“No kidding.” My jaw flexed. “She makes me feel…she makes me feel.”
Noise spilled out of the restaurant behind me. I spun, spotting Catherine carrying Joey in her car seat over her arm.
“Elliot, look, I’m sorry—” I cut Weston off with my raised hand, walking away from them without looking back.
It killed me that the two of them couldn’t be pleased for me, and Weston’s accusations would be circling my mind for some time. Not because there was any veracity to them but because he believed they might’ve been true.
I slipped the cart seat from Catherine’s hold and wrapped my arm around her shoulders.
Touching my lips to her temple, I held her for a moment, grounding myself in her soft, easy presence.
“Come on, sweetheart. Let’s go home.”
Chapter Twenty-eight
Catherine
If I hadn’t left Joey’s blanket at the table, I wouldn’t have gone back to fetch it after I’d finished in the restroom. Then, I wouldn’t have seen the side exit door that was much easier to leave through rather than weaving between tables to get to the front door.
If I hadn’t left through the patio, I never would have heard Weston call me a mother in crisis. If I’d been able to move my feet and open my mouth, I could have announced my presence and wouldn’t have heard Elliot’s friends question why in the world he would be with me if not to save me from the same fate his mother suffered.
If only…
I’d heard everything, and even though I’d tried to play it cool by rushing back inside and exiting out of the front door instead, I couldn’t pretend well enough for Elliot not to figure out something was off.
As soon as Joey was in bed for the evening, he took me by the shoulders and led me into the study. Then he parked me in his lap and held me tight.
“Talk to me,” he demanded gently.
As much as I wanted to, there was no getting around this. This conversation had to happen. Taking a deep breath, I blurted it out.
“I’m a mother in crisis.”
He knew immediately what I was talking about. It was like he caved in, his breath exploding, body curling around mine.
“You heard?”
I nodded. “I used the patio exit and did the thing I always accuse you of doing.”
“You eavesdropped.”
I nodded.
He grimaced like he was in pain, then buried his nose in my hair and stroked his fingers up and down my arm. He was comforting me, but I sensed he was reassuring himself too.
“Catherine, my mother was mentally ill. Until my father died when I was a teenager, I hadn’t understood just how hard he’d worked to keep her together. One of the last things he’d said to me was it was now my job to take care of my mother. But I’d been a kid, and Elise had been even younger. We’d been grieving, we’d needed to be taken care of, but our mother had spiraled without my dad to anchor her.”
I could barely breathe, hanging on to each of Elliot’s broken words.
“My mother—her name was Elaine—had forgotten she was our mom. She fell into this deep, dark pit and never tried to climb out. Now, I understand my father had always been the one to pull her out. He’d taken her to therapy, made her take her meds, kept our home calm and our household running. Without him? Chaos.”
I took his hand in mine, weaving our fingers together. He sounded exhausted, and I thought maybe I wasn’t the only one who’d been ruminating on all that had been said after brunch. It was weighing on him too.
“I shouldn’t have gone away to college, not when our mother was barely functioning, but Elise insisted I leave. To be honest, I was relieved to be out of that house. Away from my desperately sad, self-destructive mother and memories of my dad. It was selfish, and I’m not proud of it, especially because Elise was there on her own, but it’s the truth.”
I kissed his shoulder, waiting for the rest, my stomach in snarling knots. He was still carrying this. The guilt, the weight of losing his parents, of not being there for his sister.
“She died in a car accident at the start of my third year at Stanford. That was the official ruling anyway, but it wasn’t an accident. She’d given up on life, on her kids, and ended it, but not before she’d spent nearly every penny our father had left us and taken out a second mortgage on our home. I came back for Elise and stayed. I put her life back in order and built my own from the disaster our mother left behind.”
He took my face in his hands. “She was in crisis. I didn’t stay when I should have, and it took me a long time to forgive myself. There are days, hours, minutes when I absolutely don’t. I ask myself ‘what if’ all the time and think I’ll always bear some amount of guilt for not doing more. Weston and Luca know that. They saw what a wreck I was back then and helped carry me through it. Now, I need you to hear me, Catherine.”
I nodded as much as I could, with him holding me. I was listening. I couldn’t stop if I tried.
“You are nothing like my mother.” He drew each word out with his eyes locked on mine, almost angrily. Like he was incensed I would have believed the opposite. “Since my father died and our orderly world fell apart, I made a conscious decision to keep my personal space and those I let in it as chaos-free as possible. The control I keep over myself and my life has always been nonnegotiable, which Weston and Luca are well aware of.”
“I am too,” I whispered.
His mouth hitched. “Yes, you are. More aware than most.” He dragged his finger along my nose and dropped to hold my chin. “I’m certain my friends heard your story and decided I’d let chaos into my life as a form of self-sacrifice, but that isn’t true at all, and I need you to understand that. Since I brought the two of you here, I’ve never felt more at home. I look forward to being in this house with you. Having you as mine has calmed the storm I was unaware had been left behind by my past.”
I closed my eyes, letting his bare and honest admission settle over me. I wanted to believe it. To take it in and know it was true. But I couldn’t shake what Luca and Weston had said. It had settled over me just as much.
“Thank you for telling me about your mom, Elliot, and I’m terribly sorry you went through that.” I sucked in a breath. “Your friends weren’t completely wrong, though. Not about me.” I curled my fingers around his, lowering his hands to my lap. “I was in crisis when you brought me here. I still would be if you hadn’t stepped in.”
“You were put in that position.”
“I allowed it to happen.”
“That’s bullshit. I’m not going to let you disparage yourself. As the only person here who knows both you and the woman you were falsely compared to, I can say with authority you aren’t my mother. I don’t see her when I look at you.”
I rubbed my lips together, the weight in my chest no less light. “Can you honestly say there’s not a small part of you that’s with me to make up for the past?”