“What’s the real reason you’re here?”
I sipped down some more tea to give me a few more seconds before I answered her. Law and I hadn’t discussed what we would tell his parents, but I didn’t want to lie to his mom. And us being together and me being here wasn’t going to be a secret for long, especially after the weekend and I was still in town.
“I came here for Law,” I said with affirmation.
Cary’s eyebrows quirked up in surprise at my comment.
“Law.” She said his name with sadness to her voice and her face washed with memories I wished to know more about. “I never thought I’d see the day when someone else called him that.”
“What do you mean?” I asked, my interest piqued.
“Nothing.” Cary waved a hand, dismissing the conversation, but after she took a sip of her tea, she started it back up. “He just doesn’t let me call him that anymore.”
Cary frowned and then a smile slowly crept across her lips. “But he lets you call him that.”
“He does, but why doesn’t he let you?” I pried. This was the exact answer to the thoughts I had yesterday. Why only I ever called Law by his nickname, since not even his parents did this.
“Well.” Cary sat up when Tracy placed our order in front of us and when she left we didn’t reach for the food. We sat there as Cary tried to gather her words. “He met a girl in New York.”
Her eyes had a sheen to them and if she blinked, tears would streak down. I didn’t believe what she had said, but it had to be the truth. With this kind of emotion coming from his mom, I had to believe her when she said Law had her stop calling him by his nickname because of me.
“What?” I asked. It was the only thing that formed in my head. I needed to know more.
“The day he came home and I called him Law, he stopped me immediately. It was in front of Luke too.” Cary pulled the basket of food toward her and used a fork to push around the pork. It was something to keep her busy, so I just sat there and waited for her. “He told me it was your name now and that he only wanted you to call him Law.”
“That’s crazy.” I meant to say the words to myself, but Cary heard me.
“I thought it was too.” She took a sip of her tea. “Until I saw the race last week and he mentioned you and then you arrived yesterday and I knew he was right.”
“Right about what?”
“That you’re the one for him.”
I sat back in our booth, trying to take in the words Cary was telling me.
“Anya.” Cary reached across the table and I lifted a hand to give to her. She squeezed and I felt myself relax because I could tell from the look on her face that she wasn’t mad. No, she looked thrilled to be telling me this. “I’m the only person who ever called him Law, and now that’s yours. As much as I want to keep him as my baby boy forever, that’s not my place anymore. You’re there to be by his side now. Not me.”
“That doesn’t mean that.” I tried to object because what Cary was saying was that she wasn’t a part of his life like that, but I knew that wasn’t true. Not with how Law acted with his parents. There was so much love there.
“Anya, you’re there to take care of him, show him the kind of love that exists in this world.” She chuckled to herself. “I’m just there to be his annoying mother now.”
She let my hand go and picked up her fork and took a bite of the pulled pork she had ordered us. I dug in as well, letting a little silence into the conversation. It gave me time to think about what Cary had said. It was me now who was going to show Law love and it was definitely a role I wanted to shine in.
“So tell me, now that the boys aren’t here. Why did you leave a career you loved?” Cary asked me and I was a little caught off guard by the question. I thought we had left the ballet talk to last night. I sat there with a fork halfway to my mouth before I put it down and tried to gather my thoughts.
“I don’t—” I started, but Cary cut me off.
“Don’t play me. I know you left your life behind to come here. Lawson told me all about your dancing, the show he saw you in. He talked like you had so much life to you when you danced, so what happened?”
“Your son happened, ma’am,” I answered as politely as I could, because even to me, the answer sounded scripted. I took a sip of my tea before I continued. “I did leave behind a career, one I used to love, one that, after meeting Law, became more of a chore than a passion. I couldn’t concentrate and nor did I care to.”
I watched as Cary finished a bite she had just put in her mouth and then sat her fork down. This was the first time I was telling someone from Law’s side of the world about why I had left. I had no idea how his mother was going to react, but I braced myself for the worst.
“I never thought I’d see the day when someone loved my son as much as I did.” A tear came down Cary’s cheek and she wiped it away, trying to hide the evidence of her being affected by the words I spoke.
A lump formed in my throat and I tried to hold down the emotion that was trying to break through. His mom got it, just like my father had gotten it. That I was there solely for Law, nothing else but to show him just how much I loved him.
“I know this isn’t a question you might want to answer, but I just have to know. How old are you, Anya?”
