Mads waited in the foyer as a young teller ushered Chloe and me into a small glass-walled room. Since Chloe didn’t have her password, I’d made sure she brought several forms of ID. As soon as the teller was satisfied, he was quick to organise printouts of all Chloe’s accounts and the trust Brendon had set up and his investments and put them in a plastic sleeve for us to take. A quick glance at the bottom line of just the investment side confirmed Chloe had more than ample funds. The long-term investments alone amounted to almost $700,000. That, added to a mortgage-free townhouse worth around eight to nine hundred thousand, possibly more, she was sitting on roughly one and a half million dollars. On top of that, she had a car and a government pension. I left the rest of the accounts to look over later when I had more time.
I should’ve felt pleased for her, but what I actually felt was relief. Relief that I could finally dismiss those niggling suspicions I still carried that Chloe had only contacted me because she needed money. What did that say about me? I wasn’t sure I wanted to know.
Chloe asked the teller a few questions that I’d schooled her on earlier. She wanted to see the signatory form for Austin andthen checked the recent activity on her accounts. The teller’s answer regarding the latter clearly surprised her. A new debit card had been requested and sent to Austin—one Chloe knew nothing about. She said she’d already given him her card for the supermarket runs, and in return he gave her a weekly allowance to avoid any costly mistakes.
My fists clenched under the desk.That fucker put her on an allowance? What the hell?
Chloe read my mind and patted my forearm. “It’s okay, really, it is. It was the right thing to do. I’d ordered a ton of books online with my credit card and couldn’t even remember doing it in the morning. We had a big argument about it.” Colour rose in her cheeks. “Austin told me he spent hours on the phone cancelling the purchases and trying to get my money back. I don’t always agree with Austin, but switching to a cash allowance is much safer.”
Listening in on our conversation, the teller’s brows crinkled. He caught my eye and slid the signatory form across for me to check. I showed it to Chloe. “Is this your signature?”
Chloe studied the flowery scrawl and gave a nod.
I pushed the form back to the teller and held his gaze. He raised a brow, but all I could do was shrug.
My tongue sat fat in my mouth, words refusing to form on my lips. I didn’t know what to think about any of it. Austin’s actions were all reasonable and prudentifChloe really was as forgetful as he said, andifshe’d really ordered all those books, andifshe’d truly been late with her rates payment. But all of that was based on Austin’s assertions. Chloe had no memory of those instances. Was that because she had genuinely forgotten or because it didn’t happen as Austin told it?
When Davis had been in Golden Oaks, I’d talked with the relatives of people living with Parkinson’s. I knew that memory loss, confusion, and dementia could be a part of the diseaseprocess. And the way Chloe had been when she answered the door that morning? Well... who knew?
I was certainly no expert on my mother’s mental health, but I was liking the whole situation with Austin less and less. Parts of his behaviour smacked disturbingly of my father justifying his control over my mother, gaslighting her about fictitious inadequacies, then watching her buy into it enough to let him have his way because the consequences of fighting were too fucking hard.
I also knew from my experience with Davis and Mads that those primal reactions to abuse often became entrenched and hard to change. For me it had been anger, self-loathing, and a refusal to trust. In my mother, I’d witnessed the never-ending attempt at peacemaking and avoiding conflict wherever possible.
Was that what was happening here... again? Was Austin taking advantage of my mother’s age and medical condition and her tendency to excuse bullying behaviour and avoid conflict in order to gain control of the money his father left to her and not him? I doubted Chloe even saw what was happening. But something deep inside her did. The same part that warned her not to give Austin her power of attorney.
For the first time, I was beginning to see the whole mess for exactly what it was, and a fire of fury was lit deep in my soul. Regardless of any conflict I might have over Chloe’s past choices, she was my mother, and no one was going to walk over her again.
Not on my watch, arsehole. So, you better start running now.
But for all of my bluster, the situation was going to need delicate handling—hardly my forte. I was going to need Mads.
“Are you still okay with this, Chloe?” I indicated the signatory form. “Cos if you’re not comfortable with Austin having access to your accounts anymore, we can settle that right now.”
Chloe stared at the form for a long moment before finally looking up. “Not until you make a decision.” A deep frown split her forehead. “Belinda’s been the one dropping off my groceries the last few weeks, so the card was probably just for her.”
The teller spoke up. “The card really shouldn’t be used by anyone other than?—”
I stopped him with a look. “We’ll sort it out.”
The teller looked to Chloe, who nodded and said, “It’s fine. Thank you.” She turned back to me. “I might grumble about Austin’s overbearing nature, but honestly, I’m not as confident in my memory as I make out.” Her eyes were riddled with embarrassment. “Austin is right to be concerned.” A heavy sigh broke from her lips. “I wish I’d written to you earlier. I wish you’d seen me in better times.”
And that was it. I was tired of listening to my brain argue about the past. Tired of the push and pull. Tired of the whole damn thing.
I pulled my mother out of the chair and into my arms.
A tiny gasp of surprise broke Chloe’s lips before her hands slipped gingerly around my waist, and her head nestled against my chest. Behind her, a smile tugged at the young teller’s mouth, and he discreetly stepped away to give us some privacy.
Memories crashed through my brain—some painful, some exquisitely happy. And so much more. The familiar floral note of her perfume. The way her grip tightened on me as if she couldn’t believe what was happening. The soft cry and hiccup of tears. The reassuring feel of her body. My mother. The woman I thought hadn’t cared enough to come back for me was somehow now just another person desperate to be understood. To be forgiven.
And wasn’t that what we all were, to some degree? Human. Fallible. A tragic mess of mistakes. Sometimes we got it right. Sometimes we got things horribly wrong. In the end, my mother had been a victim as much as I had.
The hug went on and on in silence, truly holding each other for the first time in forty-seven years. No promises. No words of forgiveness. It was enough to simply be present in the moment, walls crumbling on both sides as we tried to remake the broken pieces of our relationship into something that made sense again. I’d lost track of how long we’d stood like that when a small cough startled us apart.
“I’m sorry to interrupt—” The teller looked between us, uncertain and apologetic. “—but if you don’t need me anymore, I should really be returning to my desk.”
But Chloe wasn’t listening. Her eyes were fixed on mine, soft with pleasure, her cheeks wet. She looked so happy. So content just to be with me. So... everything that the eight-year-old boy in me remembered to be true of our time together.
I grabbed the box of Kleenex from the desk and offered it to Chloe, repeating the teller’s question. “Is there anything else you need while we’re here?”
