32. Riley
“That’s unbelievably fucked up,”Olivia says.
She’s on speaker as I sit in my room, drawing at the little desk in the corner. I’m putting the finishing touches on a pencil sketch of a tortoise, which I promised Archie I would teach him to draw. I just finished filling Olivia in on the situation with my mother.
“You’re telling me,” I groan, shading the tortoise’s pupils. “She’s a mess. The whole situation is a mess.”
“I don’t know why, but I thought she might give up after the last time.”
Olivia has been my friend long enough to know the entire sordid history between me and my mother. She’s been there on other occasions when my mom tried to contact me, and she’s been my shoulder to cry on when everything fell apart. It’s nice, not having to explain myself to her.
“I know,” I agree. “But she never does, does she?”
“Guess not. But you were right to try to keep those walls up. Your mom doesn’t deserve to be in your life, and it’s for the best if you keep her at a distance.”
“Yeah.” I flip the pencil around, using the eraser to put a little shine into my tortoise’s wizened eyes. “Thanks, Liv. I really needed to hear that.”
“Any time,” she says. “And I do mean, any time. Like, if your mom calls you, you can redirect her to me.”
“You sound like Cole,” I say with a chuckle. My humor fades as quickly as it came, and I sigh, setting the pencil down. “I’m just so humiliated that it happened in front of Cole—and Archie. Like, why did she have to talk to me like that in front of a child?”
“She’s a piece of shit,” Olivia reminds me helpfully, bringing my smile back by degrees.
“Okay. True.” I shake my head and resume my drawing. “I keep thinking Cole’s going to see me as trashy, but… he never does. I’m just waiting for the other shoe to drop.”
Olivia doesn’t reply, but makes a slight humming sound, like she’s waiting for me to say more.
“Offering his support like that… it was so… I don’t know. It was good of him, you know? And I’m really grateful.”
I guess there must have been something in my tone, a feeling I couldn’t hide, because Olivia immediately says, “Okay, I’ve been meaning to ask—what exactly is going on between the two of you?”
“I’m… not really sure.”
“Oh, don’t be cagey with me. Come on. Seriously.” There’s a pause, and she asks tentatively, “Are you falling in love with him?”
I bite my lip. “I can’t answer that.”
The answer, I’m pretty sure, is a resounding yes. And there’s no way I can bring myself to say that out loud.
To my surprise, Olivia doesn’t push for an answer, even though I can practically feel her burning curiosity through the phone. Instead, she just lets a silence hang for a few seconds before saying, “Well, I wish you luck dealing with your mom. If you need anything, just call, okay?”
“Of course,” I say with a smile. “Thanks, Liv. Love you.”
“Love you, too.”
* * *
“Kerry’s at the door,”Cole says, leaning into the living room. “You ready?”
I steel myself, rising from the part of the floor where I was sitting cross-legged with Archie.
“Aw,” Archie starts to complain, but Cole shoots him a stern look.
“Be good, Archer,” he says. “We’re only going to be gone for a little while, okay?”
“You get to hang out with Kerry,” I add. “You and Kerry are pals, right?”
Archie nods, but he still looks disappointed, listlessly dragging a toy train across its tracks as Cole and I leave the room. Kerry brushes past us with a nod of greeting and a smile.
“You sure you’re ready for this?” Cole murmurs, holding open the front door. “You could call her and tell her something came up.”
“I’m ready,” I say, though my voice wavers. “I don’t want to put this off anymore.”
I step out into the brisk air.
Cole could have called us a car, but instead, he opts to drive—probably to avoid giving my mother any more ammunition. It’s a ten minute ride to the park she agreed to meet me at, and we ride most of the way in silence.
When we park, Cole glances at me out of the corner of his eye. “It’s going to be okay,” he says, his voice calm and reassuring. “You can do this.”
I take a deep breath, preparing myself to get out of the car. Up ahead, on the path, I can see a woman in a red coat, sitting on a bench; I think that’s her.
Cole’s right. It’s going to be okay. We chose this park as a neutral location, and he’s here, supporting me.
I climb out of the car, and Cole follows me, backing me up. I start to approach the bench. When I’m close enough to see that the woman sitting there is, in fact, my mother, she gets to her feet as well.
There’s an aggressiveness in her posture that doesn’t bode well. I hesitate, almost turning around to run back to the car, but Cole’s steady presence behind me keeps me moving forward.
“You’re late,” my mother says, which is definitely not true—if anything, we’re early. She stops in front of me, arms folded, and looks me up and down.
“Sorry,” I say, knowing better than to argue. I need to save my energy for when I need it.
“Now that you’re here, I think you know exactly what I need from you,” she says haughtily. “It seems to me that you’ve got more money than you know what to do with.”
She sniffs, glancing toward the parking lot, where Cole’s shining black sedan is within view.
“That’s not true,” I say, but she ignores me.
“I’m your mother. I need help. You need to help me. It’s your duty as my daughter.”
I shoot a glance over my shoulder at Cole, then straighten my shoulders. “No.”
My mother blinks at me, taken aback. “I’m sorry… what did you say?”
“I said, no, Mom. No.”
