I feel more lost right now than I’ve ever been. I’m tangled in something much greater than myself. How deep does Jeremy’s thirst for vengeance truly run? Has everything that’s happened to me based only on the discovery that Robin made…or is there more, much more, here at work?
I know one thing. I won’t get answers from afar. I need to get back to California, back to Jeremy Stonehart, as soon as possible. The time for diplomacy is over. The time for demands is now.
I need to go to Jeremy and demand answers. He claims he loves me? He can prove it then. And if sending me away was his misguided attempt at protecting me, at shielding me from whatever is going on inside Stonehart Industries—
No. I stop short. I can’t forget myself. Neither can I forget the man I’m dealing with. He’s Jeremy Stonehart, and Jeremy Stonehart never makes mistakes. He does not miscalculate. He does nothing that can ever be called ‘misguided’.
Maybe…maybe starting to think of him as ‘Jeremy’ was the biggest mistake I’ve yet made. It personified a monster. It made me forget. It made me underestimate.
I cannot be dumb enough to give Jeremy—or Stonehart—that advantage.
“Lilly?” My mom calls out. She emerges from the bedroom holding a pile of clothes. “I wasn’t sure what you’d like, or what would fit—”
“Mom,” I cut her off, closing the magazine, and stand up. If I’m to leave tomorrow, there’s no more time to waste. “We need to talk about Paul.”
Chapter Fourteen
For as long as I can remember, Renee was not one to handle uncomfortable topics well.
She feigns ignorance. “Paul?” she asks, scrunching up her forehead. “Who’s Paul? You don’t mean Paul Paul, do you?” She gives a forced chuckle. “I don’t even know how you remember him, Lilly. The last time you saw him, it was so long ago…”
“I know he’s my father,” I say softly.
Mom stops short. For a second, she looks on the verge of tipping over.
Instead, she just takes a step to the side and sags against the wall. “Oh, God,” she breathes.
A rush of excitement runs through me. I know it’s probably wrong, but her reaction confirms my father’s identity. The lingering shadow of doubt is cast from my mind.
She meets my eyes, then, and suddenly looks more helpless than I’ve ever seen her. It makes me want to rush over and comfort her. But…I can’t.
We’re both adults. We need to treat each other as such. More than that, more than being adults, we’re practically strangers. Both of us have changed so much that we might as well be starting from scratch. And with this revelation, that’s exactly where we stand.
She pushes off against the wall and walks away.
“Wait,” I say. “Where are you going?”
“I need a cigarette,” she mutters. She bends beneath the kitchen sink, and resurfaces with a box of smokes, a lighter…and an unopened bottle of Johnny Walker.
“I promised myself that I wouldn’t,” she says under her breath. “This was the last bottle I ever bought. I swore that if I could keep it in the house and not touch it…I’d know I’ve gone clean.”
She laughs. Her hand hovers over the neck, trembling. “I’ve managed it for three years, Lilly. Maybe I was just saving it for a time like this.”
My gut clenches. I don’t want to be the reason she breaks sobriety.
She breaks the seal before I can speak. All her movements are tense and jittery. She takes out a tall beer glass, and all the memories of scenes exactly like this, playing out in our many apartment kitchens, come rushing back.
“Mom, wait,” I say. I search desperately for something to distract her with. “Wait. Don’t. Why don’t you just…just have a cigarette first?”
“Hah!” She barks a laugh. Her eyes are glued to the bottle. I can see the internal struggle unfolding in the shifting expressions of her face. “Have a cigarette, you say? I never thought I’d hear the words from you. You were always so much about clean living.” She fills the words with a touch of scorn, but I think that’s just to mask the envy. “Drop one bad habit, and pick up another, am I right?” She picks up the bottle and brings the lip over the glass.
Don’t. I beg in my head. Don’t, don’t, don’t.
I’d never be able to live with the guilt of knowing I pushed my mother back into alcoholism.
Slowly, she tips the bottle. Starts to pour. And then—at the last second—jerks her hand sideways over the sink, and flushes all the alcohol down the drain.
