did something.
To be honest, I wasn’t paying attention to the details. I just needed a time and location.
Now that I’m here, my hands are starting to shake. I wipe sweaty palms on my jeans as a man approaches the podium and welcomes everyone. Tuning him out, I scan the crowd for her face, already as familiar to me as my own.
I don’t need to wait long. As the people around me applaud, a woman in a beige power suit steps up to the mic.
Her dark brown hair lies in soft waves around her face.
The telltale birth mark on her neck has been covered with makeup, but it’s there if you know where to look.
How have we lived in the same city for the past year and never run into one another?
She begins talking, but I’m not listening to what she’s saying, because the sound of her voice transports me back to being two years old and playing on the kitchen floor while she cooked dinner. She used to tell me leyendas from Mexico as I pushed my trucks around the room.
The memory doesn’t sting the way I expect it to.
The knowledge that my mother loved me settles deep into my bones.
It’s been so easy to believe that she never cared, that she never found me worthy of affection, but if I’m being honest with myself, I know that’s not the case.
She wasn’t cruel. Misguided maybe, but not cruel.
By the time Mariana’s speech is over and the people are starting to disperse, I’ve made up my mind to follow her home.
I hang around the edges of the gardens pretending to study the various flowers, which are succumbing to the colder temperatures.
Finally, after she’s shaken the last person’s hand, she walks to the black car waiting for her in the lot.
She slides into the back seat, and I jog to my Mazda as quickly as I can.
I follow the sleek Lexus through neighborhood after neighborhood, doing my best to avoid being caught tailing it. The last thing I need is for the driver to call the police on me.
When the car slows and turns into a driveway in one of the nicer suburbs, I get my first glimpse of her house as I drive by.
It’s as far a cry from my dad’s little cottage as you can get and almost exactly as I imagined it: A two-story brick colonial with tall white pillars lining the front and a four-car garage attached on the right.
The left wing appears to be a guest house.
At the center of the driveway is a three-tiered water fountain with a statue of a girl pouring out a bucket of water on top.
What would it have been like to grow up here? No wonder Mariana left my father. He doesn’t even know which fork to use for what course, let alone have the resources to offer guests anything other than his own bed.
I circle the block, and by the time I return, the car has disappeared from the driveway, with Mariana safely ensconced in her mansion.
I kill the engine and sit for a few minutes, wondering if I’m doing the right thing.
I’d never forgive myself for getting this close and not at least talking to her, so I open my door and get out before I can change my mind.
There’s a giant brass knocker on the door, and I let it fall against the plate several times. The harsh sound echoes through the house, followed by footsteps. I take a deep breath as the knob turns, and there she is, still in the suit and wearing a confused but gracious smile as she stares at me.
I’ll admit I’ve imagined this moment a thousand times.
Showing up on my mother’s doorstep, the look on her face when she sees me after all this time, yelling at her or flipping her the bird and walking off, or collapsing into her arms as she tells me how happy she is that I’m here.
Never once did I imagine getting tongue-tied.
“Can I help you?” she asks, her tone conciliatory but firm. “Soliciting isn’t allowed in this neighborhood.”
I stare at her, but words are evading me at the moment.
Up close, I can see things I couldn’t from a distance or in photos.
The fine lines around her eyes and mouth.
The tiny mole above her eyebrow. The way her left eye seems just a little bigger than her right.
Somehow it makes her seem even more real.
“Mum?” I ask, my rehearsed speech nothing but vapor in my mind.
She blinks rapidly, her brows drawing together in confusion. Her eyes drink me in, scanning me from head to toe with unconcealed hunger. Finally, when she’s convinced I’m not a con artist, she says quietly, “Cassian?”
I nod, not trusting my voice not to crack. She takes a step back, and at first I think she’s going to shut the door in my face, but she holds it open.
“Please come in,” she says, inclining her head.
I follow her inside to a spacious foyer with a grand staircase leading to an open balcony on the second floor. The place smells like an expensive hotel, and I glance down at my dirty boots. She follows my gaze.
“You can just leave those on the mat.” Her voice sounds different than it did on the podium. Softer, but also lower, a little like honey.
I toe off my shoes as she watches, and I wonder if she feels just as awkward as I do. After all, she’s the one who left me.