Silence hangs between us, cut only by the sounds of geese honking at a pond in the distance. She stares at me in disbelief, her expression quickly morphing into a scowl.
“How dare you, you ungrateful—”
“Stop contacting me,” I interrupt, my heart in my throat. I hope I sound more confident than I feel. “Stop asking me for things. I don’t want you in my life.”
“I’m your flesh and blood,” she snarls, her eyes tight with rage. “Does that mean nothing to you?”
“You know what? No. I don’t care about any of that,” I tell her. “You were never a mother to me when it counted, so you don’t get to lean on our blood relationship to try to demand favors now. Like I said—I don’t want you in my life. End of story.”
My mother is quiet for a moment, but it’s a dangerous kind of quiet, the calm before the storm. I can see the anger building in the paleness of her face, the way the tops of her cheeks redden. I brace myself for the onslaught.
And, like a hurricane, she explodes. “Fuck you, Riley! You little brat! I gave birth to you! You’re my child!”
“I’m not your property,” I say, but my voice is too quiet, lost in the face of her fury.
“You owe me!”
“Excuse me,” says Cole. His hand comes to rest on my shoulder, and at once, a sense of peace sparks inside of me.
I’d forgotten he was there. I’m not alone in this.
“Who the fuck are you?” my mother demands, rudely jutting her chin out at Cole.
“I am someone who’s here to support Riley,” Cole says. He speaks with a coolness that seems to cancel out her fire, measured and careful, but every bit as dangerous. “Someone with the resources that she lacks, despite your assumptions about her financial situation.”
My mother’s face twitches. “Give me a break. Who do you think you are, riding in on your high horse and—”
“Those resources,” Cole interrupts, “are enough to ensure that, if you chose not to listen to your daughter’s requests—if you continue to make her life hell—then it would be no trouble at all for me to sue you.”
Her mouth falls open for a second, then she snaps it shut. “You’re bluffing,” she says, but she sounds uncertain. “This is a family matter. The courts have nothing to do with it.”
“Given the history between the two of you, I suspect that the courts have everything to do with it. I think it would be no trouble at all for Riley to file a restraining order against you, citing past harassment. And I think that, if you violated that restraining order, I would put my considerable resources to the task of making your life even more miserable than you’re making hers.”
Wordless now, my mother gapes at him. I feel a sudden warmth in me as it truly sinks in: I’m protected. He’s offering to protect me.
Cole blinks, his face still impassive even as his eyes burn. “Are we clear?”
Without speaking, my mother nods. She seems shocked, as if he has rattled her to her core.
“Good,” Cole says. “I want you to stay out of Riley’s life. If you do that, we won’t have a problem. We don’t have to go to all of that legal trouble. But if you don’t… I will follow through on all of this.”
There’s no anger in his tone; he doesn’t even have to raise his voice. There is a veiled threat in his calm words that even my mother can’t ignore, and I believe him, beyond a shadow of a doubt.
She blinks a few times, then shakes her head as if to clear it. Then she turns to me. The rage is still written across her face.
“I can’t believe you,” she hisses. “You’re a horrible daughter… and a horrible person, hiding behind this man instead of working this out with me yourself.”
I clench my fists, biting my tongue to stop myself from snapping back. She’s lost touch with reality if she thinks I could have ever worked this out with her myself—if she thinks I haven’t tried, at least a hundred times.
But it’s worthless to argue with her now, when I’m so close to being done with this once and for all.
Beside me, I can feel Cole tense, like he’s ready to defend me, but my mother turns on her heel and marches away before he can do or say anything.
I let out a breath, relieved, and slump against Cole as we watch my mother stalk down the path, her impractical heels clicking on the asphalt. I start to laugh weakly, but the laughter quickly begins to turn into tears.
Cole pulls me into his arms, and I bury my face against his chest, crying. He consoles me, rubbing my upper back.
“Let it out,” he says quietly. “It’s better this way.”
“I know,” I say, sniffing as I straighten to wipe tears from my eyes. “It’s a relief to have done it, and I hope it works. I hope that’s the end of this mess. But…”
“It’s still hard.”
“Yeah.” I nod, turning to look at my mother’s receding back. In the distance, she walks past a group of bikers, only distinguishable by her red coat. “I know it’s best with her gone, but I feel like I’m in mourning, even if she’s still alive.”
I glance up at Cole. He nods, his jaw tight and his gaze fixed in the distance. “I get that,” he says. “And I know how difficult that can be.”
For a moment, the two of us stand in silence on the path. He holds me, and I cry quietly, trying to purge the emotions that the confrontation has stirred up.
As the group of bikers reaches us, I take a deep breath and step away from him.
“Are you okay?” he asks.
I nod, though I’m not quite sure.
“Listen—Kerry is still with Archie,” Cole says. “I didn’t know how long this would take, so I told her it might be a few hours. Let me take you to dinner.”
“You don’t have to do that,” I say, rubbing at my puffy eyes. I’m certain they’re bloodshot. I must be quite the sight.
“I want to, angel,” he murmurs. “Let me do this for you. We’ll have a nice evening, just the two of us.”
I give him a grateful smile. “Okay. Sure.”