She looks at the empty bottle, completely impassively. “Or maybe,” she says, “I was saving it to do that.”
With a quick motion, she tosses the glass container in the trash. She snaps up the cigarettes and walks back to me, sits down, and lights one.
“Don’t judge me,” she warns, and then inhales deeply. The smoke seems to take a little of the edge off. She closes her eyes, takes one more deep puff, savoring it before she lets it out. Then she leans back and looks at me.
“So,” she sighs. “Paul.”
“Yup,” I say. “Paul.”
“Your father,” her mouth twists. “What he would say, were he to see me now… How long have you known? Is that why you came to find me? Wait,” Renee holds up on hand. “Don’t answer that. Let a mother believe it was just from the goodness of your heart.”
“I’ve known…for a month or so,” I say. “And no. That’s not why I came. I came to fix things. To make amends. To say…” I avert my eyes. “To say the thing I told you back at the diner.”
Renee looks me up and own. She glances at the cigarette, makes a sound of disgust, and smothers it against the coffee table. Then she looks back at me, her eyes filled with warmth, and she smiles. “To say that you love me?”
I give a little nod.
“You don’t know how much that means to me,” she admits. She sits up, and suddenly becomes much more business-like. “So, Paul. What do you want to know?”
“Is he… really my father?” I say. I know better than to still wonder about that. But I need verbal confirmation from the one person in the world I trust to give it without bias.
“Yes,” she says. “He really is your father.”
“Then why… why did you tell me all those horrible things about him? After the two of you broke up? I mean, I have my theories…”
“You have your theories.” She chuckles. “There’s my Lilly. Always so analytical. I bet that’s served you well at Yale, huh?” She adds casually.
I stop short. “Wait. You know?”
“The whole world knows, honey.” She sorts through her magazines and finds the one that I was looking at earlier. She tosses it to me. “There. Go on. Have a look. It’s got pretty much everything on you. I was waiting for you to bring it up yourself, so I could say how proud I am of you. But, since we’re sharing secrets…” She shrugs.
I leave the magazine unopened. “I already saw the story. I’m sorry for not telling you about Yale, mom. But I got in such a long time ago…so much has happened since then…it just didn’t seem all that important.”
“Not that important?” She scoffs. “Imagine the conversation at work: ‘Oh, hi Renee. I heard your daughter is going to graduate from the Ivy League this year, no big deal, right?’”
She looks at me…waiting…and then she starts to laugh.
The tension oozes out of me. “You’re teasing?”
“Of course I’m teasing! I’m so proud of you! To think, my daughter, an Ivy League grad, and now linked with a certain Jeremy Stonehart? You’ve got your whole life set. And me?” She glances down at herself. “What you must think of me. Some example I am, huh?”
“Mom, don’t,” I say. “I’m not here for that.”
“And I’m changing the subject as usual. Back to Paul. Right? To your father? The reason I told you those things about him, Lilly, is because …because he hurt me. I was upset, and angry. You don’t understand. How could you? You haven’t experienced heartache of the kind—”
/>
She stops, and looks at me. An eyebrow goes up. “Or, have you? I hope that’s not the reason you showed up. You and Jeremy Stonehart, you’re still…”
“Joined at the hip,” I say drily.
“Where is he? Is he here with you? Do I get to meet him?” She barks a harsh laugh. “Yeah, right. As if you’d introduce me to someone like him.”
“It’s not that, mom,” I say. “Jeremy’s in California. Working. Where I should be. In fact, you and I don’t have much time. I’m going back tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow? But you just showed up! We’ve got five years of catching up to do, Lilly. I don’t know what you’ve been doing, how you’ve been—well, aside from the stories that were printed this week. But you told me not to trust them…”
“You shouldn’t,” I say. “They always blow things out of proportion. Wait until you hear it from me.”
“I’m here, aren’t I? I’m listening? That’s what we’re doing.” She sighs. “But I guess you want to know more about your father. About Paul?”
