She held up her hand. “You’re right. It’s taking me time to come around to the idea that you are your own man. And honestly, when I saw you with her the night of your father’s birthday, you two seemed to complement each other. It made me a little jealous.”
“Jealous?”
“Yes.” She nodded, taking a sip of her coffee. “You’ve never been that close to me. I felt left out, especially when I saw how your father melted at her charms as well.”
I grinned. “Angela has that effect on people.”
“I saw. I went down to that bar she owns.”
My head snapped back in shock. “When?”
“Two weeks ago with some colleagues. She didn’t see me. We walked in, and she was dancing behind the bar, making drinks, and making sure everyone was having a good time. When she came from around the bar to greet guests at the tables, I ducked and headed to the bathroom,” my mother admitted sheepishly.
I chuckled. “Were you on a recognizance mission?”
She shrugged. “I just wanted to see her for myself. See who she was when she wasn’t putting on a front for her boyfriend’s parents.”
“And?”
She let out a little moan and sighed. “She seemed just as genuine.”
“Though you obviously loathe to admit it.”
“It’s not that. I just feel like I’ve lost so much time with you, and now this wonderful woman has come into your life and…” She paused and shrugged. “It seems like I’ll get even less of you.”
“Ma?”
“I know, I’m being silly.” She waved her hand around. “I just, your life terrifies me,” she admitted and ducked her head, dabbing at her eyes with her napkin.
“My life? You mean my job?”
“Your job is your life. At least it was until this Angela came along. And I feel left out of that, too, and it all just terrifies me.” She sighed heavily.
I was still confused as to what she meant by all this.
“It’s hard to explain, son. You’ll understand when you have your own children. You raise them and have this image of who they’ll be, and then they grow up to be their own people, and you just want to go back to the time when you were their whole world.”
“I don’t know how to respond to that.” I felt for my mother, so I reached across the table to grab her hand.
“You don’t have to respond. I just need to do better at learning to accept you for who you are and not who I want you to be.”
“That’d probably save us a whole lot of trouble.”
She let out a small laugh. “Probably.”
Covering my hand with hers, she squeezed. “I love you, son. And I’m so sorry for not being there like you needed us during your training.”
I nodded, touched by her apology. “Thanks for that.”
“With that said, I’d like to have you and Angela over. For a do-over. No extra guests this time. You, me, your father, and Angela.”
I raised an eyebrow.
“Your father and I would really like to have a second chance.”
I blew out a breath. “I’ll talk to Angela about it, and we’ll see when our schedules are free.”
My mother smiled a genuine smile.
