“I’m in here.” Sniffling and small whimpers come from the living room.
I round the corner to see her curled up on the couch. With the vaulted ceilings and overstuffed furniture, she looks tiny in this space. I cross to her and drop to the opposite end of the sofa. Her blond hair is piled high on her head, eyes puffy and bloodshot, and her lips are swollen from crying. Even now, after all the heartbreak combined with her unhealthy lifestyle, I can still see a sliver of the woman I married. She was so gorgeous, so full of life, and now . . . I look around the room, unable to stomach how broken she’s become.
“House looks good.” Pathetic, but I can’t think of what else to say. We both know why I’m here. She has no one, burned all her bridges and chased away every friend she ever made.
“Cleaning lady.” Her voice is small and fades with another sniff.
“You wanted to talk?”
“Yeah.” She pushes herself up a little and straightens her wrinkled tee. “Ryder doesn’t want anything to do with me.”
“He’s a grown man, ’Li. Nothing I can do to help you there.” She can’t possibly be surprised that after fourteen years of being ignored by his mother he’d want nothing to do with her. I wish I could muster up some pity for the woman, but it’s as if there’s a sheet of glass between us. I can see her and hear her, but even with her pain so obvious, I can’t bring myself to console her.
“I think I’m sick.”
“Can you be more specific?”
She shrugs and wipes at her nose with her shirtsleeve. “I can’t eat, never sleep. I’m . . .” A sob rips from her chest. Her body shakes with each wave of sorrow, and the smell of hard liquor seeps from her body. “I don’t know what’s wrong.”
“You’re a drunk.”
A gasp cuts off her crying. “No—”
I hold up my hand. “Don’t waste your time. You’re not fooling me or anyone else.”
She blinks and drops her chin to her chest.
“Not tryin’ to hurt you, ’Li, but think of this from Ryder’s eyes. You’ve been choosing booze over our boy since . . .” The twinge of discomfort in my chest reminds me of how far I’ve come.
There isn’t much that causes me to cringe anymore. There was a time, back after I fell, that I could cry. I’d watch Ryder toddle around the house, calling out for his twin sister, who was never coming home. I’d hold D’lilah in my arms as she wept and cried out to God. The pain was so intense, like having my heart ripped from my chest on repeat.
Then one day I pulled myself up. It was time to stop rolling around playing victim, and I was ready to take back by force all I’d lost starting with the octagon. I stopped caring, refused to feel, and that shit worked wonders. So I don’t envy D’lilah and all she’s wrestling with. I gave all that up years ago.
After what seems like forever, her tears finally dry. “I’m sorry, Cam. I’m such a mess.”
“You think it might be time to get some help? Try rehab again?”
She pushes up; her blue eyes bore into mine. “You want to lock me up?”
“Your life. Your call. I’m thinking that if you want to know your son you need to show him you’re willing to put all this shit”—I motion to the empty wine glass on the table—“aside and put him first.”
“Ha!” Her eyes narrow. “Typical, Cam. That’s your answer to everything, isn’t it? When people become a burden, you send them away.”
My jaw clenches. “Fuck you.” Too late to bite down on my impulse, I brace.
“Fuck me?” Her voice is loud, shrill. “It wasn’t my head that exploded and made me stupid was it, Cam? Fuck me? You walked away when the backdoor was wide open.” She coughs on a sob. “Our little girl . . .”
“I’m not doing this with you.” I push to stand and prepare to leave, unable to believe I actually left a business meeting for this shit. Not that I wasn’t more than happy to escape the Jonah-Owen standoff. “You think I don’t wake up every morning of my life aware of the mistakes I’ve made. I live with those regrets every hour of every fucking day.”
“You son of a bitch—”
“You wanna blame me, I get that. But don’t forget, ’Li, you’d be living on the streets, sucking booze out of half-empty beer bottles in trashcans if it weren’t for me.”
She crumbles in on herself, and I watch the fight drain out of her. “You’re right.”
Well, that’s something, I guess. “No shit.”
She cringes at my response, sighs, and drops her head back on the couch. “I miss my son.”
She needs comfort, but my anger for her abandoning Ryder when he was so young keeps me distant.
“I’ll quit.”
“You serious?”
“I’ll try.” She shrugs. “But do you think you could get Ry over here maybe? Just for dinner?”
“’Li—”
“Please, Cam. He’ll do it for you.”
Shit. I stare at the broken woman before me and contemplate stomping out of the house and leaving her to her crap, but the backdoor catches my eye.
I scroll to Ryder’s number and hit send.