Chapter Twenty-Two Travis
Chapter Twenty-Two
Travis
I drive to my parents' house on a Thursday.
I don't tell Kelly I'm going. She'd try to talk me out of it, or worse, she'd insist on coming with me. And this is something I need to do alone. A conversation that's been building for years, maybe decades. A door I should have closed a long time ago.
The drive takes four hours. I leave at dawn and watch the sun rise over the highway, the sky going from black to gray to pale gold. I don't listen to music. I don't call anyone. I just drive, letting my thoughts unspool in the silence.
I've been thinking about this since the story broke.
Since I read those articles and saw what my family was willing to do to Kelly—to us—just to get back at me.
I told myself I was done with them before.
I drew lines, set boundaries, made threats.
But I always left the door cracked. Always let them believe there was a way back in.
Not anymore.
The house looks the same as it always has.
A split-level in a nice suburb, the lawn trimmed, the hedges neat.
My father bought it with money I gave him five years ago.
My mother redecorated it with more money I gave her three years ago.
Every brick, every window, every perfectly placed garden gnome is a reminder of how much I've poured into this family and how little I've gotten back.
I park in the driveway and sit for a moment, gathering myself. My hands are steady on the wheel. My heartbeat is calm. I thought I'd be nervous, but I'm not. I'm just tired. Tired of fighting, tired of hoping, tired of pretending things might change.
I get out of the truck and walk to the front door. I don't knock. I just open it and walk in, the way I used to when I was a kid, before everything got complicated.
My mother is in the kitchen. I can hear her talking to someone—on the phone, probably. Her voice carries through the house, the way it always is when she's trying to impress someone.
"—and I said to her, Patricia, you can't just let people walk all over you. You have to stand up for yourself. That's what I've always taught my children—"
She stops mid-sentence when she sees me in the doorway.
"I'll call you back," she says into the phone, and hangs up without waiting for a response. "Travis. What are you doing here?"
"We need to talk."
"You could have called."
"You wouldn't have answered. And I didn't want to do this over the phone."
She sets down the phone and crosses her arms, studying me the way she used to when I was a teenager coming home past curfew. Looking for weakness, for an angle, for something she can use.
"Is this about those articles?" she asks. "Because I had nothing to do with that. I don't know where those reporters got their information."
"Don't." I hold up my hand. "Don't lie to me. Not today. I know it was you and Savannah. 'Sources close to the family.' Who else would that be?"
Her jaw tightens. "We were trying to protect you."
"Protect me? You called Kelly a gold digger. You said she was controlling and calculating. You tried to destroy her reputation just because she's with me."
"Because she's isolating you! You haven't spoken to us in months, Travis. You've been hiding out in that cottage, ignoring your career, ignoring your family—"
"I've been living my life. My life, not yours.
" I step further into the kitchen, and she takes a half-step back.
Good. "For years, I did everything you asked.
I gave you money. I bought Dad his truck, paid for Savannah's wedding, funded every emergency you manufactured.
And the one time I set a boundary, the one time I said no, you froze me out. "
"That's not fair."
"It's completely fair. It's exactly what happened.
" I'm not yelling. I'm not even raising my voice.
I don't need to. The truth is loud enough on its own.
"And when freezing me out didn't work, you tried a different approach.
You came to Kelly's house. You interrogated her.
And when that didn't work either, you went to the press. "
"We were worried about you."
"You were worried about losing access to me. To my money. To whatever you thought you could still get." I shake my head. "I'm not a bank account, Mom. I'm your son. But you've never been able to see the difference."
"That's not true." Her voice wavers, just slightly. "I love you, Travis. Everything I've done has been because I love you."
"Then you have a very strange way of showing it.
" I think about all the times she called asking for money, all the times she made me feel guilty for having more than her.
All the times she told me I'd changed, that success had made me selfish, that I owed my family more than I was giving.
"You know what real love looks like? It looks like Mrs. Dawson, taking me in when I had nowhere else to go.
Not asking questions, not expecting anything, just giving me a place to heal. "
"That woman is dead."
"Yeah. She is. And she did more for me in six months than you've done in thirty years."
My mother flinches. Good. I want that to land.
"And Kelly," I continue. "Kelly, who you called a gold digger. Kelly, who didn't know I had money until weeks after we got together. She loves me, Mom. Not my career, not my bank account. Me. The person I actually am, not the person you wish I was."
"You barely know her."
"I know her better than I know you. I know her better than I know anyone in this family.
" I lean forward. "And here's the thing—she knows me too.
The real me. The one who made a terrible mistake and is trying to live with it.
