My stomach clenched at the memory of that night. The crystal tumbler in her trembling hand. The way her perfect lipstick had smeared slightly at the corner. The first crack in her flawless facade I’d seen in years.
“Please, Mom.” My voice broke like I was still seventeen instead of a grown man. “I’ll do anything. Please.”
Her eyes, once the same color as mine, were now bloodshot and glassy. They darted toward the window like the neighbors might be watching. Even drunk, even falling apart, she was still performing.
“I don’t want anyone to find out!” She pressed her manicured hand to her mouth like she could stuff the sound back in.
“Who gives a damn what people think, Mom? You need help!” I reached for the glass, but she clutched it tighter.
“I care!” She recoiled. “I don’t want people to see me as a mess. Do you know what the neighbors would say? People at church? We’re the family they aspire to be, Axel.”
My heart shattered. Even now, even like this, it was about the image.
“You’re not a mess, Mom. You have a disease.” I tried to keep my voice gentle, but desperation bled through every word. “A treatable disease.”
She laughed. Bitter, broken. “Do you know what they’d say?Poor Richard. His wife is one of those people. They’d look at your father with pity. They’d whisper about us at church.”
“They’ll see you’re human, Mom. They’ll be proud. I’ll be proud that you took the brave step to seek help.” I moved closer, close enough to smell the vodka on her breath. “Please. I need you here. I can’t sit back and watch something happen to you.”
“Nothing’s going to happen.” She reached for the bottle.
“Please,” I begged, and I felt the tears start, hot and desperate. “If you’re worried what people will think, we can find a discreet treatment facility. We can tell everyone you went on vacation or something. A spa retreat. Whatever story you want.”
Terror filled her eyes. “They’ll find out, Axel. They always do. They gossip, and someone always talks.”
My chest felt like it was caving in. “And that’s more important than me? Than being here for your son?”
The question suspended between us like a guillotine. She looked at me—really looked at me—for the first time in months. For a heartbeat, I thought I’d gotten through.
Then she straightened her shoulders, smoothed her hair, and became the perfect society wife again. “Axel,” she chided, like I was being dramatic, like I was the problem, “nothing’s going to happen.”
I blinked away the memory, forcing myself back to the present, to Dakota’s pain-filled face. “That was the last thing she ever said to me.” My voice came out raw, scraped hollow. “NotI love you. Notplease forgive me for putting our public image above your needs. Just … ‘Nothing’s going to happen.’”
Dakota’s hand flew to her mouth. “Axel …”
“She got behind the wheel that night. Wrapped her car around a tree.” I stared into the fire, watching the flames dance. “The police said she was doing sixty in a thirty-five zone. No skid marks. No attempt to brake.”
The air seemed to thicken, heavy with unspoken understanding.
“I replay that conversation almost every day of my life. Wondering if I’d said something different, could I have saved her?”
Dakota stood and crossed to me, her hand settling on my arm. “It wasn’t your fault.”
“Maybe if I hadn’t gone along with her compulsive need to continually live a lie …” I let the sentence die. There was no point in finishing it.
And as the silence stretched between us again, Dakota let my profession sink even deeper into her heart, realizing something.
“I had no idea this fake engagement was this hard for you,” she whispered. “No wonder you were so angry with me in the beginning.”
“I was being a jackass.”
“With good reason,” she said, shaking her head. “I’m surprised you went along with it.”
I was too. “I almost backed out on more than one occasion.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“My business,” I reminded her. “The employees depending on keeping their jobs. As ex-cons, they’d have a damn hard time finding another. Not to mention the thousands of people they help across the country with reentry services so they can actually rebuild their lives after prison.”
