She shakes her head, looking for something, anything to reason her abandonment. “I sacrificed a lot when I was with your father.”
“Like what?” I challenge, not letting her get off the hook with vague answers.
“I sacrificed the life I envisioned for myself. The things I wanted.”
“Material things. Your family wasn’t enough for you.”
“Now, that’s not true.”
“It is. You chose money and bullshit material things over your kids.”
She stays silent, having no argument.
“Do you know what it felt like, being sixteen years old, getting out of hockey practice, and sitting in the parking lot waiting for you to show up? All my friends were driving off with their parents, and I sat there waiting. Dad showed up two hours later, and when we got home, all your things were gone. Who the fuck does that?”
“Evan, I want to move forward.”
“So do I!” I yell from my seat, causing Rosie to jump up from her dog bed before sitting attentively next to me. “That’s why you’re here, Mom. I want to move forward, and I’m holding on to so much anger for what you did that I can’t. You were the one woman who was supposed to love me unconditionally, and you didn’t.”
I pause, allowing her to tell me I’m wrong. To tell me that she did love me. That maybe she didn’t love my dad enough, or maybe she didn’t love our small town in Indiana, and that’s why she had to leave, but that it was never about me.
She doesn’t say she loves me.
“So, where do we go from here?” she asks instead. “How do we move forward?”
“We don’t. I do.”
Her brows pinch in confusion.
“I brought you here so I could look you in the face and tell you that I’m done. I’m done holding on to the anger and hurt you caused. I’m done hiding your name from the press because I’m afraid people will find out about you. And I’m done letting your inability to stay when I needed you most hold me back from the people who want to be in my life. People who would never abandon me the way you did.”
She sits there, emotionless as a jolt of pride flows through my body.
Tilting my head back, I close my eyes, a slight smiling sliding across my lips. Every muscle in my body relaxes, feeling the physical effects of my words.
“I came out here, expecting you to want me to be in your life again.”
“No. You came out here, expecting me to pay to have you in my life again, but guess what, Mom. I’m not sixteen anymore, and I don’t give a shit about you.”
Her lips part, falling open. “That’s why you brought me all the way here? You flew me here for this?”
“Yep.”
She stays silent in shock.
“Let me guess. You thought I’d fly you out here, pay for you to stay close by. Put you in your own box suite at my games.”
Her act completely dissolves in front of me. “I thought you wanted me in your life again. I thought you flew me out because you missed me!”
I shake my head. “No, I’m good.”
She’s getting flustered on my couch, fidgeting and looking around the room, eyeing every little thing that may be of value. As if she’s cataloging what she expected to gain from me.
“You don’t want to be in my life again anyway, Mom. Admit it. You were hoping I was still that sad teenage boy who missed you and would do anything to have you back. You thought I would give you whatever would make you stay. You don’t love me. You don’t want me. You want the things that come with me.”
Stevie runs through my mind first. The person who means the most to me, who has never taken anything from me, yet I want her to have it all. Next is my dad, who I blamed for my mother’s absence. That man worked double-time to make up for her lost income, so I wouldn’t have to stop playing hockey. I always thought he abandoned me the same way she did, but in fact, it was the complete opposite. He stayed and worked more so my life wouldn’t have to change.
Those are the people I want to give everything to. Not the woman across from me.
My eyes fall on her purse. It’s designer, but at least a decade old at this point, and all the pieces fall into place. “When did he leave you?”
I have no idea what the man she left us for looks like, though I’ve tried to picture him for years, wondering what she saw in him. He breezed through town for work, taking my mother away on his private jet. But deep down, I know exactly what she saw in him. She saw dollar signs, enough to leave her family.
My mother’s shoulders straighten, holding faux confidence as if the reason she’s here has nothing to do with the bankroll that left her. “Six years ago.”
Figures. Right after I got into the league, she started trying to worm her way back into my life.
“Do I have any siblings I should know about?”
She exhales a disbelieving laugh. “No.”
I nod repeatedly. “Okay. Don’t call me again.”
Her hazels dart to mine. “Are you serious?”
“Deadly.”
I watch as the wheels turn in her mind. “I know how secretive you are from the press. I know things they’d love to know. Things they’d pay to know.”
She’s desperate now, grasping for straws.
“Go for it. I’m not hiding anymore. You want to tell them what a terrible mother you are and throw yourself under the bus, be my guest. I kept you hidden because I was embarrassed that my own mother couldn’t love me, but there’s nothing for me to be embarrassed about. I’m enough. Lindsey is enough, but it’s you who places value on all the wrong things. When you go, who is going to be there for you? Your purses? Your shoes? Your money? That’s a sad life, Mom, and I’m not angry at you for it anymore. I feel bad for you.”
How the hell did this woman cause me so much panic over the years? She’s not worth it. She never has been. The desperation is seeping out of her, and it’s pathetic. In fact, looking at her now, I feel nothing. She means nothing to me.
“You know I blamed Dad for you leaving? You weren’t here for me to be angry at all these years, so I was angry at him instead. But that man stuck around and worked his ass off for Lindsey and me. You did him a favor by leaving. He deserves so much more than you.”
“Evan—”
“You should go.” I stand from my chair, Rosie at my side.
My mother hesitates, her brows lifting in disbelief. She gathers her bag and smooths out her top as she stands. I lead her to the door, sensing her following behind reluctantly.
“Your flight leaves at two, and you’ll be checked out of your hotel in an hour, so I’d hurry and pack your things if I were you.”
“What?” She stands in the hallway outside my apartment in shock.
“Thanks for not loving me enough to stay, Mom. It made it a lot easier to recognize the people who do.”
I close the door on her partway, but change my mind.
“Oh, and you should really retire that bag. Outdated if you ask me.”
Okay, that was petty as fuck, but I couldn’t help it. Closing the door, I lean back on it, feeling the freest I have in twelve years.