“Yes,” I say. “Why did he leave after I was born? How come he never stuck around?”
Renee exhales. “Drugs,” she says. “He was always chasing a high. I thought I could change him. I thought I could fix him, help him heal.” She gives a sad, little laugh and shakes her head. “As all women do when they’re young, in love, and don’t know any better. Men don’t change, Lilly. If there’s one thing you can learn from my pitiful life, it’s that. God knows it’s taken me too long to figure it out myself.”
“And…where did he go, after I was born?”
Renee makes a vague weaving motion through the air with her hand. “Away. Somewhere. I don’t know. I didn’t keep tabs. In fact, I thought it best for us to have a clean break. When I got pregnant with you, Lilly, I hoped that a child could unite us. I hoped that you would be reason enough for him to change.” She looks away, at the far wall. I can see her fighting the emotions that threaten to rise up.
“I was stupid,” she announces finally. “Stupid and wrong. There is no changing men like that.”
“And after?” I probe softly. “How did you guys…get back together?”
“He found us,” she says with a sigh. “Claimed he’d cleaned up. Said he couldn’t stop thinking about—well, about you. About the family he left behind. He begged me to give him a second chance.”
“And you did?” I ask.
“No,” she says. “Not right away. I was still wary. I wanted him to prove his dedication. To show that he didn’t want you to suffer the way I had. He begged to see you. I said no. He’d left us once, left me on my own to raise you. He just thought he could show up nine years after and pop back into our lives as if nothing had ever gone wrong?”
“Wait, nine years?” I ask. “I remember that summer at his cabin. I was twelve!”
“What, you think I took him back right away? Hell no. I couldn’t just forgive him like that.” She snaps her fingers. “No matter how much, on the inside, I wanted to,” she adds softly.
“So you made him wait three years?” I ask in disbelief. This is new to me. I’d assumed, from the story Paul told, that it happened right away.
“I don’t know if you remember, but I was with another guy at the time,” she says. “What was his name? Harry, Henry, Hank… something like that.” She laughs, looks at the remains of her cigarette, shrugs, and takes one more from the box. She lights it. “What an example I am. Your mother, the whore.”
“Mom!” I exclaim. “Don’t say that.”
“Why not?” she asks. “It’s true, isn’t it? How many men have you seen me bring home over the years? No, no, don’t answer. But don’t pretend it hasn’t affected you, either. Some impression it must have made. I’ve come to terms with most things in my life. Sobriety…forced me to face all of them. I couldn’t hide from myself any more. The only thing I truly regretted—and this comes from the heart, Lilly—is how badly I fucked things up with you.”
“No,” I say. “Mom, it wasn’t your fault. It—”
She frowns at me, showing her skepticism.
“It wasn’t entirely your fault,” I hedge. “I played my part, too.”
“Do you remember the fight we had?” she asks. The tip of her cigarette goes bright as she breathes through it.
“Which one?” I ask with a crooked smile.
She chuckles. “There were a lot, weren’t there? I’m sorry. I know it was—oh, this is your favorite word—irresponsible of me. No, the one I’m talking about is our first big one. The one that made you run away from home. The one where you said you wouldn’t keep working.”
“The one where I said you should stop drinking,” I add softly.
“Yes,” she nods. “That one. It’ took me a long time to work up the courage to accept the things you told me then, Lilly. I knew you were right. But I couldn’t face the reality until you left for good. That’s when I felt I had truly lost you. And I knew it was my own fault.”
“Mom, look,” I begin, wringing my hands. “I know I said some things that night. Things I regret. Things I probably shouldn’t have. They came from a place of anger. But I didn’t …I never…I never hated you.” I give a weak smile. “Despite my parting words.”
“No,” she says. Her eyes bore into me with a sudden intensity. “Don’t you dare apologize, Lilly Ryder. Everything you said that night was the absolute truth. It was the wake-up call I needed—even if it did take a few more years for me to accept.
