“Angel, you never need to apologies to me for that.” I feel her hand stroke my face. I grin at her, tears still in my eyes.
“It’s my job.” She winks at me, tightening her grip on my cheeks, and I let out a laugh, then a sniff.
Leaning my arm back over towards my whiskey,I take the glass with both hands and start to move it against the countertop. I blow out a breath and will my eyes to look back at my mom who’s moved back onto the opposite end of the island to give me some breathing room.
“He knows, Mama,” I breathe out, only just louder than a whisper.
My mom places her hand on her hip. “Well-” she starts. “Better now than never.” I take another sip of my drink before placing the glass down once again.
“He looked so heartbroken,” I choke another sob out as my mom picks up a wooden spoon. She moves her bowl onto the island, so she is now facing me.
I feel terrible dumping this on her, when we all still have so much to do in time for tomorrows festivities.
My mom lets out a sigh and faces me. “I’m not surprised, sugar.” Her response confuses me. The look on her face says she can see my confusion.
Why would he be so heartbroken? He left and I didn’t, I stayed right here where we were supposed to be.
“Look, Angel...” Mama starts, mixing the ingredients in her mixing bowl. “I never wanted to say this to you, because well… you were always so broken over it,” she starts.
I look at her with intensity with what she’s about to say.
“Did you ever consider that there’s a reason behind all of this?” she asks.
Of course, I thought about it, every possible scenario on why he just upped and left. Hell, it fucking consumed me most days. A million explanations went through my mind, however in the end I fully accepted that I wouldn’t ever know why.
That is, until he turned up at my door on Friday and all those scenarios came flooding back with such force it could have knocked me over ten times over.
I stay quiet, keeping my eyes firmly locked on hers. “Listen, I’m not saying what he did was right,” she continues. “All I’m saying is Mabel, he’s back.” She’s right so far.
“I saw the way y’all looked at each other when you were kids, hard to keep you off of each other.” I laugh at that, she’s still right.
I remember the many occasions; she would physically move us to the opposite end of the table throughout the years. Which we always opposed and ended up back together, always hand in hand, my leg over hislap; always touching each other in some way.
“What y’all had, it was real.” She looks back at me, pain behind her eyes.
I shake my head at her words, not believing them. “He left Mama,” I start.
“But he’s come back,” she finishes, stopping me before I come up with some excuse.
My brow creasing at the uncomfortable thought of this conversation. I place my head in my right hand, still nursing my whiskey with my left. Eye’s flittering to my glass and back at my mom.
“All I’m saying is,” I look back to her as continuing her speech. “Speak to him, see what he has to say for himself.” And she’s right, again.
It dawns on me that I’ve finally got my opportunity to find my answers and hopefully move on from him, finally put the past to rest and let my heart become whole again; if that’s possible?
“Don’t be cruel to him, he looks as heartbroken as you do.” She lifts an eyebrow at me, and I smile. She knows me too well.
“You know how annoying it is when you’re right?” I smirk at her, finishing my glass and getting up from my seat.
I place my glass into the dishwasher next to where my mom’s standing, still mixing away and lean over to her.
“Thank you, Mama,” I say, planting a kiss on her cheek.
She returns the kiss onto my cheek. I look back towards the clock in the corner to see that it’s not past three yet, Maverick should still be here.
This is my chance.
“Oh, and one more thing,” my mom stops my movement, and I look back towards at her.
