17. Willow #2
“I was trying to protect you!” Her composure cracks, just slightly.
“I could see what he was, even then. The insecurity, the possessiveness, the way he looked at you like you were something he needed to guard instead of someone he needed to love. I knew, I knew, that eventually it would destroy you. And I was right, wasn’t I?
Look at where you are now. Pregnant and alone in a house that feels like a prison, married to a man who accused you of sleeping with your best friend in front of half the city. ”
The silence that follows is deafening.
“You’re enjoying this.” The realization hits me like ice water. “You’re actually enjoying watching my life fall apart.”
“Don’t be dramatic. I’m simply pointing out that I was right. I’ve always been right about him.” She straightens her silk blouse, adjusts her expression back to maternal concern. “But that’s not why I’m here. I’m here because, despite everything, you’re still my daughter. And I can help you…”
“Get out.”
“Willow…”
“I said get out.” I step forward, and for once in my life, my mother actually steps back.
“I don’t want your help. I don’t want your money or your ‘I told you so.’ I don’t want to hear you talk about my husband like he’s garbage you want me to dispose of.
Whatever is happening in my marriage is between Corey and me, and you don’t get a vote. ”
“You’re being emotional. It’s understandable, given your condition, but…”
“I’m being clear. There’s a difference.”
Ugliness flashes across Vivian’s face, the real her, the one she keeps hidden behind the perfect makeup and the practiced smile.
For just a moment, I see the woman who raised me.
The woman who valued appearances above everything.
The woman who saw her own daughter as a reflection of herself and couldn’t stand when the reflection didn’t match.
“You always were stubborn,” she says, and it’s not a compliment. “Just like your father. He refused to see reason too, right up until the end. And look where that got him.”
“Don’t talk about my father.”
“I’m simply pointing out a pattern, darling.
The women in our family have a tendency to choose men who ultimately disappoint us.
Your father disappointed me. This one…” she gestures dismissively at Corey, “has disappointed you. The only question is whether you’ll learn from my mistakes or insist on repeating them. ”
“I think you should leave.” Corey’s voice is quiet, controlled, but there’s steel underneath it. The voice of a man holding himself back from something he might regret.
Vivian ignores him. Her eyes are fixed on me, calculating, strategic. I can almost see her mind working, searching for the right lever to pull.
“Fine,” she says at last. “Stay here if that’s what you want.
Play house with the man who questioned whether his own child was really his.
But when it falls apart again, and it will fall apart, Willow, it always does with men like him, don’t come crying to me.
I won’t be here to pick up the pieces a second time. ”
“I wouldn’t dream of it.”
“No?” She smiles, and there’s a cruelty in it now, one she’s been holding back. “Then perhaps you should ask your husband about the check I wrote him the night before your wedding. Since we’re being honest with each other now.”
The words drop into the silence like stones into still water.
I feel the impact before I understand the meaning. Feel the way the air in the room changes, the way Corey goes rigid beside me.
“What check?” My voice sounds strange. Distant. Like it’s coming from someone else.
“Oh, didn’t he tell you?” Vivian’s eyes glitter with satisfaction. “The night before your wedding, I invited your fiancé to my home for a little chat. I wanted to give him one last chance to do the right thing, to see reason, to understand that marrying you would be a mistake for both of you.”
“What check, Mother?”
“Two million dollars.” She pronounces the figure carefully, savoring each syllable.
“I wrote him a check for two million dollars and told him to disappear. To take the money, start over somewhere else, build his precious company without dragging my daughter down with him.” She pauses, lets the words settle.
“He didn’t take it, obviously. He’s still here.
But I find it interesting that he never mentioned the offer to you.
Not in five years of marriage. Don’t you? ”
I turn to look at Corey.
His face has gone white. Absolutely bloodless, like someone’s drained every drop from his veins.
“What is she talking about?”
He opens his mouth. Closes it. Opens it again.
“Willow…”
“Is it true?” My voice is rising, cracking. “Did she offer you money to leave me? Did you know, this whole time, did you know what she did and you never told me?”
“I tore it up.” The words come out ragged, torn from somewhere deep. “I tore it up in her foyer and I never took a single cent from her, I swear to God, Willow, I never even considered…”
“But you didn’t tell me.” The betrayal is spreading through my chest like frost, freezing everything it touches. “You knew. For five years, you knew that my mother tried to buy you off, and you never said a word.”
“I wanted to protect you! You’d already lost so much, your family, your inheritance, everything you grew up with, and I thought if you knew what she’d done, it would end any chance of…”
“Any chance of what?” I’m screaming now, and I don’t care. “Reconciliation? You thought I might reconcile with a woman who tried to bribe my fiancé to abandon me?”
“I thought, I hoped, that someday…”
“Get out.” The words tear out of my throat. “Both of you. Get out of my house.”
“Willow…” they say in unison, Corey and Vivian, and the absurdity of it, of these two people who hate each other united in wanting me to listen, makes me want to laugh and scream at the same time.
“I said GET OUT!” I’m crying now, tears streaming down my face, and I hate that I’m crying, hate that they can see me break. “Mother, leave. Corey, I can’t look at you right now. I can’t be in the same room with either of you.”
Mrs. Potts is suddenly in the hallway behind me, I didn’t hear her approach, but she’s there now, solid and calm, taking in the scene with sharp eyes.
“You heard her, madam,” she says to Vivian, her voice pleasant and utterly immovable. “I’ll see you out.”
Vivian’s smile doesn’t waver. “I’m only trying to help, Willow. When you’re ready to be reasonable…”
“The door’s this way.” Mrs. Potts is already moving, her hand on Vivian’s elbow, steering her toward the exit with the practiced efficiency of someone who’s removed difficult people from difficult situations before.
The door opens. Cold air rushes in. And then the door closes, and she’s gone.
But Corey is still standing in the foyer, looking at me with devastation written across every line of his face.
“Willow, please. Let me explain…”
“Not tonight.” I can barely see him through my tears. “Not right now. I can’t, I need…”
“Okay.” He holds up his hands, backing away. “Okay. I’ll give you space. I’ll be in my study if you, when you…” He stops, swallows hard. “I love you, Willow. Whatever else you believe about me, please believe that. I have never wanted anything but you.”
He turns and disappears down the hallway before I can respond.
Mrs. Potts guides me back to my room, her hand steady on my elbow.
“I’ve got you, dear,” she murmurs. “Just breathe.”
I sink into the chair by the window and let the sobs take me.
The check. Two million dollars. Offered and rejected and never mentioned, not once, in five years of marriage.
What else don’t I know?
What other secrets has he buried in the foundation of the life I thought we’d built together?
I press my hand to my belly and try to remember what it felt like to trust anyone at all.