Her spine stiffens. “I forbid you?—”
“You forbid nothing. Nothing.”
My father hears the shouting and steps into the hall, sees my face, sees hers, and sighs.
We stare at each other.
All An hour later there’s a knock on my door.
Not the sharp, irritated kind.
The hesitant kind.
I open it with a towel draped around my neck, damp hair dripping onto the marble floor.
“I’m about to take a shower, Ma.”
I say it on purpose.
She hates when I sound like a townie.
She doesn’t correct me this time.
She just stands there in the doorway, perfectly dressed, perfectly styled, looking smaller than she ever does in this house.
“Your father told you about her,” she says quietly.
I don’t answer.
She takes my silence as confirmation.
Her mouth tightens. “I pretend it doesn’t hurt me,” she goes on, voice brittle. “That my husband and my son don’t love me.”
My jaw flexes.
“And why do you think that is, Mother?”
She flinches. Just a little.
“Stop,” she says softly. “Please.”
She steps inside without being invited, hands wringing together like she doesn’t know where to put them without a clutch or a glass of wine.
“I did love your father once,” she says. “I really did. I thought I was becoming the wife he wanted. The status. The clubs. The body. The perfect hair and nails.” She lets out a breath that sounds tired. “I thought if I did everything right, I’d be enough.”
I say nothing.
“I wanted more children,” she adds, quieter now. “That… wasn’t in the cards for me.”
For the first time, I hear something real in her voice.
“I was just trying to make your life perfect, Leo.”
I finally meet her eyes.
“I don’t want a perfect life,” I say. “That’s the problem.”
She looks startled.