The one who misses his grandmother every single day.
The one who's been hiding in a cottage in Virginia because he couldn't stand the thought of being around people who only wanted him for what he could give them. "
The kitchen is very quiet. I can hear the clock ticking on the wall, the hum of the refrigerator, the sound of a car passing on the street outside.
"Where's Dad?" I ask.
"At work."
"And Savannah?"
"I don't know. Her apartment, probably."
"Good. Then this is between you and me." I pull out a chair and sit down at the kitchen table, the same table where I ate breakfast every morning for eighteen years. "I'm going to say this once, and I need you to really hear me."
My mother doesn't sit. She stays standing, arms still crossed, her face a mask of injured dignity.
"I'm done," I say. "Not pulling back, not setting boundaries. Done. I don't want to see you. I don't want to hear from you. I don't want you anywhere near Kelly, or near my life."
"You can't mean that."
"I've never meant anything more." I lean back in the chair. "What you did—the articles, the lies, trying to destroy the one good thing in my life—that's not something I can forgive. And honestly, I don't want to. I'm tired of forgiving you. I'm tired of hoping you'll change."
"We're your family, Travis."
"No. You're people I'm related to. Family is something different.
" I think about Kelly, about her friends showing up with wine and bad dating stories.
About Mrs. Dawson, who took me in without asking questions.
About my grandmother, who loved me without conditions.
"Family shows up for each other. Family doesn't sell each other out to tabloids. "
My mother's mask slips, just for a second. I see something underneath—anger, maybe, or fear. She's losing control of the situation, and she doesn't know how to get it back.
"If you do this," she says slowly, "there's no coming back. You understand that, right? You walk out that door, and that's it. We're done."
"That's what I'm counting on."
I stand up. The chair scrapes against the floor, loud in the silence.
"Tell Dad I said goodbye. And tell Savannah that if she contacts Kelly again—if she even thinks about it—I'll make sure everyone knows exactly what kind of person she is."
"That's a threat."
"It's a promise."
I walk to the front door. My mother follows me, her heels clicking on the hardwood.
"You're making a mistake," she says. "That woman has you wrapped around her finger. When she leaves you—and she will leave you, Travis, they always do—you're going to wish you hadn't burned this bridge."
I turn to face her one last time. She's standing in the hallway, backlit by the kitchen light, looking smaller than I remember.
For a moment I feel something that might be pity.
She's lost, and she doesn't even know it.
She's spent so long manipulating people that she doesn't know how to have a real relationship anymore.
But pity isn't forgiveness. And I'm done pretending otherwise.
"Goodbye, Mom."
I walk out the door and close it behind me. The click of the latch feels final. Definitive. Like the end of something that should have ended years ago.
The drive back is easier than the drive there.
I stop for coffee at a gas station, call Dave to update him, let him know the family situation is officially resolved.
He says something about damage control and media strategy, but I'm barely listening.
My mind is already in Longshore, already at Kelly's house, already thinking about what comes next.
I get home around four. Kelly's on the porch when I pull in, wrapped in a blanket, her laptop open beside her. She stands up when she sees my truck, her face uncertain.
"Where have you been?" she asks as I climb the porch steps. "I've been texting you all day."
"I know. I'm sorry." I pull her into my arms, holding her tight. "I went to see my parents."
She goes still. "You what?"
"I ended it. For real this time. Told my mother I was done, that I didn't want to see her or hear from her again."
Kelly pulls back to look at me. "Travis. That's... are you okay?"
"Yeah." I realize, as I say it, that it's true. "I'm more than okay. I feel like I just put down something I've been carrying for twenty years."
"What did she say?"
"That I was making a mistake. That you'd leave me eventually." I tuck a strand of hair behind her ear. "She's wrong. About all of it."
"How do you know?"
"Because I know you. And I know what we have." I kiss her forehead. "They don't get to touch this anymore. They don't get to poison it. Whatever happens next, it's just us. You and me."
Kelly's eyes are bright. She blinks, and a tear slides down her cheek. I brush it away with my thumb.
"I love you," she says.
It's the first time either of us has said it. The words hang in the air between us, fragile and enormous.
"I love you too," I say. "I should have said it sooner. I've been feeling it for weeks."
"Me too." She laughs, a little breathless. "This is crazy, right? Two months ago, I didn't even know your last name."
"And now you're stuck with me."
"I'm not stuck. I'm choosing." She rises on her toes and kisses me, soft and slow. "I'm choosing you, Travis. All of you. Even the messy parts."
We stand there on the porch as the sun starts to set, wrapped around each other, the last of the winter cold biting at our edges.