“But no,” she continues. “The first fight is when I really began to question myself. I kept your father away from you because I didn’t want you to hurt the way that I did. But what if I was the cause of your pain? What if I was the reason for your suffering? What if I inflicted all the things onto you that I tried to shield you from?”
“Mom…”
“Don’t cut me off, Lilly,” she snaps. “If we’re having a heart-to-heart, this is the way to do it. Just listen while I speak. I stayed up all night crying the first time you left. I vowed that if I ever saw you again, I would give up the bottle for good.”
She inhales once more. “Of course, that didn’t happen. The morning after you came back, I woke up, and what did I do? I poured a shot of vodka in my espresso. I hated myself then, Lilly. Oh, how I loathed what I’d become. I was weak, tempted, and frail.
“Maybe the real reason I didn’t keep my promise was because you came back so soon, because I got you back so easily. I didn’t have to change if I wanted to see you again. And so, I didn’t.
“But that broken promise, unspoken to anyone, not known by anyone other than me… it dug at me. And it hurt. It consumed my mind: my failure, my failure, my failure.
“I wasn’t past addressing reality. I could see what a hypocrite I’d become. I kept your father away from you, deprived you of growing up with a dad, all for what? To become someone just like him?
“No.” She stops and her eyes take on a faraway look. “Not someone like him. Someone worse. Your father, he did drugs. But he could…he could control his cravings. A ‘functional addict’, isn’t that the term they use these days? And I…I was exactly the opposite.”
“But you’re not anymore!” I say gruffly. I smile.
“No,” she agrees. “But the damage had already been done. I know I ruined your teens, Lilly. Those are years you can never have back. Things should never have deteriorated into what they became. And who holds the ultimate responsibility for that? I do. I’m just shocked—astounded, really—at all you’ve managed to accomplish. All you’ve managed to do, despite your upbringing. I mean really, Lilly: Yale? That’s almost beyond belief. Hell, to be honest,” she fixes me with one of her looks, “I don’t know if I would have believed you, had you come to me today and told me, if I hadn’t seen it in print.”
“Thanks for having faith in me, mom,” I say dryly. Then I wink.
She laughs. Then she stops, blinks, and says, “God, it feels good to laugh. Especially because I’m doing it w
ith you.”
That sentiment warms my insides. This is the woman I’ve despised for so long? This is the woman for whom I’ve held so much contempt?
I can hardly believe how stupid I’ve been. I couldn’t see past my own struggles to look at hers. All I could see was the alcoholism. I never even tried to understand the woman—the person—behind it all.
And for that, I am truly sorry. But I already know better than to live with regret. I’m just glad to have finally gained the strength to find her, to see her, and to put the past where it belongs.
“So enough about that,” I say. I’ve gotten the other thing I needed from her: confirmation. Confirmation that Paul’s story checks out. Now I know that he was telling the truth, and that Jeremy didn’t set it all up to deceive me.
If only I could say the same about Hugh.
“How have you been, mom?”
“Oh, you know.” She gives a half-hearted shrug. “Hanging in there, I guess.”
“I saw you at work earlier,” I say. “You owned the place.”
“What, you didn’t think I had it in me?”
“No, no,” I backtrack. “It’s just—”
“Lilly. Relax. I’m toying with you. Nothing you could say can ever upset me. You don’t know how grateful I am just to see you again. It still feels a bit surreal, kind of like a dream, to have you sitting in my trailer.”
“Well, I’m no miracle,” I say with a smile. “I’m really real. And I’m really here.”
“I’ve been working there for almost a year,” she says. “It’s good. It’s stable. The customers aren’t so bad. There are a few regulars who tip well…” she winks. “I pay a few of them back in my own special way.”
“Mom!”
“What? You don’t think I still have it in me? Last I checked, I’m more or less the same age as the man you’re currently involved with, and I don’t see you doubting his sexual prowess—”
“I do not want to talk about your sex life, mom!” I exclaim. “Or mine.”
Uncovering You: The Complete Series (Mega Box Set) Page 67
