“He’s asked me to travel with him before, but I could never go… with Molly. It’s one of the reasons he stayed with his wife.”
“Molly was?” I whisper-yelled, the instinct to protect her at all costs flaring to life.
My mother paused her chore, turning to face me. “Oh, don’t use that tone, Brenna Rae. I won’t have you implying he isn’t a good man. He already raised his kids. It’s not a sin to not want to parent another child. This is the time in his life to finally do whathewants.”
I shuffled my weight to the other foot. “Why didn’t you go with him when he asked before?”
“How can you ask me that? She’s mydaughter. I know I’m not a perfect mother, but did I not provide for your entire life? For her entire life? You both had a roof over your heads and food on the table. I drove you to school. We celebrated holidays, birthdays. I loved you both from the moment you were born.”
“You also brought men into our lives to pay your bills, even when they were shitty. We would’ve been fine in apartments, but you wanted a house, and the best makeup, stylish clothes—”
She dried her hands on the rag beside the sink, never dropping eye contact. “I also wanted those things for you!”
“All I wanted was your attention, Mom. I wanted you to sit in the stands at my baseball games. To help me with my homework. To not make me feel like a colossal failure when I made a mistake or cried or because I wanted to play sports. Ineverwanted you to break up a marriage.”
She took a step toward me, her voice rising. “It was always aboutthatboy.”
I never understood her disdain for Nathan, but my relationship with him, my love for him, had always threatened her.
I scoffed. “No, it was aboutme.That’s what you’ve never understood.” I heaved a sigh. “I loved living next to the Sharpes. They were the family I always wanted. So you just had to ruin it. Take away your best friend’s husband to prove that you could, that you were better than her. You lit the match that destroyed my relationship with Nathan. But I didn’t lose only him. I lost all my friends, baseball, my reputation. And you never apologized or cared how depressed I was. You got Gordon, your shiny new ring, a new baby to fawn over. While you were happy, I lived in misery.”
The words exploded out of me like soda with pop rocks. I cursed myself for putting this new tenuous agreement in jeopardy. I’d hate myself forever if my temper or sensitivity ruined my chance of giving Molly the childhood she deserved. But I had to say the words I’d swallowed down my entire life. Even if they wouldn’t make one bit of a difference.
“Don’t pretend you didn’t do the same thing when you were in my position, daughter.”
So like Kathy Quinn to ignore every valid point and home in on the one where she thought she could win. In her mind, I cheated on Derek with Nathan, which made me as bad as her.
“I was in high school, and I grew from my mistakes. Made sure I didn’t repeat them. You’re still fine being theother woman.”
She placed a hand on her hip. “I’m not. That’s why we came back from our trip early. His wife called to wish him Merry Christmas, and because I’m not the dead-inside villain you make me out to be, I told him we couldn’t do it anymore. He ended his marriage to be with me.”
“Better late than never, huh?”
“Brenna.” She sighed. “We should be talking about Molly, don’t you think?”
That tone. I gritted my teeth, resisting the urge to hurl another retort at her, giving her what she wanted. The chance to make herself look like the bigger person. Needing space from her, I took a seat at the table. “Sure, let’s talk about Molly. What did you have in mind?"
“I need to know you won’t completely push me out of her life,” she said. “And Molly can never know about our… arrangement.”
“I will never cut you out of her life or tell her about the money.”Even though she’s better off without you.Molly would need to decide whether she wanted a relationship with our mother when she was older. I wouldn’t take that choice away from her. “We can come up with a schedule for video calls.”
She crossed her arms over her chest. “And… the money?”
“I’ll wire it to you when the sale goes through in April. Obviously, I have to split the profit with Nathan.”
“Obviously.”
A knock at the door stopped me from saying something I might regret. I glanced at the clock over the stove.Eight p.m.“Are you expecting someone?”
She shook her head, turning back to the sink. “It’s probably another one of those damn Girl Scouts. Like I need more cookies.”
“I guess I’ll get it,” I announced, heading to the front door.
My knees weakened when I looked through the peephole.
“Hey, Quinn,” Nathan said when I pulled the door open, the sight of his gorgeous face knocking the wind right out of me.
49
