I slumped against the counter. “I never could fool you.”
“Why do you want to?”
I had no answer.
“Tell me what happened. But please sit down.”
I joined her again and sketched out a quick synopsis of my relationship with Presley from first meeting until Frisco, leaving out his final threat. She wrapped her long, elegant fingers around the china cup that hadn’t been used since her last visit home in the summer.
“Three years, Nate. For three years you’ve allowed your father to destroy you from beyond the grave. Why?”
“It’s not as simple as that. You know how I looked up to him. He was everything I wanted to be. Smart, successful, admired. But when it all came crashing down and the emperor had no clothes, then where was I? And I wondered if he was proud of me…if he even loved me. We never talked about me being gay. What if that was a lie too? What if he was ashamed of me?” To my humiliation and chagrin, my voice cracked.
“Oh, Nate.” My mother circled around the island to hug me, and I held on to her. “Maybe your father didn’t understand you, but never doubt that you were loved.”
“I’ve been so angry since he died. And lost. And when I met Presley, he seemed so sweet and caring. I thought I could trust him.”
Her smooth brow furrowed. “Why can’t you? That’s what I’m struggling with.”
Why wasn’t it as clear to people as it was to me? “Because he slept with a married man. That makes him no better thanher.” I refused to say Jillian’s name.
“There’s a big difference,” she said, and my jaw dropped at her defense of Presley.
“How…how can you say that? You’re defending him? Why?” Incredulous, I stared at her, but she sat unflinching and honest in her assessment.
“Because it does no good to carry all that hate around inside. How is it helping you? Are you happier because of it?”
Ignoring her questions for the moment, I asked, “You can’t tell me you’ve forgiven Dad. Or her?”
Like she did when I was a child, she pushed the hair I could never keep from falling in my eyes off my brow, and that tender gesture, more than anything else, almost shattered me.
“Your father is dead, and he died without his family around him. I’m devastated he isn’t going to be around to see his grandchildren grow up. Would we have stayed together had he lived?” She shrugged. “I can’t say. I’d like to think we could’ve worked on our problems and maybe tried to save our marriage. But I’ll never know.”
“You would’ve taken him back?”
“Possibly. We’d been married for fifty years. I met Whit when I was twenty years old. That kind of history is hard to throw away. But I never got the chance to find out.”
“And her? Don’t tell me you’ve forgiven her.”
Humor lit her face, and once again I couldn’t get over how much happier she looked than when she left two years ago. “I’m nice but not a saint. No, I’ve ignored her calls for the past three years and will continue to do so. I have no desire to see Jillian. We looked alike, shared clothes, and finished each other’s sentences. Jillian was the sister I never had, and when I got diagnosed, she was the first person I told after your father. In a way, her betrayal was almost worse than your father’s.”
“Both were terrible.”
She returned to her seat to finish her tea.
“Did you know she remarried?”
The day I thought couldn’t get any worse, just did. “You’re kidding, right?”
“No. Some man she met last year in the Hamptons. I saw the announcement, and she looks happy.”
“I don’t care about her. Tell me about you? I can’t get over how well you look. Do you have a special man in your life?”
A pretty blush rose to her cheeks, and my chest tightened. In the dark days of her illness, I used to pray and offer God anything to make her well again. I’d even promised to marry a woman and have children, but thankfully my mother didn’t hold me to that.
“I’ve met someone. He’s an American living in London, who works for an international bank. Perry is always flying somewhere, so we don’t see each other that often. But he treats me well, and I enjoy being with him.”
“I’m glad. You shouldn’t spend the rest of your life alone. You’re still young and beautiful.”
